Cribsheet

Man, do I love Emily Oster books. Your first book in this series, expecting better, was incredibly formative for how we are experiencing our first pregnancy. It was so helpful to get clarity on the multitude of opinions that exist around pregnancy and childbirth.

However (as she herself says in this book) after delivery, there's a lot less absolutism we can glean from data around raising kids. There are often multiple approaches that work better depending on who the kid ends up being, which you will never know before you actually have the kid. And for that reason this lost a star. Admittedly, these are for reasons beyond Oster's control, and where she is able to deconstruct and correct the predominant narrative, she happily does so; but it feels like the main point of this book is more to help parents trust themselves and trust their guts that there are multiple healthy routes to guide your kids down, and so as long as you have good intentions and due diligence, you will be fine.

I appreciate this message, and I find it really helpful. If anything, the data deconstructs the idea that there is one right way to raise a kid. But I feel like these books are sold under idea that they will help parents make data-driven decisions about their kids. But for nearly every topic she covers, the data are conflicting, lacking, inconsistent, or have some flaws. Again, this is helpful to know. But it's not why someone would open this book. She does give more information to help with the decision-making process, but in an individualized way, and not in an objective way.

So in the end, I leave this book feeling more at ease with entering parenthood, even if I don't necessarily feel more equipped to do so. Because no one can actually be fully prepped before hand. And that lesson made this book absolutely worth reading.

Key takeaways:

- Engaging. It was nice to see someone work through the available data and use that to influence decisions. It seemed like on many issues the data suggests the best way forward is what works for your family. There were a few spots where there was a clear winner, but most of the time, that isn't the case. Take a deep breath and do what feels right for your family.
- Causation and correlation are not the same thing. REMEMBER THIS.

=== SLEEPING ===
- Co-sleeping is more dangerous. If you decide to proceed that way, no blankets or pillows.
- SIDS has the highest risk in the first four months. Best plan of action is a basinet in your room. After four months, it doesn't matter as much.
- Kids should sleep on their back with nothing in the crib.
- Sleep training works. It's not easy to hear your baby cry, but it's not harmful to the baby.

=== BREASTFEEDING ===
- It doesn't seem to matter whether you opt for breastfeeding or formula.

=== VACCINATION ===
- There is no evidence that vaccines are harmful. There is plenty of evidence that they are helpful.

=== STAY AT HOME ===
- There is little evidence that parents working has any harmful effects on your children. Do what works for your family.

=== EARLY EDUCATION ===
- You can't teach your kid to read until age 4+. Even if your kid starts to read early, it does not necessarily have any positive effects later in life. Sweden doesn't even teach kids to read until age 7.
- Baby Einstein and other similar ideas are good for entertaining, but there isn't evidence that they make your baby smarter.
- The type of daycare or preschool your kids go to doesn't matter, as long as they are safe and engaged.

=== DISCIPLINE ===
- Spanking doesn't help, and may even be harmful.
- Consistency is key.
- Don't threaten punishments you can't or won't enforce.
- Your kid being annoying doesn't warrant a punishment.
- You can't reason with toddlers. Accept that.

The best book I can recommend to any new parent.

I really like Emily Oster. I like her writing style, her attitude towards parenting, and her ability to sort through academic papers and provide me with easy to understand summaries. Expecting Better really helped me navigate my pregnancy, and while much of the information in Cribsheet is less conclusive, it gives me a lot of comfort to know where research has/hasn't been done, and the fact that the conclusion she draws in almost every scenario is, “This will not break your child or damage their adult life.” Highly recommended for fellow anxious first time parents.

Cirbsheet summarized the studies, or lack of studies, that guide the advice we received on a wide range of parenting topics. I like Oster's writing, and her summaries of findings changed my perceptions around some of the early parenting decisions we made (let alone understanding better what science backed up certain recommendations). It's also a good jumping off point to further reading for areas to go deeper.

A breath of fresh, rational air. This was as good as I expected - as good as I was hoping for - and I would auto-add it to all baby registries.

Emily Oster is an economist and prof at Brown University who specializes in the empirical evaluation of policy programs around the world; specifically, she is one of the “randomistas”, i.e. economists who specifically worry about establishing good causal inference. (You'd think ALL economists worry about this - and they definitely, sorta, kinda do. Mostly. But the “randomista revolution” is a relatively new thing in economics, maybe ~20 years old.) She also wrote what I consider to be the best pregnancy advice book out there, Expecting Better.

