In this episode of the Papa est Fatigué podcast, Jim and Dave give advice for expectant father; everything from the months before your child is born, what to do in the hospital, and how to prepare for returning home.  

During this episode we’ll discuss:

• How to prepare in the months leading up to your child’s birth

• What to do in the hospital

• How to prepare for returning home with your newborn

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

• 5 Expert Tips on the Correct Way to Install a Child Car Seat

• Pix-Star photo frame

• Podcast: The expectant father: sleep edition

• Podcast: How our kids are interacting with their grandparents during COVID

If you like what you heard, please consider subscribing, writing a review, and sharing the podcast on social media.

Transcript

Podcast: Today's episode is all about our tips for preparing for your first child, from the months before delivery to being in the hospital and finally those first few weeks at home with a newborn.

Dave: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Papa est Fatigué podcast, the podcast for dads by dads. I recently got on Reddit and I've been following a lot of the parenting subreddits. One topic seems to come up all the time, expecting parents who are looking for advice. Today's episode is the advice for new parents episode. Jim and I will be providing advice on what to do in the months leading up to the delivery, what to do in the hospital, and what to do when you get home.

Before we get started, here's a little bit about us. I'm Dave, I'm a father of two I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. 

Jim: I'm Jim. I have two daughters, seven and five. 

Dave: For this first section, we thought it would make the most sense to discuss primarily the things that happen in the last trimester. There's not really a ton of things to be doing in the first and second trimesters other than, at least my case, looking up remedies for morning sickness which, by the way, nothing worked for us. With that being said, Jim, why don't you kick us off and talk a little bit about your experience in that first-time pregnancy and some of the advice that you might have for people.

Jim: I agree. The first and second trimester, there's not a lot or there wasn't a lot for me to do as the Dad. I'm sure that we got a nursery organized, we got the crib. I probably put that together, but it wasn't really until the third trimester where my role became more logistics. In the first and second trimester, I was supporting my wife and her pregnancy and trying to do what I could to be helpful to her, help her be comfortable, and comfort her in many ways.

It was the third trimester where I had to put the logistics together, figure out the route to the hospital. We did a couple of test runs, we packed go-bags, and I had an overnight bag and some things to kill time, iPads, books, and things like that. My wife's go-bag was considerably bigger. She had to talk to her other moms and she had just about everything that you could imagine, things that she might want, comfortable blankets, slipper socks, a portable fan, speakers, so she could play music. Anything that she had heard about that was going to make her experience better or easier, we got all that stuff together. Like I said, we did a test run and probably, at least once to the hospital. Like I said, it was about logistics. My part, it was about logistics in the third semester.

Dave: For me, I think there are, actually, so while I said there's not a ton to do in the first and second trimester, I will say one thing that we did do was we took a birth class, which was recommended through our OB, and the class was given through them. It's super educational, certainly, in your first go around and I would say beyond just kind of understanding what's happening biologically, and how it's all working out, I think there were two things in particular that I took away from that class that I think very important.

The first one was, the person who taught the class said, "One of the things is you are learning to be a parent, but you will also have to teach your parents how to become parents now." You were born whatever, 20, 30, 40 years ago, things were very different in terms of how our parents were taught to handle the kids. I think one thing, in particular, they talked about was SIDS, like what was allowed in a crib back then when we were all kids versus how we treat things today.

Learning to parent, and also getting on the same page with your parents as to what you expect. In our case, my parents were great. They're like, "Look, this is your kid. Let us know how you want to do things and if you see that we're doing things that you don't agree with, let us know. At the end of the day, we have our own thoughts as grandparents, but this is your child and we will listen to what you have to say about how you want to raise that child. 

We really appreciated that level of support. That was never an issue, but it was certainly something that was eye-opening to us to think, "Oh, yes, I guess when we were born, things were different for our parents and how we were raised." My mom tells a story about-- My parents had a Spitfire so it's a convertible two-seater. When they brought me home from the hospital, they didn't bring me home in a car seat. My mom just held me in her arms in the front seat of this convertible car in Hawaii. Really different things these days.

