Hello dads,
I’ll be a dad myself shortly, and it’s entirely planned, we discussed the idea and then worked towards making it happen. My wife is over the moon and loving the whole process and I’m struggling to see it as a positive change. All I’m seeing is more bills and tasks.
I want to be excited and enthusiastic during the pregnancy (and of course afterwards) but I’m struggling to see this as a positive change for our next - at least - 5 years.
It’s causing some stress between my wife and I, when really I’d much prefer we were bonding now in preparation for the stress our relationship is going to need to endure after the baby arrives.
I guess this is partly just venting, I feel like anyone I know that I might say this to, would think I’m a bad person considering it was entirely planned and now I’m not feeling it after its too late to undo, but if anyone has some ideas on how I can focus more on the positives (I do see them… watching their personality growing, seeing the world from their fresh perspective, a sense of investment in the future, etc. I just struggle to focus on them) of this and less on the incoming bills and sleepless night and relationship stress, so my wife and I can bond, it’d mean a lot to me.
I’m also concerned that I’m seeing the baby as a problem instead of a… Source of joy? and that this might mean I don’t really have a natural parental instinct, so I won’t love it like I should, but instead see it as a series of chores and costs and problems.
Good, that means you’re thinking about it.
I’ll just lay it out… Having a kid is both the absolute best thing that will ever happen to you… And it’s also the absolute worst.
That is just something you’ll figure out once the baby is born. I was told the above, before I had even met my wife, but didn’t understand it till I held my first born for the very first time.
It’s almost 18 years later, but that feeling I had when I held my first born son for the very first time… Looking him over, getting to know him and then suddenly the strongest, most palpable feeling I had ever felt in my life suddenly consumed me…
“What the absolute fuck did we just do.”
The main thing you need to keep in mind is your wife needs you. She needs to know you are by her side and ready to do what you need to do.
What is it you need to do?
Clean the house, cook food, do the grocery shopping, go get her pickle flavored ice cream at 3am. Learn how to change diapers, how to feed a baby. Did you learn the 5 S’s? You don’t know what the 5 S’s is? She needs to know she’s not in this alone. That is your job. So that she can concentrate on getting this growing parasite out of her body and that you’re going to be there to help her when she needs it.
If she is going to breast feed, learn everything you can about it. You might be able to offer her an outside perspective if she’s having trouble. Bonus, you get to stare at her breasts. My wife had a horrific time with our first born. So I sat down and read everything I could find on breast feeding and started a dialog with her lactation consultant. It was one of the over night feeds and she just could not get him to latch. She was tired out of her mind and had him at a bad angle and he could figure out what he needed to do. So I put one hand under him, another on her breast and guided the two together and stayed there till my wife realized what I was doing and took over. I got to touch her breast and she thanked me for it. She found it a lot easier to get him to latch after that.
Become a diaper changing machine. I have personally changed a diaper on the floor of a too small restroom in a chic restaurant in NYC. In the trunk of a car. In the middle of a field while out on a hike. Changed up the diaper bag as I gained experience to make diaper changes more efficient.
The worst was at 8 weeks of age our oldest had to undergo neurosurgery for tethered spinal cord (Spina Bifida Occulta). He had a clear surgical bandage that ran up his entire back. He had diarrhea and it went ALL THE FUCKING WAY up the surgical site under the bandage. I had to use water, q-tips, and cotton balls for almost 30 minutes to clean his sutures. Fortunately, the little tyke feel asleep and there was not an infection.
Dude, I could jump from an airplane and change a fucking diaper in free fall at this point. (I’m a former skydiver).
You’ll be the same way in a few months. Just be patient with her and most of all be patient with yourself.
Oh and sleep? Yeah, that’s not a thing for a parent with a newborn. But you will do it because you have to. You’ll later look upon that time with… some emotion or another. It’s been nearly 18 years for me and when I look back I feel almost everything about it.
Welcome to the club. We do NOT have jackets… Just dark bags under our eyes and an ever present feeling of exhaustion, but it’s great at the same time.
Thanks very much for the reply. My son is here now and very healthy. I wouldn’t personally say I felt anything profound the first or 50th time that I held him, but I am used to him being around now. And in general it’s all been a lot less stressful than I had expected, which is great, we’re both getting plenty of sleep so far, and he seems generally quite chilled out.
I love him, but more in a “I am responsible for you” sort of way at the moment. I’m assuming the real deep bonded love comes later, when we can interact more meaningfully.
I am looking forward to watching cartoons, reading books and playing games together, but obviously that all comes a lot later on.