There are tons of content to consume about parenting and they all are helpful in their own way. My wife constantly read, listened, watched, and discussed parenting content to prepare for our first kid. I think it mostly helped with understanding what it would be like to have kids, but it cannot fully prepare you for your kids because it may be a very different journey. With some kids, even if you follow the advice perfectly, the outcome could be drastically different than the one being depicted. That is why parenting reps are important - to get to know your kid and your unique situation.

One shining example of this is when my 5 year old daughter wakes up screaming at night. Many times, she is having a nightmare and my wife or I would have to calm her down and put her back to sleep. A nightmare is the expected cause and there are a variety of strategies to put your kids back to sleep. Easy peasy-ish, but that isn’t always the case as I learned.

The other night, she woke up screaming and I put her back to sleep thinking it was a nightmare. She went straight back to sleep. A few minutes later, she woke up again screaming (and waking my 3 year old son up in the process). I was trying to settle her down again when I realized that it might not be a nightmare - she needed to go potty. She had done the exact same thing about a year ago where she would wake up many times screaming in a very short amount of time. Most of the screaming was just that - screaming. There were no words that came out, just loudness. I had to decipher what was the problem about a year ago and somehow pinned this cause to this particular night as well. I just grabbed her and took her to potty. Sure enough, she went to the potty and after putting her back in bed, she was back asleep (and stayed asleep the rest of the night).

Now I do think consuming parenting content can only make you a better parent because you can understand strategies and experiences that can work for your particular situation. Unfortunately, you’ll have to get in your parenting reps to actually figure out your kid and how to take care of them. Every person is different (duh!) and as long as the parenting reps are increasing, you’ll be able to decipher incoherent screaming…just like I do now!