The next tip that I would have dovetails, actually, with my story about coming home from the hospital. Without a car seat, in my mom's arms, I would highly suggest you get your car seat early and get it installed and inspected. I did a lot of research on car seats to the point where I actually purchased eight car seats and fitted them all into the car to figure out which one was the best. You're reading all the reviews and the consumer reports.

A lot of it came down to the fact that even if you're using the latch system which doesn't rely on seatbelts, it still can be difficult, I think, to get a nice snug fit to your car seat base. That was one thing I was looking at. We also got a Diono car seat, but at the time, I had a Jetta, which is not a huge car but it's not necessarily a small car either. I'm a small guy but when you turn that car seat around, since we were rear facing, it wouldn't fit behind the driver's side. That's why I got a ton of different car seats.

You really want to make sure that you have that car seat in there and to have the time to really get it installed and properly have it checked. I actually just alluded to the first error that I made. Despite the fact that you might be extremely handy and capable and smart, the Journal of Pediatrics says that 95% of infant car seats have at least one major installation error. That's why, not only do you install it, but you want to get it checked by somebody who knows what they're doing.

My installation error was, as it turns out, when you have side air impact bags in the rear of the car, you put your car seat in the middle. The mistake that I made was I put it behind the passenger side, which my thinking was, "Well, that's the safer side of the car, that's the side that abuts the sidewalk, that's good for everybody." In fact, you're not supposed to put it behind either the driver or the passenger if you have side air impact bags, assuming that you get a good fit. That was my major error.

The other mistake that I made was when I put the buckles together. There's basically support that goes across your chest and that's supposed to go underneath the infant's armpits and when I put it up, I actually just put it up underneath. I put it together effectively at the stomach level, which if you're in a car got accident, your kid's basically going to be restrained at the stomach, which is not really what you want to do.

That was something that I thought was quite eye-opening. You really want to get that thing inspected. The fire departments, police departments, AAA, they have free inspection services, but you do want to make sure that you get those things done in advance. When I did it, I think the earliest opening was six weeks from when I tried to book it. Just because you're ready, doesn't mean that there's a slot available or that they even do it once a week. In this case, I think they only did it every six weeks. Then there's a line to get in, so you really want to make sure you've got that out of the way.

Jim: We ended up going to a kid's store. There was a baby supply store and one of the clerks there came out and take a look at it. I think that place is now closed and I don't know if those sorts of stores exist.

Dave: The other things that we looked at was planning out your food situation. This is in hindsight. We did not plan out our food situation too much. What I had done was I'm the cook in the house but I figured, "Well, it's going to be stressful," so I bought a few frozen food dishes just in the short term as bridge gaps. What I didn't realize was, how tired you really are at the beginning. I figured, I was reading a book, toddlers sleep 11 to 14 hours a day. That gives me more than enough time to get stuff done, right?

Here's the ignorant me figuring, "Oh, yes." It's more naive than anything. Like, "Oh, we got plenty of time." Even I had taken time off of work, so I'm like, "This is great. I'll be able to do a bunch of stuff. I don't understand why babies are so difficult." Of course, they don't sleep continuously for 11 to 14 hours. It's maybe 20 minutes here and 30 minutes there, and everybody's trying to get stuff done or sleep during those times. You're not going to have any free time.

I would say that, if you can, if you have the ability, sign-up for one of these delivery services, or stock up on frozen foods. If nothing else, potentially, you might want to get some disposable dishware because, again, that's just another thing. If you're cooking, you've got the pots and the pans, which sometimes can't go in the dishwasher. Now, you've got the dishes. Think that thing through because, in as much as you can avoid cooking or cooking too much, I think will really help alleviate just some of the zombie-tired stuff that happens when you're sleep-deprived and you just don't have any time. Another thing that we did was-- Even if you plan on breastfeeding, get a few baby bottles, just in case.

