[dougmccune]

I'd say ignore most advice from people you do know too. Especially anyone who doesn't have kids, or only has one kid. There are definitely good tips to take from parents or books -- the stuff from happiest baby on the block (swaddling, shushing, etc), which baby carrier doesn't hurt your friend's back, etc. But kids are so different, what works for one won't work for another. So anyone who listens to your tale of why your particular baby is difficult and then tells you why you're doing something wrong is just full of shit. They can tell you things to try, and who knows if they'll work, it's always worth a shot. But please don't let yourself feel bad because some random friend of yours had an easy baby and you're having a hard time. Kids are different and it's incredibly unfair how big a delta there is between easy babies and hard babies.

[EDIT: I went back and realized the original ask wasn't just about newborns, but about parenting all different age levels. I'm not sure that changes much of my opinion, but I do think it makes a collaborative project more interesting/useful]

[airstrike]

> Especially anyone who doesn't have kids, or only has one kid.

People say this all the time even though it ignores the fact that virtually anyone has parents even if they don't have kids. Having a kid doesn't make you better at parenting. At best, it forces you to think about parenting but there was nothing stopping you from doing that before.

[dougmccune]

There’s a certain empathy that is hard to have unless you’ve gone through it. People without kids have a tendency to underestimate both how challenging child rearing can be and also how totally different kids can be. That ends up with people giving parenting advice as if there’s a single right answer when there’s no such thing. It’s why I said people with only one child fall into the same trap. Often they think that the way their kid was is how all kids are. But kids can be so amazingly different, and it’s hard to truly understand that unless you have a couple kids yourself and you can experience it firsthand. I don’t claim to know all about parenting, but I’ve experienced enough to know that I can’t give any other parent the right answer for how to raise their kid.

[Delfino]

This very much reminds me of inaccurate perceptions people have of being a teacher since they've had so many teachers they get a sense that they are pretty familiar with the profession but most have only seen one side of it. Also analogous to the other point you were making, a difficulty in education research is how hard it is to come up with generalizable conclusions since each context can be unique.

[andy_adams]

> Having a kid doesn't make you better at parenting

Holy cow, this is so untrue. Having a kid is pretty much the _only_ way to get better at parenting, saving maybe babysitting someone else's kids for long periods of time.

[airstrike]

Making a genuine effort to be a good parent is what makes a good parent. You don't magically become enlightened after giving birth.

[salvar]

> You don't magically become enlightened after giving birth.

Given that no one even came close to saying this, this comment seems very disingenuous.