One of the gifts people give you most when you’re expecting a baby, especially your first one, is unsolicited advice. Well-meaning advice to be sure, but almost always unasked for.
So in that spirit of giving, here’s my completely unsolicited advice to myself that would have been helpful 5 months ago.
Advice I was given: You’re going to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Be prepared.
What I needed to hear: You’re going to get pretty close to losing it (or you will lose it) at times. You need to have a plan or some mechanisms to stay calm or to get calm quickly. I started therapy before the baby came. I learned box breathing techniques. I learned about shaken baby syndrome and learned it’s not just mean evil crazy people who do it, but well-meaning and exhausted people. I reminded myself at every turn that this is my baby and I love my baby and my baby isn’t crying at 3:51 am on purpose. He just needs soothing from his dad. His dad who doesn’t have much energy left to give, but who is going to muster what he has left to get to morning.
I’ve never felt utter exhaustion as I did in the weeks immediately after my son was born. It’s another level of tiredness. Add some tools to your toolkit to deal ahead of time.
Advice I was given: It’s the best thing in the world. Savor every moment.
What I needed to hear: It’s so great, and, so challenging. You’re not going to have important time for yourself during this time, and it’s going to take a while to steal little bits of that back. Embrace the time you’re in, but also find some time to do little things for yourself. Fill up your cup as much as you can in the margins so you have some to pour out on your family.
For example, I didn’t feel (and still to a certain degree don’t) that I could dedicate as much time to working out and the gym. Instead, I just focused on getting in 10 push ups or 10 air squats any time I could Those reps add up and give you just a little bit of an energy boost - often when you need it.
Advice I was given: Your priorities will change, and your family is the only thing that matters.
What I needed to hear: You determine your priorities. Your child will take a significant amount of your time, your energy, and your heart. But, it’s important that figure out what this new version of you needs in order to bring your best self to the game each day. You can’t fill from an empty cup. Forsaking all else to be “dad of the year” will do you no good long-term. You need to invest in your partnership, you need friends, you need exercise, and you need leisure (which feels and looks different now). Yes, you have major responsibilities that you didn’t before. Millennials in particular are focused on changing parenting away from the more authoritative Baby Boomer and Gen X parents, and focusing more on feelings, and that takes more energy from you, too.
While it is normal for parents of one generation to strive to parent differently than their own parents, common themes are emerging around millennial parenting — and it has to do with encouraging their kids to feel their feelings, something many millennial parents felt their parents missed when they were kids."
I’ve heard so often from friends and others in my age group (I’m 31), “I will never parent how my mom/dad did”, or “When I’m a parent, I will do it differently”, and I think that’s so cool. I, too, want to parent differently than my parents - specifically, because I am a different person. Becoming a parent has really highlighted how difficult and challenging it can be. It’s made me feel like I relate so much more to both of my parents, in all of the best things they did for me, and in all of the places where they maybe felt that they didn’t do their best. I get it now.
Advice I was given: “Ah, get as much sleep as you can, once the baby is here you won’t sleep anymore!”
What I needed to hear: It doesn’t matter how much sleep you build up, you’re not actually going to be ready for the sleep-deprivation. It’s so much harder than you think it will be (depending on your baby’s temperament!). You’re not used to only getting only 1, 2, or 3 hours of sleep in a row. you’re probably used to 6, 7, or 8+ hours of sleep in a row each night. When that doesn’t happen anymore (and it almost assuredly won’t once you bring squirt home), it’s going to hit you, hard. Square in the face with a baseball bat.
Start setting a “bedtime” for yourself and your spouse immediately. Although your baby will be waking up every 30 minutes to every few hours (and everything in-between), you won’t know up from down those first few days. You need to do your best to set some semblance of a schedule or a routine, and stick to it as loosely (or tightly) as you can. It will help you feel like you control SOMETHING in the midst of controlling a lot of nothing.
Here’s the other tough thing about baby sleep. You might have the best-sleeping baby on the planet. Or, the worst. Or, and this is more likely, something in between and pretty inconsistent. The key to this? Don’t be that judgemental parent. You did sleep training and it worked wonders? That’s awesome. You aren’t doing sleep training because you just can’t bring yourself to let your babe cry? Totally get it, you do what’s best for you.
Just don’t be that person who says “oh, I could NEVER do that to my child” with that judgemental look in your eye. You wouldn’t want someone to do that to you, so my best advice is just to let others follow their path and you do the same.
Advice I was given: Watch out for your wife’s mental health. Post-partum anxiety and depression are no joke.
What I needed to hear: Yes. And, watch out for your own mental health. Post-partum depression and anxiety in dads is also no joke. You might be the only one looking out for you for a while.
Before my son came along, I had some internal battles that I wanted to fight so that I didn’t pass those things on to him. I will never be perfect, and I already know there will be times when I will screw up with my kids. I already have! I get annoyed, frustrated, and angry. That anger is specifically what I wanted to address in therapy before having a kid come along. Having a baby solves no problems, and it’s not the missing piece. I am taking a “dads” class at our local parenting center, and our instructor Michael refers to these babies we’re having as “love bombs”, because they come in and just blow up everything in your life and in your psyche. I knew that the whole “everything is complete when you have a baby” idea was BS for a lot of people, but I also anticipated that some of my more unattractive mental and emotional reactions would likely not improve because of this new little one entering our life. How could it? Any time you had for yourself? GONE. I had SO much time before, and I didn’t even know it. I wasted so much time that I will never get back. It’s gone. But, I’ve gotten better at using the time I have more productively now. I don’t know anyone who can clean the dishes, clean the bottles, sweep the kitchen and get coffee ready for the next day faster than me. Although I haven’t asked anyone else their record times, I still feel pretty good about this.