Jim: Right, get that figured out and it's done.

Dave: Yes, because we had- and I'll get into this a little bit later on- but we had some difficulties with breastfeeding. You really want to be prepared for that eventuality. Again, here's another situation where I probably went overboard but I had read that well, all nipples are all a little bit different and some kids take to certain brands better than others. I believe I had five different bottles from five different manufacturers to figure out, "Well, these are all different nipples and maybe the kid won't like it."

At the end of the day, the kid drank from all of them, so it really didn't matter but that was the level of detail that I went into. Be ready with that because things don't always go to plan, so at least that way you're not stressing, bringing the kid home and then it's sick- I mean not sick, but everyone's tired and they're not eating, and now you have to figure out a bottle, and you have to go run out to the store, and meanwhile, the kid’s crying. You just avoid all that stuff by having a little bit of prep in advance.

Also, I would discuss how you're going to handle the nighttime routine at home. Who's going to be responsible for what? Jim and I, we've just done a podcast on sleep and sleep deprivation. There was a study that just came out recently that said that parents will not get back to their pre-baby sleep patterns for six years after they have that child. This is your last time to get some sleep in [laughs].

With that being said, I think in as much as you can help plan out how the sleep is going to go when you get back home, before it happens is good. Everyone's situation is obviously different. I was at home full time. The way that we handled it was my job was to wake up, and when the baby cried, wake up, check the diaper and then hand her off to my wife for breastfeeding.

Even if you're breastfeeding, you as a father can still play a role. I think, at least, share in that process and alleviate maybe some of the strain on the mother if she's breastfeeding. At least, everybody feels like they're engaged in the process of, at least, you "suffer at the same time by getting up." That should be, I think, the job there. The other thing that I would look at is getting a sleep sack. You'll learn quickly what swaddling is and how to do it, but certainly, at the beginning, it's tough.

If you don't know what a sleep sack is, think of it as a baby version of a cross between a straightjacket and a sleeping bag. You should zip them in, and you can actually secure their arms so that they can't move. Some babies prefer that. That's effectively what the swaddling process is. Those things were indispensable for us when we were starting to go.

The next thing is discussing how you want the delivery to go in advance. This is a little bit less about what the birthing plan is and a little bit more about the things that are within your control, because you don't always really control the birthing plan. You have a sense of what you'd like to do, but they always say that keep those really flexible. Here, I'm talking a little bit more about things that you absolutely can control. For instance, I really wanted to have a little bit of alone time, the three of us before we invited the parents to come in. I made that clear to everybody, and my wife was on board.

We told our parents, "Look, when the kid's born, we're going to take a half-hour, just the three of us to take it all in." I mean, it's a really new process. This will allow us just to give us that little bit of a heartbeat, where it's just the three of us, and there's nothing else. That was important to me.

Here's another example. I realized, after we got home, I was like, "Hey, I didn't get to cut the cord." That may or may not be important to you, it wasn't super important to me but that's what they always show right in the TV show. That's the dad's thing to do. I was like, "Oh, yes, I missed out on that." Again, I don't regret it, because it wasn't something that I really had my heart set on but if that is something that you really want to do, make sure that people know about that. Tell your doctor. Don't just hope it comes up because it might not.

In the moment, you're going to forget about everything. If you tell the doctor, they're going to have the presence of mind a lot better, because they've done this multiple times, to remember, hopefully, some of the things that you wanted. Just make sure that people know about that stuff in advance would be my recommendation.

I guess the last thing that I have as it relates to that pre-process is if your parents live far away, or if they're sheltering during COVID, get them a digital photo frame. This is another thing that we discussed in the episode about how our children are dealing with their grandparents and I purchased the digital frame. What I liked about it is I am able to control the photos. I can either configure it to work with my Google Photos, or you can often send photos by email. What a great way to have your parents engaged in the process where the baby's just born, you take that picture, and you can email it, and instantly they can see it.

