Tips for an Expectant Father

[bytor4232]

As a successful father of two happy little girls, all I can say is to be there for them. You can't spoil a baby who is less than 6 months old. If they cry, pick them up, figure out why they are crying. This will inspire confidence and courage on their part, which is what they will need in the toddler years leading up to preschool. Sometime around six months old they WILL figure out that they can cry for attention, you need to learn to recognize that and let them cry THAT out. But you got half a year to work on that one, spoil the baby rotten for now.

Spend as much time as you can spare with your baby. Your hobbies are important, yes, but try to tackle them while the baby is sleeping. When she/he is awake, do your best to be there for them. Play with them, they are a ton of fun.

Also, don't forget about the wife. Happiness between mommy and daddy spill over into the babies attitude. They know when you aren't pleased with each other. Do some dishes, vaccum the floor (esp after the baby starts crawling it will need to be done every day), cook a meal, get intimate. The little things add up.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The first time the child is old enough to understand that fall down and cry means parents run up and give me a cookie (metaphorically speaking), they will milk it for all its worth. Children are inherently perspective and even if they can't tell right from wrong, they will figure out very quickly how to control you better than a mind flayer.

you know, people have been telling me this sort of thing since the Kahuna Meatball started crawling and at almost 3 he has still never lived up to it. If he falls and I gasp and say "are you OK?" but he's not hurt, he'll say "yes I'm fine". If he falls and I'm not as startled and say "oops" in a cheery voice, but he's hurt, he will cry. He has recently started using a pouty face at me in other circumstances, but I have yet to see evidence of him milking the sympathy, or responding differently to tumbles depending on who's looking and such.

As for the general theme of "overprotectiveness".... I'm of very mixed minds. On one hand, I'm sure there is some level of protectiveness I would consider too much. On the other hand, folks who say "oh let them do [dangerous thing X] they won't do it again" remind me that my mom grew up sans one aunt who as a toddler pulled a pan of boiling water down on herself and indeed didn't do it, or anything else, ever again. :\ Some level of rough and tumble is fine based on age level, but I'm not willing to risk my kid being the one who dies on behalf of a rose colored pining for the fire hardened generations past.... Having seen "overprotective" used to mean a dozen different levels of parenting, it's hard to agree that it bears any even passing relationship to abuse.

 

[bytor4232]

<Hijack>
My wife works and only has about two hours a day with Bug due to her schedule. When the wife (Le for purposes of EN) comes home she wants play, feed, change, and do all the things she can, she never pushes, she just steps in and does them, trying to get that connection going. She likes to give Bug a bottle and sit with her before bed time, but Bug usually ends up hitting her mom, slaps in a downward, that don't hurt, just aren't kind. This has been going on for a long time (she's 19 months). Le puts her to bed, some times in tears, sometimes angry ("I just want to sit with her like you do."). Ya, Bug will sit with me, and sleep on my chest but not Le's.

There is no violence in our house, and we try to avoid it on the TV while Bug is in the room. The doctors seem to think its just Bug's own frustration and love at her mom, and the books are no help on the subject.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?
<end hijack>

None of my children ever lashed out like this, but my parenting instincts tell me that 19 months is old enough for a child to learn the word "no". I think you need to attempt to reason with the child and tell them that hitting is not allowed. I know, easier said that done, but if you stay consistent I think you can pull it off.

Of course, I could be completely off. I've never had to deal with this type of behaviour before.

 

[Einan]

Learn how to swaddle the baby well. It calms them down quickly and that calms you down. Nothing is worse than a baby crying and you having no idea how to sooth it. There's a DVD by this slightly odd doctor called "The Happiest Baby on the Block." Get it now, watch it now and practice the techniques before the baby's here. It will save your sanity. Oh, a tip from my wife: for the first few months, tell your wife to sleep whenever the baby does. It will really play havoc on your sleep cycles, but it does get her some rest.

Good luck and remember: people have been having babies for millenia. Everything will be just fine.

Einan

 

[Chaldfont]

Here's some stuff we did:

Get as much sleep as possible before the baby comes. Its the last sleep you are going to get for WEEKS!

If mom is breastfeeding, give her tons of support. Its probably better outside the US, but here there is almost zero support for breastfeeding mothers--especially ones that work. She's gonna need a lot of support to keep doing it when things get tough.

Cook up a bunch of comfort food meals and stuff as many as you can in the freezer. Its really nice to be able to pull a casserole or lasagna out and nuke it up in the microwave when you are half awake and don't want to cook.

Despite being worn out from lack of sleep, really try to enjoy it. It won't seem like it at first, but it goes REALLY fast. It won't be long until you are looking at pictures and saying, "I can't believe the kid was that small!"

