As Ryan’s brother-in-law, and father of his nephew; 5-month old, Théodore, I’m happy to write this guest-post. Theo will be about 8 months old when Ryan and Lis welcome their baby into the world, so I’m looking forward to using my experience to help them with any advice they ask for!
Becoming a father involves a lot of learning very quickly. My wife and I had very limited experience with babies before we became parents, but by the time we left the hospital 36 hours after delivery, we were already experts in handling the baby (holding him, handing him back and forth, putting his clothes on, and diaper changing). The little things come easily at times and this really helped build our confidence and any setbacks are mitigated by the fact that new things happen daily and will most likely keep you too busy for introspection.
Once home, I realized that supporting one’s wife while she learns how to breastfeed the baby is nearly a full time job in itself. The first week was a hard one on us, and I recommend any new dad to be sure to have that week off of work. Not only was I needed to care for my baby and wife, but I experienced just as much post-partum blues as my wife did. I was also getting used to the sleep deprivation in those early days, and would have been a blurry mess at work if I’d gone during that first week.
From then on, each stage the baby went through brought both new joys and challenges. Théo slept a lot in the first month, so was easy to take care of, but he was also not able to smile or interact with us. Once he learned to smile, he also went through a colicky period that was very hard to deal with (baby’s cries are at a frequency that penetrates the brain!). At this point, Théo is more interactive, has learned to laugh and coo, but can also be frustrated with his lack of mobility and has his crabby moments for sure.
All baby-parent combinations are very different, so I’m sure there will be lots of unique experiences that Ryan will go through as a father. I just hope that I can provide more than just Théo’s clothing-hand-me-downs for my little nephew. I hope that Ryan and I can relate to each other father-to-father, because there is a lot to celebrate and commiserate about with regard to parenting!
Becoming a father involves a lot of learning very quickly. My wife and I had very limited experience with babies before we became parents, but by the time we left the hospital 36 hours after delivery, we were already experts in handling the baby (holding him, handing him back and forth, putting his clothes on, and diaper changing). The little things come easily at times and this really helped build our confidence and any setbacks are mitigated by the fact that new things happen daily and will most likely keep you too busy for introspection.
Once home, I realized that supporting one’s wife while she learns how to breastfeed the baby is nearly a full time job in itself. The first week was a hard one on us, and I recommend any new dad to be sure to have that week off of work. Not only was I needed to care for my baby and wife, but I experienced just as much post-partum blues as my wife did. I was also getting used to the sleep deprivation in those early days, and would have been a blurry mess at work if I’d gone during that first week.
From then on, each stage the baby went through brought both new joys and challenges. Théo slept a lot in the first month, so was easy to take care of, but he was also not able to smile or interact with us. Once he learned to smile, he also went through a colicky period that was very hard to deal with (baby’s cries are at a frequency that penetrates the brain!). At this point, Théo is more interactive, has learned to laugh and coo, but can also be frustrated with his lack of mobility and has his crabby moments for sure.
All baby-parent combinations are very different, so I’m sure there will be lots of unique experiences that Ryan will go through as a father. I just hope that I can provide more than just Théo’s clothing-hand-me-downs for my little nephew. I hope that Ryan and I can relate to each other father-to-father, because there is a lot to celebrate and commiserate about with regard to parenting!
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