What advice would you give to new parents?
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You are a brand new dad. You are driving home from the hospital with your new bundle of joy, in what you are pretending is a vehicle made of glass. Now, what!?
After sailing through some of those storms, I have taken away many lessons and continue to do so.
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Nowadays, there are many classes you can take to help get you prepared to be that awesome dad you have always wanted to be. And, friends and family are not shy to tell you how they have done it. When push comes to shove, and the baby arrives, it can be extremely difficult to remember everything everyone has been tossing at you for the last nine months.
Before we go further… please know, I am no subject matter expert on this topic. In fact, part of the reason I am writing about this is to, perhaps, save a dad or two out there from some of the same rough waters that I have sailed through. After sailing through some of those storms, I have taken away many lessons and continue to do so to this day. Now with two sons; a four-year-old and six-month-old I look back and can say that the first 12 months of being a brand new dad was one of the hardest seasons of my life to date.
You expect everything to go as planned. You have this well drawn out plan in your head, and when it doesn’t go according to that plan, you quickly find yourself in a territory that you have never been in before. For many men, this can cause us to be nervous, anxious, defensive, and even depressed. After looking back through the various experiences, I have come to this conclusion. The new dad will feel more confident, stay within “his plan” and be more successful achieving that Super-Dad status we strive for if we simply support the new mom get adjusted to her new role. If we support mom and make her feel like that Super-Mom she truly is, that will, in turn, help us as men, feel like that Super-Dad we have drawn up in our minds and everyone wins. Here are two great ways to help a new dad can help a new mom.
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1. Take an extra shift. This could be a middle of the night bottle shift, middle of the day number two diaper shift, rock the baby to sleep shift, let mom go grocery shopping without the baby shift, take one for the team and let mom sleep in Saturday shift, laundry shift, anything that you see your child’s mother doing more often than you, shift. Take over and give her that extra break when you can.
She will appreciate this immediately, even if she doesn’t–keep doing it, the feeling of spending those extra moments and making those special memories will be worth the lack of sleep and mom will eventually come around to appreciate what you’re doing. If you are in a situation like most men, and we need to get up to make the bacon in the morning, these rules still apply to us. Being able to bring bacon into a home where there is a balance, harmony, a happy mom and baby tends to taste better than that extra hour of sleep.
2. Be present. This one sounds simple enough but with the fast pace daily routine of life, this can be quite difficult without us even realizing it. Think about it, there are 168 hours in one week. If we look at a typical week, and we take away time for getting ready for work, working, being stuck in traffic, going to the gym, and sleeping then that will leave most people with 40-50 hours of family time a week; about the same amount of time we spend at work.
A friend once told me that the only time ‘quantity time’ is the same as ‘quality time’ is when you spend it with family. We can choose to spend those quality hours with family being in the moment, not only physically by mentally as well. By that, I mean choose to be fully engaged with what is happening in the now. In today’s age, it is so easy to be consumed by technology and social media, we are all guilty of it. When we are physically in the presence of our family but we’re being consumed by staring down at a screen, we cannot fully be present. Be present.
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Be a new dad that helps the new mom today, so that tomorrow, you can be an old dad that watches your son grow.
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From that moment, you take your baby into that glass car and drive half of the speed limit on the way home from the hospital, to the day your child takes their first step, to the day you hear “daddy” for the fist time, or their first day or school… take every moment in and be thankful, be present. When you start to practice and live out these two ways to help a new dad help a new mom, they will eventually become the norm and before you know it your children will be off to college. As new dads, if we step up from day one and be the man God intended us to be, there will one day be a moment in time when we look back and realize that one of the greatest gifts we were ever able to give our children is an example to live up to.
Be a new dad that helps the new mom today, so that tomorrow, you can be an old dad that watches your son grow to be that new dad to help the next generation of new moms.
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Photo: Flickr/ Patricia Hammell Kashtock