Get that frame in advance, go ahead and configure it, send it out to them. They just have to stick it on their Wi-Fi network, and they can share in the process of what's happening in as much as you can, given the constraints that we certainly have these days. I think that was a lot of stuff at the beginning but I think those were really things that I wish I had either known in advance or certainly, things that we would have done moving forward.

Jim: One of the themes that I'm picking up, and it's maybe worth stating explicitly is, I do some other activities, and it's certainly in medicine, it's a practice where there are checklists.

There are checklists that you follow and you pre-plan. Then when you're in that moment, and it's stressful, all you got to do is follow the checklist. If you are trying to make decisions in that moment-- I mean, I was sleep-deprived, we've been all been up all night with labor. It's exciting. It's something that never happened so having that pre-planning and that checklist and those agreements ahead of time was really key for us as far as getting through from natural birth to when we got home.

That first week, when you're talking about having that agreement about, and we did something very similar. I would take her, change diapers, get her ready, take her back to her mom for breastfeeding, and then afterward, I would burp her and walk around the apartment until she would fall asleep again. That worked but that was something that we agreed upon ahead of time. If we hadn't, who knows, every time would have been different then it would have been stressful in a different way.

Dave: Let's talk now, Jim, a little bit about any advice that we have for people about what to do in the hospital?

Jim: Yes, you mentioned the parents. I don't think our parents came till at least half a day or maybe even the next day. I can't remember why but I agree that time with just the three of us was really important. One of the things that I hadn't heard about, and that ended up being very important, was the dad's skin-to-skin bonding with the baby. I don't know what the physiology is but it was certainly something that was enjoyable for me. I feel it was a great experience. I'd like to recommend that to everyone else. It seems like something that was important at that time.

Strangely, in the hospital, I was super careful about the security protocols, because that had never occurred to me that there would be some infant napping going on in the hospital. They had really good protocols with the bracelets and matching the IDs. Every time they brought her back in, we could see, the numbers match and all that, and it's hard to-- I want to believe I would recognize if the baby is changed but I'm not exactly sure.

[laughter]

Jim: They all look the same at that time. I paid attention to that. Afterwards, like I said, after about half a day or a day, and then we had people come to visit. They were very short visits, it's similar. Well, it is being in a hospital, and the "patient" has got some other demands so we kept those visits pretty short. Again, that was something that we pre-arranged and had discussed with the parents.

Dave: Yes. I think there's not a ton about being in the hospital, because a lot of that is really just, there's so much new stuff that you're just trying to take it all in. I think that's one thing is just be prepared for that. I will say, though, that when we went in, my wife was very clear when we were given the option about sleeping with our daughter or not. She said, "Put her in the nursery. I need to recover. Starting in whatever, 48 hours from now, there's no putting her in a nursery."

I just want to say that it's okay, you're not a bad parent if you do that. People need a little bit of time, certainly. If your wife needs a little bit of time to recover from the pregnancy and just wants a little bit of quiet time, that doesn't mean that the child is away from you for eight hours. I believe they still bring them in to feed. They know what they're doing.

They can get the child to sleep because they do it all the time, whereas you have no idea what's going on.

I think, really, the main takeaway there is, you're not a bad parent if you need that time. Don't feel guilty about that. It's okay. I think that's actually a lot of what I see, too, about people posting on Reddit, subreddits is a lot of, "I feel guilty for this." Once you've gone through it as a second parent, you go, "Okay, you don't have to worry about that. That's just new parents' stuff. New parents are worried about everything so it's fine."

With that being said, now we transition into going home from the hospital. What kind of advice do you have for how to deal with that now you're a legit parent's stage?

