Fatherhood Unplugged: 13 Essential And Not Entirely Conventional Topics to Embrace as a New Dad
Having kids is…a doozy. As my daughter approaches two years old and my second kid just showed up, I thought it only fitting to share advice from my personal experience. Why? Because there’s nothing parents love more than unsolicited advice (if you know, you know).
Here are 13 surprising topics to embrace as a new dad:
1. Get help with care.
It really does take a village. My wife and I “figured it out” for the first 18 months of our first child’s life. Translation: no granny, no nanny, no daycare, no cousins, no siblings, no sitters. Just us. At home. Both working. Now, one of those WFH parents was in between jobs for a good chunk of that, but nevertheless. Whatever your care situation is, it’s a blessing to be around your kid all day when they’re young. But it’s also exhausting. And hard. And trying. Your patience is constantly tested and you have little time to reset when naps and things don’t go according to plan (which happens often).
2. Know your costs.
It apparently costs a whopping $310,000 to raise a child for the first 18 years of their life, which comes out to a little more than $17,000 a year. It’s hard to know what to do with information like that. Does that fit into your budget? What if you have two? Just multiply?
Me, I probably read that before having a kid, went, “fuckkk” then proceeded with the plan.
While my wife and I are “fine” financially speaking — whatever that means for wherever you and yours are — we are not immune to the struggles of constantly figuring it all out (see: #adulting) to make it work. Making money to pay for the thing you brought into the world just to pay someone else to watch that thing for a disproportionate amount of time can be a perplexing concept if you stop and think about it.
3. Conquer sleep.
Sleep has been the #1 challenge in raising my daughter. She will sleep through the night, nap in her crib, stroller or car seat, but she’s a pro at fighting it (most kids are). I just learned about someone’s kid of a similar age who hasn’t slept through the night in their entire 18 months of life. We don’t have it that bad. But, despite sleep training (Ferberizers turned CIO parents over here) and the aid of a baby sleep coach app (shoutout to my former client Smart Sleep Coach by Pampers), it’s highly unpredictable.
The one thing I always come back to is routine. You’ll hear this over and over again in parenting advice, but figuring out how to apply routine in difficult moments is never easy. You’re choosing between what sounds like practical advice (Get on a routine! Set a schedule! Put them down drowsy but awake!) and contrasting that with a scream-crying baby that has brought tension between you and your partner to a boiling point. Meanwhile, that scream-crying baby is telling you they’re hungry and want milk or that they don’t want to go to sleep and don’t want to be in the crib — they want to be with mommy or daddy. Can you stomach choosing that practical advice over the welfare of your child in the moment? It’s a tough call (and entirely your call).
Here’s what I will recommend:
- Prepare for blood-curdling screams. And you thought crying was tough to handle?
- Do follow wake windows and bedtime routines as often as possible
- Don’t forget about teething, regressions, and separation anxiety. Knowing why baby isn’t sleeping isn’t always helpful, but it often can be.
4. It’s a journey.
Fertility — getting pregnant wasn’t a straight shot for us. You can hear more about that in my interview on the Successful Working Parents podcast.
Feeding — from breastfeeding to finding the right slow-flow bottle to the daunting prospect of introducing formula if it’s not part of your original plan, all the way to getting them into solid food…it’s a lot. You’re like a 24/7 child trainer and there’s no guarantee that anything you’re doing will work.
Development — From infant to toddler and beyond, each phase comes with its own set of challenges and your kid is basically a different person each time you enter a new phase. Cool!
5. Do you.
Find the time you need to get out, work out, write, record, think, meditate, walk, and socialize. It’ll feel impossible. Make it a priority and come to terms as a couple so you can switch off supporting each other.
6. Check-in with your partner.
Have structured check-ins with your partner. Really ask each other how you’re doing, what you’re feeling and what you could do to support each other a little better, or as my wife and I often say, give each other grace. Your partnership and connection are everything. Getting on the same page and staying on it when the book is still getting written and rewritten is an incredible challenge.
7. Find your voice.
It’s critical to find your voice as a unit and individually — as a couple, as parents, as a mother, a father and a partner.
As a unit, you and your partner will always make the best decisions for your child. Don’t hesitate to remind others of that.
