Adam and Tiffy

We have a few friends who are either having babies soon, have already had babies, or are thinking about having babies. I try not to give unsolicited advice, and sometimes I fail. I thought I’d put together this list of tips for new fathers, in particular, who may be concerned about their new impending parental responsibilities. Then I will have given the advice only once (for efficiency) and free of solicitation (because they don’t have to read it if they don’t want to). It is meant to be taken only partially seriously.

This covers the introductory period, or the first 30-90 days, not really counting time in the hospital, which is a blur for many. No warranty is expressed or implied. How applicable this is depends on your competence, fortitude, stress management ability, and health of your family. There’s much more that could be said on these and related topics, and these are just highlights. Much of it is not new information, but if it helps someone to prepare, it was worth setting down.

Here we go with my Advice for New Fathers:

Sleep:

• Babies sleep when they sleep, and they’re awake when they’re awake. Their schedule is your schedule. At first, they sleep and wake in short bursts. Their waking time and sleeping time will elongate. Swaddling helps some (look into a “Miracle Blanket”), as does white noise and darkness.
• You should sleep when the baby sleeps. You are not going to listen to this advice. No one does. I just want to be on record.
• Complaining about a lack of sleep makes it worse and makes you seem weak. There’s a Delta Force trooper who’s been awake 48 hours somewhere in the world up to his neck in leech infested water waiting with deadly purpose to take out a terrorist. You are not that guy. Keep it together.

Crying:

• First, now you know how we feel whenever you complain about the bad performance of [insert your favorite sports team], the great performance of [insert your brother's favorite sports team], how you’re not appreciated by [your spouse/your boss/your bookie], or some trivial regret from your past. Payback.
• Babies can’t “cry it out” for the first few months of life unless they are super babies. Very young babies communicate by crying. Your brain is large and you should be able to use it to figure out if a baby is crying due to hunger, fatigue, filth, or loneliness. Then handle it.
• You will become habituated to a certain level of crying, especially if it comes from your own kid. At first, it will stress you out enough to increase the degree of urgency with which you handle problems. Later, you will feel the urgency with a little less of the stress. That doesn’t mean you should take your time. It will be quite awhile before you can teach your baby something as abstract as patience.
• Sometimes you just need to rock babies and keep things moving for awhile to settle them down. They’re used to that from the womb. That’s right. Do your best to impersonate a womb. Try making low volume whooshing noises.

Clothing:

• Before you go out of the house, you are expected to dress your baby, especially a baby girl, in “outfits.” Slapping on a (clean) diaper and a onesie and shouting “Good to go!” doesn’t count unless you want to be looked at askance by every woman you meet. (She’s thinking, “Oh, his poor wife!”) That means you need little pants and a shirt and socks at least. If you are blessed with a baby girl, the shirt may turn into a blouse, but pretend it’s a shirt; you’re going to have to clamp down on the part of you deep inside that’s unfamiliar and even afraid of this and press on. There are bonus points for the following: a cute, drool-catching bib, a hat, sunglasses, socks that are designed to look like little shoes, or a hair bow (mostly for girls). Did I say those were bonuses? God help you if you forget the hair bow, dead man.
• Your bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived state may make it challenging to match up outfits first thing in the morning, or during a hasty clothing change necessitated by what we’ll refer to as an “incident.” If you’re like Tim Gunn for tiny set, have at it and make it work. If you’re like the rest of us, I suggest you retain the services of some qualified personnel who can pre-bundle acceptable components into outfits you can grab from the drawer. Ideally, you already live with this person and can solicit assistance periodically following laundry day.
• There is no more laundry day. It’s now laundry days. The sooner you get used to that idea, the sooner you’ll see your floor again.
• Kids’ clothes are smaller than yours. You will sometimes think this is cute. It is now culturally acceptable to say so. You will sometimes try to rend a small garment into tinier pieces because it shrank quickly or it’s troublesome to fold. Good quality clothes make this difficult.
• Baby clothes may have many snaps. You will miss one of these snaps every third day and have to start over with redressing the baby. Figure out if you’re a “bottom up” or “top down” snapper and if your accuracy improves with one method over another. Then stick to it.

Feeding:

• If you’re helping feed baby, and you should, keep a burp cloth handy. Baby table manners are atrocious.
• Don’t put on your nice shirt until about 30 seconds before you leave the house.
• If you use bottles, always have a spare ready. Depleted your spare? Prep another one at the first opportunity.
• Burp that baby. I mean it. Insufficient burping has caused a lot of suffering in the world. Experiment with positioning your baby seated on your knee and lightly bouncing up and down, or going over the shoulder and patting. Try to keep external pressure off an abdomen that’s full of gas. Seriously, how would you feel?

Handling:

• In the first few months of life, you cannot hold your baby too much.
• Babies are less fragile than you think. Don’t pass them like footballs, but you don’t have to treat them like they’re made of glass. If you do, it will take you 30 minutes to get them dressed.
• Remember to support the head. Babies have thin necks and relatively giant heads. Think of it as a bowling ball on top of a broomstick. This isn’t a vaudeville show. No spinning.
• You don’t always have to carry babies in a cradled position. Try over the shoulder, or seated Buddha-style with their backs against your chest and your arm under their legs. (Do your best impersonation of Quato from “Total Recall.”) Or bend your arm across your chest and have the baby lie down as if it’s a panther resting on a jungle tree branch.

Taking Care of You:

• Why you self-centered, arrogant, jerk! This isn’t about you! Get over that selfish !@#$% right now and man up! You’d better pull your weight or prepare to feel the burden of shame from all mankind that you deserve! Why I ought to ….
• You are allowed to give up shaving for the first 30 days following the birth of your child. Any more than that is self-indulgent.
• In addition to sleeping when the baby sleeps, you should shower when the baby sleeps. I guess that means you should sleep in the shower. Efficiency!
• Before you go out of the house, you are expected to dress yourself. The best training for this, prior to your due date, is to remember the mantra “Am I wearing pants?” and say it every time you grab the door knob as you exit. (If you’re entering, it’s already too late.)
• If you really have your act together, you’ll keep cleaning supplies and spare clothes for yourself, your spouse, and your baby in the trunk of your car. Stuff, um, happens.
• Mornings with an extra little person to dress and feed can be challenging. Do yourself some favors. Pack your lunch the night before. Actually, if you could eat your breakfast the night before, that really helps to streamline. And for the love of all that is holy, prepare and program the coffee maker the night before and set it to go off about 30 minutes before you plan to get up. You’ll be awake anyway.

As I wrap this up, I realize I could have spent much more time on advice for fathers on feeding, diapering, bathing, preparing for adventures out of the house, strollers, and other things. Maybe someday I will when there’s more time. Or maybe I’ll just wait and give it as unsolicited verbal advice.