As the father of a 9-year-old I have to warn you: the sleep deprivation does not end at 6 months.

Congrats and guard your sleep hygiene as much as possible (practically impossible advice to follow in most cases).

I went through a really rough period because of the lack of sleep. I noticed that hydration during that period was also challenging, so I wonder if this is related to the brain shrink effect.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323595

Completely correct. With all three of my children I was sleep deprived the first few months. But never in my life have I felt better.

For all the difficulties, children are rejuvenating and fun and provide purpose to life.

The babies I know yet don't sleep like adults which means that you will be up at night at random hours that you are not used to and I think this has nothing to do with industrial work culture. That 6-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is just a "dream" :).

I recall, as a twins dad, I did not have 2+ hours of uninterrupted sleep till they are 2 years old. (This depends on the kid though).

More that babies are designed for the tribe/family/group to all share in the responsibility of caring for the baby.

Though feeding schedules early on are still grueling.

This is funny in how cut and dry it is. My friend, do you have kids?

It's my theory that crying evolved as a trait because it forces parents to go find some place safe lest a predator finds them, thus ensuring the helpless kid can grow in safe environments.

Note that there is no mention of sleep in there. That's bonus round if you get it.

Non western parents gets woken up in the night and sleep deprived ... and then have duties during the day while the baby sleeps

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They should be sleep deprived the same way for it to be a real control group, at least in the context of "becoming a father". Otherwise it's just "being sleep deprived for 6-12 months has X effect", which is much less informative. We already know being sleep deprived for long stretches is really bad.

Yes, so then that way you would know if there's something special about raising children that causes cerebellum shrinkage, or if it is just run of the mill sleep deprivation that causes it

I also still daydream and have well before and after kids. If anything, sleep depravation with a newborn made it more vibrant and integrated.

Becoming a parent changes a lot of how you think, but to be honest spending time with my kids did more to reignite my explore mode.

Childlike curiosity is slightly contagious. It’s also fun to experience it by proxy through your kids seeing things for the first time.

Yes, this thread made me realize I may not understand what daydreaming is.

Yeah, saying "I don't daydream" sounds like "I don't have thoughts" to me. Am I always daydreaming, or have I never daydreamed?

My interpretation of "daydreaming" is pre-nap or early into a nap (your nap, no kids involved) state where your mind wanders, but the experience is closer to dreaming than to thinking of random stuff.

Yes, but people might conflate that with the flawed idea that more evolved genes means a better individual.

Perhaps he's a father

As someone who cares about such a thing and had no awareness of that, I would tend to disagree. Nytimes gets posted enough that I have encountered the pay wall, but the economist, I’d have had to guess. I also tried to look at the article and didn’t see the year when trying to open the truncated article, and do like to know that I have started reading something old. I just don’t really agree with your comment at all from almost any angle, but I don’t think either one of us has numbers to back up anything