Amazing advice here! Getting a yoga ball was a life saver for our baby so I highly recommend having one handy if yours is hard to settle. Before baby comes try to talk about your routine and expectations. If your partner used to be the primary cook she won’t be able to for a while. Figuring things out now will be easier in the long run.

Fisher price glow and grow was a great early purchase for when he was doing tummy time and other exercises. He still uses it at 15 months!

Others have talked about getting earplugs and they’re right. Even if you’re not sensitive to sounds now you will be when you have only slept 5 hours in two days. Earplugs or go with headphones/earbuds so you can listen to music.

Sleep will be crucial for survival. Taking shifts helps some folks but try to see what works for you. If your partner is breastfeeding it will be very hard for her to sleep at times. Especially if baby decides to cluster feed.

Remember to take a deep breath sometimes and depending on what your relationship looks like make sure to spend quality time whenever you can with your partner. Even if it’s a long hug or just crying out your frustration.

Best of luck!

We used an app called Huckleberry to track sleep. Our son would nap every couple hours consistently, but as you get closer to 3 naps a day it helps to see how long they’ve been awake/asleep to keep the routine easy.

Good luck mate. It’s all worth it when you get that first on purpose smile. :)

I would recommend that you buy different formulas if you are going to formulas.

Here’s the reason why: my daughter would cry when we would feed her formula after an hour or so. This would happen every time. We moved her to a different one that wasn’t lactose. After changing the formula we started to get sleep at night because she wasn’t getting cramps from the formula.

It took us and the doctor a good min to figure out why she was always fuzzy. Hope it helps.

First off, not every baby is the same. They all are genetically unique and a blend of the parents. Behavior at a birth is 99.9% genetic instincts and runs in families. Hormonal changes often make a new mothers memories fuzzy for a few months after birth. If your dad was not active in the your early life, the family history is often lost. So take any advice on infant behavior as recommendation that may or may not be true. For example both of my boys hated being swaddled from day one. They wanted to move and stretch.

Babies often start out giving micro-expressions and sounds before they start hollering. These are subtle little clues that if you can figure them out are a lifesaver. If you don’t figure them out in a few weeks, they learn to go directly to hollering at top volume because mommy and daddy are dumb and a poor baby has to survive. The amount of times my wife and I got amazed looks “How did you know that’s what they needed?” was an ongoing joke with us.

As a Dad, hold the baby all the time you can. This is especially true for the first year. If you tip back in a recliner, you can use a gaming controller while holding the kid as they sleep. As they get older they get a little grabby and you’ll be stuck watching movies etc for a few years. Aka why I went straight from a PS2 to PS4. You’ll be exhausting yourself playing with them all the time anyways.

Hey, same boat dull man, who built this thing anyways?

Practice funny voices and learn a few songs to sing. A lullaby, a wake up song, a hello song and a goodbye song. Diaper changing song, mealtime song… You can make them up. I sang most things when they were little.

Babies are little people just like us. They have bad days, and good days. Also try to relax, and enjoy it as much as you can. You are not perfect and you shouldn’t try to be. Just focus on the love you have for them and give them plenty of snuggles. Congrats!

It will be great, but it won’t go according to plan. Make sure you and the mom are braced for this so it doesn’t throw you. Breastfeeding may be difficult, there may be other medical issues, you will be so tired that you may make small mistakes along the way. Be understanding of each other. Accept any help that other people offer - it takes a community. Try to enjoy it. The days are long - but the years fly by.

Buy an exercise ball and a foam roller.

Congratulations! It’s an exciting time and they are such marvellous little creatures. Here are some random thoughts that may be useful

Pregnancy

• Everyone’s pregnancy is different, so listen to your wife above all, but here are some things we dealt with that are not terribly uncommon:
  • First trimester: nausea, tastes in food changing, scents being particularly offensive. Which tastes and scents worked and which were offensive changing on a daily basis. Have a “clean room” and some kind of array of candles or air fresheners to rotate through, when the dinner that sounded great in the morning is suddenly stomach turning as it is being prepped
  • Second trimester: the easiest in some respects, but here is when the mental load, in the form of anxiety, stress, and depression really started to set in. Be prepared to shoulder as much of the emotional burden as you can carry. Take care of yourself so you can take care of your family
  • Third trimester: The peak of the physical discomfort. Moving is hard. Breathing is hard. Every day feels like running a marathon. Minimise the amount of moving your wife has to do

Delivery

• Most hospitals / maternity wards offer tours. If you are planning a hospital birth, going in the week before to see the place helped reduce a lot of the anxiety when the time finally came. They can’t be scheduled far in advance because it depends on how busy they are, so keep checking

• Familiarise yourself with the physical details of the birth process. We read through “The Birth Partner” (Simkin and Cheney) together in the preceding months. There is one chapter where they subtly endorse some pseudoscience, but if you can skip over that when you run into it, we found it very informative and helpful about what to expect.

