[Tade0]

Also a father, and I don't see it as a case of positives and negatives, rather how much energy you're putting into it.

There are many methods of minimizing the effort you're putting in and you can make it relatively easy, but like with everything it's a tradeoff.

Food is one major point. You can introduce a baby to solids early on and practice the BLW method, or you could just spoon feed them with ready-to-eat baby products - there's an order of magnitude difference in effort between those two approaches.

One thing I learned from this experience is that it's beyond the capabilities of a normal human couple to apply all the fancy, high-effort parenting methods - you'd need at least two grandparents cover just the more popular ones.

[rtlfe]

Absolutely this. You need to make sure they're clean, fed, safe (physically and emotionally), and are able to play (learn). Beyond that, choosing to parent on hard mode just gives you more stress for no benefit.

[Tade0]

Looking back I see some benefit to doing extra - for example my toddler had no issue with weaning or adapting to daycare, which I heard is usually a problem.

We didn't implement independent sleeping and getting rid of the pacifier though(so far).

I believe that ultimately people usually try to do their best and there's no sense in beating yourself up about it or worse - someone else.

[rtlfe]

Yeah for sure try stuff out. But if it turns out to be hard, be willing to stop without feeling bad about it.