I've only been a dad a few days.

I took wisdom from parents I respect. I heard a lot of it is intuition, and that is true.

I like to approach things cerebrally, I inhaled a bunch of parenting books. A few overcomplicate things, and it's evident. Others are too modern therapy nonsense.

But these two stood out.

Happiest Baby is awesome. Being brand new parents, I wanted to fall back on wisdom if we felt overwhelmed.

It taught me a few lessons that work, I can calm my daughter in an instant if she's fussing. And also learning that crying is a baby's only form of communication, you don't feel awful when she cries.

The author, Harvey Karp, invented the Snoo Bassinet, which is amazing.

Raising Mentally Strong Kids, which is by Love and Logic, came recommended to me via a few people. It A good friend followed its principles raising his daughter and raved. A good friend of my wife, she used it to raise her twin daughters. And a good friend of mine was raised on its principles.

All of them raved about it. All were walking testimonials.

When I read it, I realized much of it is how my dad fathered me.

While it's not quite for infants, the principles of being a loving and firm consultant clicked. It kicked in the best parts of the intuition. I don't feel the overwhelm at all.