For a first-time dad, there are a lot of emotions to work through. From the moment that the pregnancy test informed my wife and I that my life was about to completely change, I was filled with a sense of excitement, love, and completeness — with a healthy dose of fear mixed in. Having always dreamed of being a father, though, I was ready to dive in headfirst and figure things out. This is what I had been waiting for.
Throughout the pregnancy I did a lot of reading. I tried to understand what to expect, and envisioned how I would handle the challenges that come with caring for a newborn. By the time the third trimester neared its end, I thought that I was fully prepared to put on my daddy pants and rock it. I have never been more wrong about anything in my life.
Leading up to the day of my son’s birth, there were so many upcoming challenges that I thought I knew about and for which I had prepared myself. Many of those things I was completely right about, but what I did not know is just how intense those challenges would be. See, I knew what was ahead of me, but I didn’t understand it. There is a marked difference.
Here are the biggest things I really, fully learned about becoming a father.
You Will Be Tired
I was lucky, and for a good portion of the most difficult weeks my wife slept in a separate room with the baby. She was able to stay home with him during the day while I went to work, so she took on a large part of the nighttime responsibility. For that I was extremely grateful.
Still, she eventually went back to work, at which point we needed to share the middle-of-the-night baby duties. Once I was into a constant stream of long, sleepless nights I realized that I had severely underestimated how difficult this would be. As much as you love and adore your child, it is only human to become frustrated by the third wake-up cry of the night.
At times it felt like I was sleepwalking through the day at work. My focus and memory were noticeably lacking, and there were times when I felt like I just may fall asleep at my desk. At least once every 30–45 minutes I forced myself to stand up and take a walk around the building just to get the blood flowing and pull myself out of the haze.
As tired as I was, I tried to never complain — at least not to my wife. She was Supermom, and even though she had it much harder than me, due to breastfeeding, she made it seem effortless. I knew she was even more exhausted than I was, but you would have never known it.
Babies Cry — Often, and For Any Reason
Again, this one is obvious. To say that babies cry is akin to stating that the sky is blue or that Die Hard is a Christmas movie; They are universal truths. What I was not quite prepared for, however, is the way my brain and body would react.
When a newborn cries, even if it is just because he is hungry or tired, the sound is intense. Any cry, for any reason, sounds as though there is something seriously wrong. This elicited in me a sense of panic, likely caused by some chemical reaction in my brain that is well beyond my understanding. All I know is that the longer the crying went on, the more helpless I felt. To hear your child screeching, and having no idea how to make it stop, is a difficult feeling to get used to.
Goodbye to Intimacy
We aren’t talking about sex here. That, I was well aware, would see a dramatic decrease for a number of reasons. That was expected and of no surprise.
Instead, what I’m talking about is the simple, intimate one-on-one time that every couple needs. There was no time to take for ourselves. No cuddling up on the couch to watch a movie. No romantic dinners. Just simply no time to devote to each other.
While I understood that this part of our marriage may take a hit, I wasn’t quite ready for just how steep the drop off would be. Our son had taken all of his mother’s attention, and when she did have a break during a nap, she herself was too tired to do much more than try to catch a short nap herself. I never held any resentment toward her over this, but deep down I felt what could only be described as a sense of loss. At times it felt as if my wife had been taken away from me.
You Won’t Always Know What You Are Doing
A common theme in the first few months of my son’s life was a feeling of simply not knowing what the hell I was doing. There were times when I felt like I was a terrible father, because I simply did not know how to handle a situation.
If my son was crying, my first thought was always to warm up some milk and give him a bottle. Usually this was the answer, but there were times when it did not work. If I gave him a bottle and he started crying even harder, I suddenly started questioning myself. Is he just not hungry? Oh, God, did I make the milk too hot? I know I checked it, but did I make a mistake? When your child is upset, it is easy to start questioning yourself.
I remember one particular occasion when a severe diaper rash left me feeling completely helpless. I had gone a little too long without checking his diaper, and he started to cry. When I did take his diaper off, I found that he had a poop that had been there for too long and his butt was roughly the shade of a well-cooked lobster. I instantly got angry with myself and felt like the worst dad ever.Any mistake, no matter how small, understandable, or human — can make a parent feel like they have failed their child.
You Will Love Your Child With the Intensity of a Thousand Suns
I already loved my boy before he even arrived. My heart began to fill the moment that I knew he was conceived. Nothing, though, could have made me truly understand the depths of the love that I would feel for him once he arrived.
Any expecting parent knows that they are going to love their child. I knew it would be special, but the bond that I felt the instant that I held him for the first time was like nothing that I could have ever imagined or that I could ever fully put into words. It was like waves of emotion that overwhelmed me and completely swallowed me. The tiny human that I held in my arms was a part of me, and a part of my wife. A perfect blend of two sets of genes that instantly mesmerized me and changed my life forever.
This one fact makes all of the points made above completely irrelevant. All of the sleepless nights, listening to seemingly endless cries, and all of the self-doubt is entirely worth it. So, for all of the expecting fathers out there: It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be stressed. You will sometimes (often) feel like you are in over your head and that you have no clue what you are doing. You’ll realize immediately that nothing else matters the first time you hold your child. Trust me.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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