Jim: Right. There was an older lady who gave me some advice. She said, "Just go into your bedroom, open the bottom drawer of your dresser, turn it into a place for the kid to sleep. Make some TV dinners, every time you eat them, just throw the empty trays under the bed and just hang out in bed for a week." We didn't quite do that but we did something similar, where we just gave ourselves a lot of time to just do what we needed to do as new parents.

What I was remembering, thinking about when we came home from the hospital. I can't remember how long after but it was a day or two or maybe half day, I don't even remember. My wife and I had like a sit-down celebratory dinner and our daughter fell asleep and then we could sit down and have a quiet moment. It was really emotional for me because it was the first time in three days, let's say, where we just had a moment of peace and quiet where we could be with each other. The contrast, I think, was very emotional to just have that moment to reflect and realize that we'd been through something that was very exciting and busy. It was important for us to have the time to reflect.

That leads into the first two weeks or the first two weeks or the first month where I really tried to be present and really tried to spend as much time as I could with the family and with our new daughter. We always have those demands, you know? We have demands of work and other things and there's that American work culture where I got to get things done and things are happening without me, and I'm very stressed out.

I had to make a conscious effort to just be present, and just know that all that stuff is going to wait. Something I remind myself about frequently is that money comes and goes, but time only goes. That was never clearer to me than when our kid was an infant. We were just dealing with that first month or so, that's a really precious time. Once we got into a rhythm, I was really able to enjoy that time pretty well.

You reminded me about the food. People always say, "What can we do to help? How can I help? Is there something I can do?" People offer food and at first, we were like, "Ah, I know," and so, we'd take it. "Take it, take all the food you can get." We weren't just cooking it all.

Dave: One thing that you talked about is that that time. When I talk to new fathers that are friends of mine, and I know a few that are just hard workers, and I always tell them, "You're never going to get that moment back." Certainly, those first couple weeks suck because everyone's learning everything. All three of you guys are learning something new and there's no way to sugarcoat it but those are precious moments.

That moment when you see your kids sleeping quietly, and you have that moment to take it all in and really understand what's just happened. You're never going to get that time back. I would wholeheartedly agree that, really, those first few weeks are so important.

Some of the things that I would say, in terms of advice for new parents about this first few weeks, and a lot of this is really specifically for dads, is the first thing, I did a lot of research on postpartum and understanding what the signs are.

When you hear about postpartum in the news, something bad always happens. Those are edge cases, but it was something that I was aware of. I felt that my responsibility was to understand the signs, and to just keep an eye out on my wife's mental health, sort of check in. Obviously, you know your wife's behavior and her personality. There are going to be some changes just naturally. As long as you understand what those signs are, I felt that that was my responsibility to just make sure that she was okay, and check for any of these very extreme situations.

The other thing I would say is, even if you guys have decided on breastfeeding, there is still a role for you to play as the father. Earlier, I mentioned on the just being prepared for the bottles and being ready for it. I would also say that, when our first was born, we had access to lactation consultants. I would say that in the first two to three weeks, we saw the lactation consultant twice a week, because there were some difficulties in breastfeeding, and that's normal, right?

Again, nobody knows what they're doing. The baby's learning, the mom's learning, everyone's learning what to do. In that time, we saw probably in those visits, we went through the entire staff of lactation consultants. I think we saw five to seven of them and we had all sorts of new things to try. Again, this is where some of the bottle feeding stuff came into play is that while you're working through the breastfeeding, you still want to supplement with bottles.

We got to that last visit, and I remember the lactation consultant- who had actually seen us earlier on- said, "There's nothing wrong if you can't breastfeed. Not everybody can do it. Not everyone produces enough milk, so that's okay." She said, "You know, there's one more thing I want to check." She checked the frenulum, which is the piece of skin that connects your gum to your upper lip. She's like, "You might want to get that looked at."

What happens is, if you have, I think it's a tight frenulum. If you have the tight frenulum, it can create difficulties in the baby's ability to latch properly. We're like, "Huh, this is new information that we hadn't heard about in all the visits that we had come across." We went to go see a specialist and they're like, "Yes, absolutely. We need to clip that thing in. Once you know what happens, it's very fast. Then things started domino-ing from there where it got easier to breastfeed and everything like that.

