[adastra22]

Taking care of a newborn baby is absolutely full-time job. I don't know how to interpret "we did it as two full-time tech workers" other than "we grifted our employers by getting paid full-time to work part-time as we juggled having a baby at home."

I'm as pro-natal as they come, but a newborn should have your full undivided attention.

[tptacek]

We raised two. They turned out great. It was not a full-time job.

[deltarholamda]

I took care of a newborn while working from home. It's quite doable. It helps to have long arms, but you can keep the infant in one of those baby slings while you tap away. They get all the attention they could need, especially if like me you tend to talk to yourself. With a baby you no longer seem like a crazy person.

When they get a bit older, you can put them in a Bumbo and have them on your desk, if you can do it safely.

It's harder to work from home when they get mobile to be honest.

[latkin]

It sounds like you are assuming work = solo work. My day is about 25% meetings, my wife's is about 90% meetings. We can't participate in meetings with a baby in the room (let alone strapped to our body!) who might start screaming at any moment. Sure, we could fake it -- camera off, muted, jump out periodically to tend to the baby -- but then we're not really fully engaged in work.

Even if I had no meetings, I can't concentrate on solo work with a wiggly/screamy thing on me or in the same room. One of the biggest benefits of WFH for me is avoiding the distractions of the office. Babies are FAR more distracting than anything at the office.

[deltarholamda]

Well, sure, specific cases are different. But, FWIW, I did it with regular conference calls.

Infants aren't much of a distraction IMO. My cats were more distracting, at least until the baby got mobile. That stage is certainly more challenging.

[blackeyeblitzar]

> I'm as pro-natal as they come, but a newborn should have your full undivided attention.

Exactly - the attention it takes has to come out of SOMETHING - whether it is your work or health or the child. You can see the difference between kids that have full undivided attention of someone who cares a lot about them (family members or a great paid caretaker) versus ones who are physically near parents but ignored (since the parent is looking at a screen focusing on work) versus ones who have been distracted by some electronic stimulant versus ones who have been outsourced to daycare where the caretaker ratio means babies don’t get full attention.

But even leaving aside what’s best for the child, I think it’s about getting the most out of your own parental experience. You only get so much time with your children. That time goes away in a blink. Be there for them as much as you can, and make the best of it. Making it “just work” with less than that may be something you end up regretting later.

[tptacek]

I think this is mostly just innuendo, and that there's very little empirical evidence to back up this assertion that there are observable deficits traceable to lack of "undivided attention" in early childhood. The parenting situations we're discussing here are drastically higher-attachment than was the norm for decades throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s.