Advice I was given: You’re never going to see your friends again.
What I needed to hear: It’s going to take a lot more work to maintain your relationships. Communicate with people you love directly. Tell them what you need and where your capacity is. Ask them to continue to include you in things, and that even if you say no more, just don’t stop reaching out. It’s different, yes. But the way you prioritize is still mostly up to you. And the way you communicate is absolutely up to you. You can fail this really easily. And yes, it’s super important to have supportive and understanding friends. But just know that relationships can and do atrophy, and you still have a big part to play in making sure that doesn’t happen if you don’t want it to.
Advice I was given: It goes so fast, don’t miss a moment!
What I needed to hear: Right after you bring baby home, the days are going to feel like months sometimes. Some days and moments you’re going to wish away because they just really suck. When we were in week 2 or 3, our son Reed had a bad case of gas. Only, we didn’t know that right away. We just knew he wasn’t going down for his nap, and he wouldn’t stop crying. And wouldn’t stop crying. And wouldn’t stop crying. As we approached 2 then 3 hours of straight wailing, I knew something was wrong. Hours 4 and 5 ticked by, and we called the nurse’s line. They said he might have reflux, and to try probiotics and gas drops, so we scheduled a Target pick-up order that would be ready in an hour or two. Hours 6 and 7 passed and Reed wasn’t stopping. It didn’t matter what we did - rocking him, walking him around, bicycle kicking his legs to get the gas moving - nothing made him feel better. I disassociated and went numb while my wife felt all of her feelings, and we just had no solutions. He finally stopped after what felt like a lifetime, but man. That day and night sucked. And I don’t savor that time.
You don’t need to love every part of this. You don’t need to feel guilty if you just want to move to the next phase. Yes, you may look back one day and wish for this time back. But there are a lot of times that you will be happy to leave behind.
Before we had our son, one of my friends with an almost two-year-old reflected that he didn’t love the 3-month to 6-month timeframe with their son. There was nothing bad about it - he didn’t dislike it. It just wasn’t his favorite time with his son out of all the time periods so far. And so you know, thinking in three-month periods (and oftentimes in 3 week periods) in terms of development is legit. Download Wonder Weeks on your phone and read up on the different developmental leaps your kid will experience.
I have a more limited purview (5.5 months), but I can say with a lot of confidence that I didn’t love the first three months. I didn’t dislike them, but those weren’t my favorite times so far.
For the first three months of his life, my son was a potato. A very cute, very grumbly little potato. He ate, slept, pooped, and peed. He cried and he stared and he didn’t sleep a lot. He was so damn cute, and sometimes would smirk or squeak, but as a dad who wasn’t his source of life like my wife, I felt like a useless appendage. I felt a little bit like the appendix - a part of the body, but we’re not totally sure what you do here. There’s a major mindset here of “grind it out, just keep doing what you need to do” because you are going to get very little positive validation from your little one for a while. Saying that I didn’t crave validation from a 2-month-old would make me a liar.
Then, one day, when I was at my end and feeling like the worst dad in the world - he smiled and giggled at me. I was changing his diaper and I made a noise (I would chat with him or repeat noises he made back at him) and this time, he reacted. Right on time. I needed that. I don’t feel bad about being glad about leaving behind the potato stage. I was present, I enjoyed and loved what I could about it, and I am so happy that my baby boy is now playing, laughing, and reacting to me differently than he did before. Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty about this. It’s your experience.
A few other pieces of advice. Just some things I’m glad I’ve done, or wish I had done:
Start a dad journal. Many moms do this, but many dads don’t. There aren’t a lot of great options for dads online, either. What I decided to do: I made a Gmail account with my son’s full name. I set a reminder on my Google Calendar to send him a monthly email. Just whatever’s on my mind, what’s been happening, milestones, photos. I’m planning to send him a monthly email, plus some extras for big milestones or events, and to give him his email address and account info someday.
Keep a logbook. I got this from Austin Kleon. I’ve been keeping a daily log of the boring and mundane stuff for the last 3 full years and some iteration of it for years before that. You never know what will be important details later on. Sometimes the boring stuff now is the stuff you’re glad you wrote down.
But more importantly, keeping a simple list of who/what/where means I write down events that seem mundane at the time, but later on help paint a better portrait of the day, or even become more significant over time. By “sticking to the facts” I don’t pre-judge what was important or what wasn’t, I just write it down.
You will want to remember this time. Sometimes my journal entries annoy the hell out of me. Sometimes they make me cringe. I’ve thrown away notebooks that made me so embarrassed (I regret doing that now). But a log book is nice because it’s relatively non-emotional. It’s stuff like “Watched x show or movie with Kim” or “had coffee and played with Reed”. I generally leave out work stuff, but sometimes I will put what I’m doing at work in there too.
Set a schedule and keep a schedule as best as you can. Stick to this loosely, because things are bound to come up. But, get a few sets of some exercise done in the morning and habit stack them with brushing your teeth or something else you do each day. Something like “teeth, shower, coffee, 10 pushups”. Stack a few habits and you can still put together a little routine that gives you some energy today.
Write down the things you are experiencing. Earlier I talked about how I didn’t like some previous journal entries. But, you are who you are in the moment, and it’s good to remember where your headspace is at. You might value this information later. I use Day One to brain dump in the mornings.
Join a new dad’s group. I wish I would have done this sooner. You hear that “you’re not in it alone”, but it’s different seeing other dudes going through being a new dad at the same time. It’s often a space where you can be more vulnerable, and I think that’s pretty critical at this new time in your life.
Take what you can out of this and leave what’s not helpful. Make your own list like this after a few months, and share it with some new dads in your life. At the very least it’s cathartic.
Take care of yourselves, new dads. You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t.