I would just say that just keep that in the back of your mind that if your wife is having problems with breastfeeding, it could be a frenulum issue. When we had our second one, they actually brought somebody in. It might be practiced now where they bring somebody into the hospital room to just give your child a check on the frenulum, just to check. That way, you don't find out after you've been trying for a few weeks and you don't have to schedule a separate visit. They just take the kid away, they clip the frenulum and you see them again in five minutes. It's super fast. It's just something that I think keeping in the back of your mind there.

Another thing is- and I think Jim and I, we've alluded to this throughout- but when you come home, regardless of how involved you may or may not have been in the house in terms of cleaning, and cooking, and all that stuff, I think you need to change your mindset and know that you are now or should be responsible for all of it. Certainly, in those first few weeks, as your wife is recovering, if you don't know how to cook, I would suggest either you buy a bunch of frozen food, or you start learning to cook. Find a few simple recipes, get those things down, learn to cook before the baby arrives.

We keep talking about food, because it is so important. You don't have a lot of time. I love to cook, and in those first few weeks, I'm eating cereal, because that's all the strength that I have to do. There's nothing else, here's a bowl of cereal for dinner. It's quick, it's easy, it's very little mess. That's not really the way you want to make it through this. Really think that stuff through but know that you are responsible for all that stuff. You might not have been in the past but it's time to put on your big boy pants and take ownership of that stuff.

One other thing that we haven't really discussed that came as a total shock to me was that in the first two weeks, you have to get up every two hours to feed your child. I don't know why nobody told me that before. It was like one of these things that you learn in the hospital, which is incredibly shocking, because your child has been screaming all day and now they're finally asleep. You realize, "Oh God, I have to wake that kid up in two hours." I think it's especially tough at night when you're like, "Okay, three o'clock now, five o'clock."

Again, that's why what I did was I was responsible for setting that alarm to wake up in those first couple of weeks. Just know that and mentally be prepared for that. The last couple of things are just anecdotes. The drugstore and the local supermarket, those are going to be your best friends for those first few weeks. Again, the plan was to breastfeed, but it doesn't always work out that way. You might find yourself at 3:00 AM looking for formula. Because you were so tired, you forgot to order it when you should have. Just know that there could be a few 3:00 AM trips to the local CVS or whatever. Get used to that.

The last thing is, and this is another thing that I see on Reddit all the time is, don't sweat the developmental milestones. All new parents know, "My kid should be walking at this point, they should turn over at this point, first words at this point." Those are guidelines. Your kid will be plus or minus. If you have concerns, obviously, talk to your pediatrician. There's always going to be ends of the spectrum here. Some kids will get there earlier, some kids will get there later. What if you're behind a little bit, it doesn't mean your child's behind. It doesn't mean anything in the scheme of things.

Really, as a new parent, it's good to know-- I knew every single milestone for the first one and I was dialed in. For the second one, literally the second one, I'm like, "So she's supposed to be walking? I can't remember. When do we hit solid food?" You just forget about all that stuff because you understand that they're not hard and fast and there's a lot of variability. Give yourself a break.

Maybe that's the big takeaway from all of this, I think is that, a little bit of planning is helpful but at the end of the day, cut yourself some slack. It's tough, really, really tough to be a parent on your first one around. There's so many new things and, obviously, with all the other situations going on in the world today. Just cut yourself a little bit of slack, and you'll be fine.

That does it for our advice for new parents. If you have any questions for us, hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatigue, P-A-P-A E-S-T F-A-T-I-G-U-E. We'll be sure to put all the links in the show notes.

Thanks for listening to the Papa est Fatigué podcast. If you like the podcast, please give us a review and don't forget to subscribe to get ideas and hear discussions around parenting as a dad. We'll talk to you next time.

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