Mind sharing any piece of advice that you felt particularly useful? Thank you in advance. I’m so excited!
Father of a 2.5 yr old here … Have a few friends who just had kids as well… I told them the same shpiel
- The next few months will be the toughest thing you ever go through (comparable to back to back all nighters in college, but this time it’s for a few months)… Esp if you’re working and don’t have good paternity leave. But after you get over that hump. … It gets a lot better and now you’re in the club where everyone knows what you went through because they’ve been through it too.
- If your/your partners parents are in the picture and offer to babysit. Take up the offer. Go have a date night with your partner… It’ll relieve a lot of stress
- If you live in a decent area, go for walks with the little one as often as you can. (in a bassinet/stroller obviously)
- If you’re in a western country… If you ever feel like you’re doing too little, the littlest amount of effort on your part gets much more props than the amount of effort. Just being there for your new kid and changing every 10th diaper is doing better than 60% of dads out there.
- Everyone, and I mean everyone, has amnesia about the next 6ish months. They’ll say things like “why are you so tired? I don’t understand!” Or “it wasn’t that bad when we had kids”… It was. They just blocked it out
- When the kid gets off milk, any spices yall use usually in cooking. Or just generally like that aren’t spicy. Expose it to them ASAP. It does wonders for their pallet and they’ll be less picky in a few years
- Both you and your partner are stressed. You will fight and hate each other. Don’t make any big life decisions for the next few months.
Hope this helps… Enjoy the journey.
Completely agree on all of these. Especially #5. Even your spouse will forget they ever insisted “Never again. No more kids.”
Lovely advice and spot on about the first few months.
My 11 month old likes spicy things. I also remember from the time I spent in India that their babies eat spicy curries and love it. So you don’t need to avoid spice completely, just start slow and gauge their reaction.
Yeah. IMHO Spicy is always a weird one and should be treaded carefully. But spiced is a must.
Rereading this a few days later, a few items come to mind
2a. Date night doesn’t have to be fancy. A nice walk in a nearby park, or just a night where you can sleep/chill/watch TV together does the same as a nice dinner/drinks out on the town (and doesn’t require you to dress up). The point is that you do something non-baby related TOGETHER.
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You’re going to get tons of advice on how to raise the kid. The only piece of advice you need is this. When you get the advice, thank the person. Run it through your personal filter. If you like it, talk it through with your partner and decide if you both like it and help to implement it.
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You don’t know them now, but you’ll learn the “I’m hungry” vs “I’m tired” vs “I have a full diaper” cries soon. It’s ok if it takes a while.
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I will NEVER forget point 5.
Congratulations! If that kid is asleep you should be too, at least for the first few years.
I’m really sorry, but I hate this advice. If I’m sleeping when my baby is, when am I doing the laundry? having a shower? relaxing and watching TV with my wife? ect.
That’s the neat part, you don’t!
Agreed, “sleep when the baby sleeps” is the advice we got the most, but doesn’t really hold water.
With our first, my partner and I took turns napping or doing chores while the other was on baby duty. When the second came along, that advice was a joke, it was more like one parent per child and shower after the older one goes to sleep.
Seasonal info:
Santa Claus uses different wrapping paper then Mom and Dad use. He buys the good stuff, but after the holidays when it’s marked down. He stores it in the attic where only he can find it.
Until a certain point, at least my kid doesn’t notice this subtlety…
We are a certified Santa drop off depot. Elves leave packages disguised as Amazon boxes that we store for Santa to pick up and deliver Christmas Eve easing the load on his back, and the reindeer.
So the basement laundry room becomes off limits during the season.
…or like in my house, Santa doesn’t even bother to wrap.
You may have ideas in mind about what kind of person they’ll be, in terms of interests, personality, etc. This can be really strong because it may come from deep subconscious wants, and you may not even realize it, but it’ll come out in your behavior. Nudging toward this activity, away from this one - that kind of thing. Be really careful with this - your kid will tell you who they are, and it can be super damaging if you don’t listen.
You can shape values, and you can show them your enthusiasm for what you think is cool, but stop short of trying to shape what they like and who they are. Accept and get excited about the things they’re into and they’ll always want to share with you and keep you involved as they get older. Enthusiasm and passion are so much more important and useful in life than liking this thing over that thing, but it can be hard to let go of your implicit ideas about their future personality.
We very much expected kind of a tomboy-ish, or at least mixed interest girl. Rough and tumble, daredevil, etc. Not at all - she is the most classically feminine, pink-loving, only-interested-in-dolls little kid you can imagine.
Around my household, our phrase was “Sleep when the baby sleeps. Work when the baby works.”
Fucking baby never worked. j/k around
Yeah, babies are notoriously lazy.
If/when your kid gets sick (like with a cold/cough), there’s very little that you can do. Most common medicines aren’t approved for kids under 2. Consider buying a decent humidifier which can at least help keep their mucus more liquidity and help their breathing at night.
Every kid has different challenges that will really push to your limit at some point. Some kids have difficulty sleeping, some have difficulty eating, some have speech delays, some have gross motor delays, etc. You don’t always know what your kid’s particular difficulties will be but just keep working at it and do your best.