As an individual, you need to share what’s working for you — and more crucially, what’s not and what you feel strongly about. For me, that’s sugar and screen time — two childraising hills I’m prepared to die on. It’s helped me to schedule ongoing check-in conversations with my partner to discuss how we want to handle the ins and outs of fickle issues like these in our day-to-day lives.
8. Embrace the cry.
Now that we’re well into full-blown toddlerhood, tantrums are abound over the tiniest things. The feelings are out of proportion and it can feel like there’s no satisfying someone who is only content getting exactly what they want exactly when they want it. Crying is part of the process — so do your best to work through it instead of avoiding it. My best practice here is:
1. acknowledge: “I understand you want to keep watching Bluey right now, is that right?”
2. identify: “Did turning off Bluey make you feel sad?”
3. empathize: “I would feel sad too if we stopped watching Bluey but wanted to watch more.”
9. Optimize but don’t overanalyze.
I’m a digital marketer so I like to find efficiencies and solve problems. To do that well you often want to know why — why is she waking up right now? Why is she crying right now? Why is she STILL crying right now?
You never know 100% of what’s going on but you can typically rely on one or more of the classics: tired, hungry, thirsty, separation anxiety, dirty diaper. Don’t spend too much time on that why — just handle the needs one by one and by process of elimination you’ll learn what combination of problem solves did the trick. A key point I’ve come to remind my wife and myself of: hindsight is 20/20 — it’s easier to pinpoint the why down the line than it is in the moment.
10. Research wisely.
Dr. Google and Instagram are your friends. But your midnight research project may not have the same impact the next day when things have cooled off. Is the blog content medically reviewed like Healthline? Do your favorite influencers and dadstagrammers have relevant credentials (in parenting, having a kid is enough for some advice)?
11. Don’t take everyone’s word as gospel.
Your friends, your family, this article…everywhere you go you’ll find advice — much of it unsolicited. That doesn’t mean you have to take it — including what I’m saying here. And if you do accept advice, take it for what it’s worth: an opinion for you to keep or toss.
12. Compare, but carefully.
Comparisons can be controversial in parenting — especially around developmental milestones like walking and talking. Nonchalant small talk with other parents can be triggering: “How old? Oh, is she walking yet?” could send your fellow parent spiraling if they’ve been worried their child isn’t meeting a milestone. Yet, it’s extremely natural to gauge how other kiddos and parents are doing.
With a certain delicacy in mind, other couple’s parenting approaches have been been extremely valuable for me to hear, especially when it comes to making it all work: care, money, lifestyle, etc.
Who’s got family in town? Grandparents helping out with daily care or babysitting? Who got help buying a house? Who’s working? Full-time or freelance? Who’s got benefits? Who’s sleeping? Who’s not sleeping?
Getting a sense of where my family falls on these spectrums helps ground me. TL;DR? You’re probably doing better than you realize: better off than some, less so than others.
13. Figure out your photos.
This is a continual quest as we rack up nearly 20,000 photos in the first two years of our daughter’s life.
- Shared albums — my wife and I have one to share every photo and video we take and a separate, shared album for ongoing sharing with family
- Instagram — consider the privacy of your little one. How will they feel about a visual public archive of their childhood? A private profile for your kid is one good option.
- Prune as you go — I know, every shot is precious, but there will be some duds. Ditch ‘em in the moment.
- Print your photos — get them off the phone and into the world. You can print digital photos at a drug store or order them from a print shop. We recently got a portable Instax photo printer and started printing mini Polaroids. We put them up on the fridge using these cool mini magnet frames and let our daughter play with some.
- Get a digital frame — digital photo frames tend to suck and are way overpriced, but I’ve been eyeing the Amazon Echo Show for something like this.
- Get professional shots — maternity, newborn, family portraits, holiday cards…you don’t have to do it all. But you’ll appreciate investing in photo shoots with an actual photographer from time to time.
- Photo gifts — Give your parents the gift they really want — photos of their grandkids. I like Framebridge to get prints framed and shipped with minimal effort.
Congrats on making it this far. You’re a rockstar and well on your way to being a super dad or mom. As a reward, here’s a picture of my second daughter, 4 days old at the time of publishing:
I hope my 13 nuggets of wisdom ring true for at least a few of you. After all, there’s no school of parenting! (The best training happens on the job anyway.)
Lastly, I won’t be offended if you don’t take my advice: parenting is all about taking in the ideas that work for you and discarding the ones that don’t.