• The event itself is exciting, but overwhelming. Again, your wife will be entirely consumed by managing the physical demands. You can help by taking care of the logistical and emotional demands. Advocate for her. The staff are on the same team as you, but you are the only one with the brain space to ensure that the decisions your wife wants for the birth are being kept in mind.

Newborn

• The first 2-3 weeks are the hardest. You’re adjusting, and the baby is adjusting, and all three of you will have to figure out how to make it work. I hope you are in a place where you can all take time off work. We were lucky in that we were able to breastfeed without too many issues, but regardless if it works the same for you or not, those early days must be a team effort. My wife fed, I did the diapers, and we all woke up together.

• Early on, we ran into some pretty difficult nights where the baby just would not sleep. It turned out she was not getting enough breast milk. Once we started adding some formula, she went right back to sleep. We did this until my wife’s supply increased, which is a fairly common pattern.

• I don’t know why I didn’t expect this, but newborns generally dislike the experience of getting their diapers changed. It will be a fight for a little while. I say this because, if they ever stop crying while you are in the middle of one, duck and cover. That means they are about ready for part two. And it can come with some force. Those little changing mats do not cover nearly enough. We had to put down an extra layer of paper towels along the whole “trajectory”. (This does calm down eventually)

• Babies are demanding. It is rewarding, but there will be exhausting days. Early on, my wife and I devised a system where we each get one day a week that we have “off” from the baby, barring emergencies. I can’t overstate how much of a difference having that one “recharge” day makes in managing the stress, it has been extremely helpful.

Things we got that have been worth their weight in gold:

• Convertible car seat / stroller–we are using the Doona brand and it has been incredible
• Big pack of burp cloths. These need to be within arm’s reach in every room in the house
• Dedicated diaper changing station with diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer, and a burp cloth in drawers within arm’s reach
• Bassinet that can swing over the bed for easy feeding
• A velcro swaddle. Most are too big for newborns, but as soon as they can fit in, it is way easier than trying to do the origami with the blanket. Babies always beat origami

Things we got that really weren’t as important as we thought they were going to be

• Two diaper bags, one would have been more than sufficient
• A diaper caddy for around the house. As opposed to spit-ups, diapers generally are leisurely enough for you to make your way to your diaper changing station, so it was not incredibly helpful to have extras within arm’s reach
• Postpartum cart with snacks and supplies for my wife. Nice idea, just didn’t end up using it much

I know that looks like a lot, but it’s really not bad, because most of it is extra, conveniences and nice-to-have things. As long as you have food, diapers, and a safe place for the baby to sleep, all of that other stuff can be figured out on the go, and you will figure it out as you find what works for you. And the love and joy that come with the baby are indescribable. The rewards are there, and they eclipse the challenges.

You can do this, and it will be wonderful!

I’m the future, when they’re 2 or so, whatever you do, DO NOT break the banana.

From the top of the head: all the stuff you will have to buy, you will, but speaking of diapers, if japanese Merries are sold where you live, that’s the shit. Everything else leaks, leaves rash, looks uncomfortable, etc, and you don’t want to buy a pack of everything to try out.
And speaking of things you can’t buy, one good setup thing. If your wife is going to breastfeed, she would have to get the baby, and then put it back at night. We just removed one side of the baby bed, i fixed it at even height with our bed, and put it right to the side of ours so then my wife could just drag the baby closer and feed without completely waking up. And when done, the kid is already almost where it has to be. This improved our life quality with both kids.

1. don’t be afraid to sing to your baby, they love it
2. read to your kid every night as part of the routine
3. it’s ok to leave your baby safely in a crib while you take a break for 5 minutes. Go where the crying volume doesn’t drive you mad.

Post pardum is real and can have tremendous lasting impacts on mental health. It’s easy and natural for all of the attention to be on the baby, but it’s critical to keep an eye out for each other here too. If you or your spouse are getting overwhelmed, get some help, and consider therapy quickly.

Ibprofin will get you through teething. The kid doesn’t have to suffer.