Read Weissbluth's book on sleep .

 

[Thunderfoot]

you know, people have been telling me this sort of thing since the Kahuna Meatball started crawling and at almost 3 he has still never lived up to it. If he falls and I gasp and say "are you OK?" but he's not hurt, he'll say "yes I'm fine". If he falls and I'm not as startled and say "oops" in a cheery voice, but he's hurt, he will cry. He has recently started using a pouty face at me in other circumstances, but I have yet to see evidence of him milking the sympathy, or responding differently to tumbles depending on who's looking and such.

As for the general theme of "overprotectiveness".... I'm of very mixed minds. On one hand, I'm sure there is some level of protectiveness I would consider too much. On the other hand, folks who say "oh let them do [dangerous thing X] they won't do it again" remind me that my mom grew up sans one aunt who as a toddler pulled a pan of boiling water down on herself and indeed didn't do it, or anything else, ever again. :\ Some level of rough and tumble is fine based on age level, but I'm not willing to risk my kid being the one who dies on behalf of a rose colored pining for the fire hardened generations past.... Having seen "overprotective" used to mean a dozen different levels of parenting, it's hard to agree that it bears any even passing relationship to abuse.

1st off let me say - you are one lucky parent. Very rarely do you get that kind of reaction - kudos for good fortune. (I believe someone said every kid is different and boy were they right.)

As for the over protectiveness, obviously you don't put your child in a basket of adders to tech them not to play with snakes, but as they get older, if you tell a child "no", "don't", "are you nuts?" enough times, eventually, you have to let them feel the pain to learn the lesson. Some kids are really good about listening to advice (my son for instance) others are not (my daughter). Boy learned "when mom & dad said no, it was because, for some reason, they knew better than I do"; girl on the other hand decided, "I don't care, this is more fun..owwie, owwie, owwie, owwie...." So, as all advice on this page, YMMV. Good luck with your angel mannered meatball.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Here's some stuff we did:

Get as much sleep as possible before the baby comes. Its the last sleep you are going to get for WEEKS!

If mom is breastfeeding, give her tons of support. Its probably better outside the US, but here there is almost zero support for breastfeeding mothers--especially ones that work. She's gonna need a lot of support to keep doing it when things get tough.

Cook up a bunch of comfort food meals and stuff as many as you can in the freezer. Its really nice to be able to pull a casserole or lasagna out and nuke it up in the microwave when you are half awake and don't want to cook.

Despite being worn out from lack of sleep, really try to enjoy it. It won't seem like it at first, but it goes REALLY fast. It won't be long until you are looking at pictures and saying, "I can't believe the kid was that small!"

Read Weissbluth's book on sleep .

Great advice! We had folks come over and help us out with the 'small stuff' like eating and cleaning the house for a couple of weeks. (I worked rotating shifts at the time so I was never home the same time twice.)

I remember for boy that he slept through the night when we brought him home (my wife kept waking me up to see if he was alright. ) Girl, however, took weeks to get on a regular schedule, and even that was tenuous for a while. BTW, don't blink, they'll be leaving for college faster than you realize.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Thanks for the advice so far everyone! It is all useful, even if I may not agree with all of it (although I do agree with almost all of what I have read).

Just to fill in a few more details for people. We are having the baby in a hospital. At the moment we are expecting that it will be a natural birth (the baby isn’t currently in the breach position).

I plan to take about 3 weeks off work after the baby is due. I will have about 5 weeks annual leave accrued by the time the baby is born, plus I get 3 days paid paternity leave. I may take those 3 days as extra leave on top of the 3 weeks, or I may make it 3 weeks all together and save 3 days of annual leave for when the baby is a couple of months older. We’ll just have to see how things go.

My wife does intend to breastfeed (I assume that it’s sometimes called nursing in the US). Our hospital, like most in Australia, is particularly supportive of breastfeeding.

As for where the baby sleeps to begin with, we plan initially to have it in a cradle/bassinette in our room. After a couple of months, when it is too big for the bassinette, we’ll move it into the cot in the nursery, which is the room next to our bedroom. I think that if we didn’t have the baby in our room to begin with my wife wouldn’t get any sleep as she’d be getting up to check that the baby was ok every 5 minutes. At least this way she has a little more piece of mind.

I am a bit of a night owl, while my wife is a morning person (although I imagine we’ll both become “sleep whenever you can” people in the first year!). That means that I can generally deal with the baby when it cries at night and she can look after it in the early mornings. Obviously, if we are breastfeeding I don’t have all the right equipment so I won’t be able to do everything but you get the idea.

I have done a bit of reading. My wife bought me a book about 6 months ago, So You’re Going To Be A Dad. It’s a pregnancy book, written by an Australian male for expectant Dads. It was light-hearted but informative at the same time. It filled in a lot of the blanks for me, as I knew very little about pregnancy and babies at that point.

