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by tyweir
5783 days ago
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As the father of a 1 year old girl who owns a gym and has a start-up, I agree with everything in this post. ezmobius, I wish I had more votes to give you, as this is one of the best comments I've read on HN. And an emphasis on sleeping when your baby sleeps, you may need to encourage your wife to sleep, as she'll probably want to do other things. A friend of mine with 3 kids often says, "Mom takes care of the baby, Dad takes care of Mom." I think that's apt in the first 4 months, just do whatever you can to allow your wife to be the best mother she can be. |
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I'm pretty opposed to this idea, actually.
Breastfeeding is an obvious exception (I couldn't help much with that, though during the tricky part at the beginning I learned a hell of a lot about how to help the baby latch on), but in general I think you should be doing every single baby task whenever you can.
If you don't, after a few weeks your wife will be so much better at changing diapers, changing clothes, calming the baby when it's upset, taking the baby for a walk, etc. etc. that you won't be able to do it, even when she needs you to. It'll be weird for you, weird for the baby, and you'll just get screams until Mommy comes back, and that means you'll be fairly useless when your wife most needs your help.
If you're working from home, dive in (this was how I did it).
If you are away at work during the day, then when you get home you should take over the baby as much as possible. Change the diapers, even if you're slow & awkward at first (you'll quickly improve), give a bath (also hard at first!), dance the baby around the house and sing some songs. And if the baby has nursed recently, do NOT just hand if off to mom at the first sign of distress -- figure it out yourself. When the baby cries in the middle of the night, take it far away from the bedroom (once you've figured out that it's not hungry, that is), take a deep breath, and start experimenting to learn how you can calm it (it may be different from what mom does). And actually, if you've got bigger hands and a longer reach than your wife, some of these things will be naturally easier for you anyway.
Trust me, you'll be a far more valuable daddy this way.