Start reading and singing to your kid as soon as their born. It’s a great bonding activity and it’s great for their brain/language development. You don’t need a ton of books, you don’t need to know a ton of kids songs, just do whatever you can.
Check out your local library (if there is one). There’s usually lots of programming for young kids. They don’t just have books, but sometimes also toys and other activities that you can check out. It’s also a good place to meet and socialize with other parents.
The one thing I recall is finding useful for sick babies was the snot sucker or whatever they’re called. Looks a bit like a turkey baster and it helps clear their nose before they learn to blow.
Keeping your newborn baby alive is actually really easy.
Keeping yourself and your SO sane through the massive additional work under a massive sleep deficit is hard.
It DOES get easier though. Eventually.
It DOES get easier though. Eventually.
Definitely. Once we dropped the last one off at college, it got a lot easier.
When they’re crying they need something. Sometimes it’s the obvious stuff: diaper, food, sleep. Sometimes it’s not: feeling of safety/security, need a specific stuffie, over stimulated, confused, need to be held. That’s ok, and none of it means you’re a bad parent.
The crying will wear you down, but you will get better at guessing their needs. It’s still very hard.
Remember, sometimes you need to take care of yourself before you can care for your kid properly. Eat and nap when you can. Shower if you can.
Congrats!
When times get hard, and you feel like you might never be well-rested again, remember that kid will eventually smile, and then laugh, and then walk, and then tell you they love you. Enjoy the journey as much as you can!
You will probably discover that you can’t do as much as you once did. You don’t have enough time and/or you don’t have as much energy. Don’t sweat it. It doesn’t matter. No one is judging you but you, so you can choose not to. Make decisions about what matters, and do those things.
Take care of your health. It’s too easy to ignore your own health, but it’s like putting your own oxygen mask on before you put your kid’s mask on. You need to make sure you’re in the best shape you can be so that you can be there for them.
No two kids are the same. Any specific advice anyone gives should be interpreted as “this worked for me, you will most definitely have different results”.
It will feel like you’re being pushed to your limit because you are. It’s a tempering process. Every day, everything you do will make you stronger.
You will make mistakes. Massive, horrifying mistakes. They will eat at you for years. Let it go. Make sure your kids know you love them. They’ll figure out you weren’t perfect on their own. If they were loved, they’ll forgive you for your mistakes.
I strongly recommend you take that last bit of advice and let it go. If you succeed, let me know how you did it.
Someone else said it but I’m going to say it again because it’s a big deal. Read to your child every day. Seriously. Start super super early. Point to words as you are reading them.
Reading is the gateway to most other knowledge and the sooner you start and more of it you do, it makes a big difference. Some studies in the past (citation needed) have shown a link between the number of books around a child’s home and their intelligence.
i have a 3.5 year old, weve been reading to her since she could keep her eyes open. she begs for more books every night, and most afternoons. she knows the words to a lot of them by heart, but repetition, at least in the early days, is great for language development.
Take pictures. They’ll never be that age again.
And videos. And make sure they’re all backed up. We also had a professional take pictures of our kids when they were babies, highly recommended. Those are some of my favorite pictures of all time.
If you need a minute, put them down somewhere safe, and take that minute. Sometimes the crying gets to you, and that’s OK too.
I second this. “Self soothing” is an incredibly important, yet often criminally underrated, skill. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin to hear my kids crying, but if they are in a timeout or it’s simply bedtime, I have to hold my ground and let them “cry it out”.
I hate it so much.
Single father to a teen here.
Skin to skin contact. It’s a great way to bond with your baby. Take your shirt off and hold them. Talk and sing to them.
Make sure you have plenty of diapers and wipes but don’t buy too much of one size at one time. They grow fast! Also, learn what a blowout is if you don’t know already.
Be ready for messes. On you, them, everywhere!
Take lots of photos and document milestones, silly moments, 1sts etc.
Be patient. There will be rough patches through their life but it’s nothing you can’t get through.
Keep up on Dr’s visits and write a list of questions and concerns that aren’t immediate so you don’t forget.
Check out https://imaginationlibrary.com/ . Dolly Parton started this and they provide educational books from birth to 5 years old, free of charge.
These are ‘later in life’ things but useful nonetheless!
Take interest in anything they’re interested in, even if they’ve already shown you 100 times before.
Always be honest and direct when asked questions because there will be a lot of questions. Some awkward, some silly, some that you may not know and will have to search for.
Teach them to communicate their feelings and how to deal with those feelings.
Teach them life skills early, such as cooking, cleaning etc
Yeah single dads! Full custody here. We still cuddle so much, and I’ll sometimes wonder, “should we still be doing skin to skin bc we’re laying around anyway?” but I know I’m just missing the baby days
The first few months are the hardest. You will be worn down, with very few happy moments to reward you, but it gets better each month. Nobody joins the army to go to boot camp. Mine is a little over a year old and while we still have some challenges and minor developmental delays, things are actually getting fun at times.