Given this background, she brings three important - NAY, CRITICAL - skills to the How To Do Things genre:
1. An understanding of data and research quality; namely, the ability to disentangle correlation from causality. This is especially crucial for things like, for example, the research around breastfeeding (dramatic music).
2. The theoretical approach to dealing with risk and uncertainty. This is one of my favorite parts of economics: people are systematically irrational (as Dan Ariely would say) in their behavior around risk and uncertainty. GOD, I LOVE BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS - it's so wonderful. See The Undoing Project for an eminently readable, pop intro to the field. With regards to parenting, the best example of behavioral econ principles is our behavior around SIDS - people are (justifiably) terrified of SIDS, a low-probability, catastrophic event. “Safe sleeping” means placing infants on their backs, not in your own bed, with tight-fitting sheets and nothing else. But some infants don't sleep well (okay, ALL infants don't sleep well), so parents are tempted by co-sleeping/bed-sharing - something that, if you listen to the American Academy of Pediatricians, IS SO VERY CRAZY DANGEROUS OMG. But Oster notes that, if you look at the data, we are implicitly taking larger risks every day - for example, kids are more likely to die in car accidents than while co-sleeping (if done safely, i.e. no smoking/drinking parents, etc), but, well, the AAP isn't at all advising against driving with your child!
3. A decision-making framework, given this data and our understanding of the risks. That is, being explicit about preferences (utility!), costs (including mental health!), thinking about the marginal value of stuff, the expected value of stuff (i.e. its value to you multiplied by the probability of it happening), and the net present value of stuff (i.e. the value of some future something, discounted by your internal patience).

If you have a background in economics, if you've tinkered with econometrics and are wise in the ways of Stata, then all of this is your everyday bread and butter. Oster's genius is applying this field's wisdoms to a realm that is usually ignored by economists (though not all!) - parenting - and writing it as a pop advice book. I mean, Oster doesn't actually ADVISE anything - rather, she provides a methodology for making decisions and, where possible, the best data and research evidence to help make that decision.

Some TL;DR:
- “Breast is best” at reducing, in the first year of life, gastrointestinal infections from 13% to 9%, and reducing rashes from 6% to 3%. It has no long-term benefits to the child. It might reduce breast cancer risk in the mom.
- “Cry it out” sleep training improves sleep for everyone in the family, and the effects last for years - YEARS. It also reduces maternal depression, because sleep, people.
- Development milestones have enormous distributions. (i.e. The Wonder Weeks app is most likely bullshit - since how can we pinpoint “wonder WEEKS” when literally some kids roll over/crawl/walk/talk MONTHS before or after other kids?!) Where your kid falls in these distributions doesn't matter for anything in the long run.
- Daycare, nanny, stay at home, work, etc. - all have (basically) no effect on the kid.
- Marital satisfaction declines after kids - oh well!
- The discipline described in Bringing Up Bebe and Brain Rules for Babies - i.e. time-outs and an “authoritative” (not authoritarian) style - works.
- Introduce allergens early. Also, the food stuff from Bringing Up Bebe is evidence-supported.

Oster also includes a chapter that I think every pregnant woman should read: what happens those first few weeks postpartum!

My only critique is Oster's equivocation around some of the fashionable parenting ideas out there. Sometimes she's basically like “There's no evidence this works, but there's no evidence it DOESN'T work - so if you want to, go ahead!” My gripe about this is that - while she's correct, from a statistical philosophy POV - that is, “absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence” - I would have stressed that Your Parenting Philosophy Du Jour is just as valid as believing that, say, the color of your car is a meaningful input into your parenting. My point being: something that is completely lacking in evidence, but fashionable, does not necessarily merit equivocating acceptance. But I guess Oster is (a) more generous/less judgey than me, and/or (b) casting a big net cuz sales!

Highly recommended. Yay econ.

I wish this had been out when my son was younger - the data-based format is strongest in the early chapters, where there have actually been studies on things like sleep training. A lot of the later chapters are basically “there haven't been enough studies, probably whatever you decide to do is fine,” which is reassuring in a way but not all that helpful when it comes to decision-making. I think this would be good as a gift to new parents but it's of limited utility once your kid is older. Oster is still a very entertaining writer, though, and makes the potentially-dry subject matter both funny and fun to read.