My wife did a degree in Early Childhood Education at university and she’s a Kindergarten Teacher so we have a bit of an advantage over many new parents in the childhood development area. We’ll both be reading to the baby from the day that it’s born (babies like being read the Monster Manual right? ). Being a Kindergarten Teacher, my wife actually already has more children’s books than many children will ever have in their childhood!

We also had birthing classes at the hospital where they talked to us about the birthing process, the sorts of complications that can arise, and about dealing with the first few days after you take the baby home. They were also pretty useful, although they were very much unlike the classes you see on television where the women are laying down on beanbags, practicing their breathing with their husbands at their side. Are birthing classes actually like what you see on TV in the US, or elsewhere in the world for that matter?

We’re lucky in that both sets of parents live close to us (within a 25 minute drive) and have offered to give us whatever help we need. Even if we don’t use their help (which I’m certain we will!), it’s reassuring to know that they are there.

Overall, I feel that I’m reasonably well informed on the major issues but I am far from an expert. For example, I know not to have anything else in the crib with them when they sleep (including pillows). I also know to place them on their backs when you put them to sleep so as to reduce the chance of SIDS.

At the same time, I imagine that it all goes out the window once you actually have the baby at home with you. All the reading in the world still can’t prepare you for the real thing!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Oh, and as for gaming, we're taking a wait and see approach. My wife isn't a gamer but she understands that it's something that I like to do. Currently I run a fortnightly campaign at our house on a Wednesday night.

I'll be taking a few months off from gaming to see how we cope with the new baby. It may be a great baby that sleep through the night and has no major health or other problems. On the other hand, the baby may be a terrible sleeper that is unlucky enough to have every known health problem known to mankind. We'll just take it as it comes.

Provided we aren't totally overwhelmed with the baby, I might be able to start gaming again a couple of months after the birth. That may sound a bit selfish to some people but I think it will do me a lot of good to have a couple of hours break a fortnight. I think that my wife should do something similar to give herself a bit of a break but I can't see this happening (she normally feel lazy if she's relaxing ).

At the moment we play at our house but I don't know what we'll do after the baby is born. My gaming group doesn't know if we should still game at my house as they think we might get too noisy and wake the baby up. On the other hand, my wife has said that she would be more comfortable if I still gamed at home since I would be there if she needed me for anything. It'd be one less thing for her to worry about.

I'm undecided at this point. I have heard people say that babies need to get used to sleeping with background noise, and there will be two closed doors between where we game, and where the baby will be sleeping. At the same time, I don't think my wife will be too impressed if she finally gets the baby to sleep and it wakes up because we were too loud.

What have other people's experiences been in this situation? My gaming group is generally very considerate, however one of them can get a little loud at times (and he is aware of this), hence some apprehension on my group's part at still playing at our house after the baby is born.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

This next part is my very strong opinion:
Babies this young do not understand discipline or yelling. Also, they have no motor control. Sometimes things that they do which you may interpret as misbehaving is simply very bad motor control. Take a deep breath and realize that.
I want to emphasize the fact that babies this young (up to about a year - you'll know) cannot be disciplined. There is no right or wrong to them. Many people cannot fathom the blank slate that babies are. They won't make the connection between daddy hitting them and them trying to put their fingers in the sockets. If they do something wrong, tell them, shake your head and remove them from the object of wrongness. Do not administer punishment - they won't get it.

You have nothing to worry about here. I won't be yelling at my newborn baby to try and discipline it. I really doubt how anyone could think that yelling at a newborn baby actually do anything but upset the baby. I just don't think it has the capacity to understand that it has done something wrong at that age. (This is of course the international internet signal call for someone to post that I am totally wrong and give me 15 reasons why I am wrong! )

Money:
Simplest is best. We wasted a lot of money on the best "this and that". Very often the simplest things are best. Forget baby electronics as well. It just costs more and babies don't notice it. Look at the recent toy recall - all fancy plastic toys. Our girl's favourite toy are wooden blocks - WOODEN BLOCKS! They cost a few dollars.

Same with strollers and car seats.
If you're like me though you'll likely ignore this advice and spend money on the best only to realize later that most expensive is not the best.

We're not getting things just because they are the most expensive. We chose one of the most expensive car seats on the market, but that was simply because it had the best safety features. If it costs more but will protect the baby a little more in a car accident then I'm happy to spend the extra dollars.

At the same time we are hiring a car capsule (they offer more protection to newborn babies than car seats). I have chose the cheaper one to hire as, while it doesn't look as nice or as fancy, it give the baby better protection. Safety first for me.

Olaf the Stout