"The months leading up to the birth of your newborn son or daughter are loaded. Loaded with fears and anxieties about whether you’ll have enough money or enough energy—or maybe if you’re like me, you’ll ask yourself this nagging, weighty question, “Am I even cut out for fatherhood?”
they get the nutrition they need without all the struggle
And then your baby arrives. Although going through labor felt like an eternity—for mom, too, of course—your life changes overnight. You’re a dad. You have a child, a new responsibility, and a partner whom you now look at with more respect than you’ve ever given them.
And when you hold your baby for the first time, it’s magical. Then you leave the hospital. And then it’s not. For many dads, this is how it goes. Magic turns to reality awfully quickly. Because when you get home, the toughest parts of newborn parenthood turn out not to be questions about your money or energy or capability (although these will still be annoyingly present). The real difficulties early on are about managing the expectations you have for your relationship with your new baby.
Dads often feel helpless after their baby is born (and it’s normal)
While plenty has been written about the emotions new dads often experience, it’s still rarely studied or even seen as medically significant, so, naturally, dads often keep quiet about their struggles, with few outlets to turn to for support.
Dads rarely understand the pains—both psychological/emotional and physical—that their baby’s mother will go through. As fixers—speaking for myself now—we’ll often feel frustration about not being able to help beyond the postpartum support a partner can offer, and this helplessness can lead to feeling hopeless about our situation.
But while it’s certainly tough to see the mother of your child in need of help that you, the father, can’t provide (often not for a lack of trying), our own unmet needs pose other challenges.
Expectations for dad’s role after baby is born
So, let’s talk expectations. Any love or affection you feel for your baby will go unnoticed by them and unreciprocated completely, and this will last far longer than most dads are comfortable with. I hate to bear such awful news, but it’s true. Connecting with an infant is simply more abstract for us. Dads are full of pride, a sense of duty, and even spiritual satisfaction from the birth of their child. But we didn’t push baby out. We didn’t endure surgery. We didn’t feel the pains of pregnancy. And we know this. What we did was support our partners through labor. We held the bags, cheered mom on, prepared baby’s environment, and worked.
There’s nothing tangible about the early connection between us and baby, and it’s precisely this tangibility that helps create such a strong bond between mom and baby.
Having had two kids in the last three years, I can confirm that the bond we have with our children is what drives us and what sustains us as parents. Being a dad is a beautiful thing and the utmost honor and joy of my life, but it takes time to develop into what we hope it will be. While mom carries the fetus through to humanhood, exchanges hormones with them, and often provides them the nectar of life, dad is simply trying to keep busy. It’d be great to get a smile from baby on day one or any return of affection or appreciation from them for the role we play, but we don’t, and that’s just how it is. The sooner we confront our reality, the better off we’ll be.
“It’d be great to get a smile from baby on day one or any return of affection or appreciation from them… but we don’t, and that’s just how it is. The sooner we confront our reality, the better off we’ll be.”
But this is no reason for despair! Below, I share with you some of the most useful tips I’ve found to help a dad’s role after baby is born. They can stave off feelings of overwhelm and helplessness, which, at their core, are about engaging with your infant so that the tough parts feel more sustainable. After all, as any parent can tell you, the ugly parts exist—there’s no escaping them—but they are well worth it when the beautiful stuff gets sprinkled in. The trick is to survive long enough until baby is ready to provide it.
How dads can help with a newborn
1. Book bottle time
Whether mom is nursing or not, “bottle time with dad” is essential. If your partner is breastfeeding, she might even have strong feelings about not using a bottle, but I would strongly recommend it for two reasons. The first is that there might come a time when a bottle is necessary (for some, that’s day one). Our daughter was jaundiced, not too badly, but enough to require the extra calories that only formula could offer. This is just one example, but take my word for it that there are plenty of other situations that might require switching or supplementing with bottle feeding.
The second reason, though, is simply getting baby used to a bottle, and the earlier, the better. No matter how “nipple-like” a bottle claims to be, plenty of babies will shirk the plastic or silicone option if given it. Baby’s mom, however, will at some point need the support. This will very likely be forced on you when mom goes back to work and baby is in childcare, so why not get started early? Even if you’re using breast milk, bottle-feeding mostly just means a well-deserved break for mom.
Dads: Lean into this. It helps mom, but more importantly, it’s a great opportunity to feel the sheer dependency your child has on you. And the more predictable it can be, the better it is for you, baby, and mom. Put it in your calendar, if you must. However you do it, schedule it, ritualize it, and profit.
2. Try “skin to skin”
“Skin to skin” isn’t just for the ladies! Also known as “kangaroo care,” this method consists of simply diapering, but not clothing baby, before laying them on your bare chest. The benefits of going skin-to-skin with your newborn are well documented (and growing!), which already satisfies our requirement to feel needed, but what’s more relevant for us is that this will very likely be the best bonding experience you’ll have with your baby in the first few months of their life.
It’s the most physical and the most tangible thing you can do outside of changing diapers, and it’s well worth it. Feeling the baby’s heart beating, their belly rising up and down against yours, is as calming for us as it is for them. This is true connection, and connection is what it’s all about.
Pro tip: lie down for this. If baby is hungry, chances are they’ll work hard to find the milk spout, so you’ll end up killing two birds with one stone, getting a good “tummy time” workout in.
3. Get really good at one thing
Being the “go-to guy” for one thing can really help with your “new dad confidence.” Plus, it doesn’t matter too much what it is. Think: If it helps mom, it helps everyone. And the good news is that pretty much anything will help mom early on.
Before my wife and I had our first child—she’s 2 now—I stumbled upon this incredible book called The Happiest Baby on the Block (there’s also a corresponding, albeit dated, video, too), which describes a baby’s first three months of life as their “fourth trimester,” meaning, essentially, that human babies are simply born three months too early! As a result, nurturing babies in the first three months, according to the author, should simply consist of efforts to recreate, as closely as possible, the comforts they had in the womb.
The tools I took from that book are now part of my own “secret sauce” to helping our babies calm down in the moments of their most intense wailing. While this is undoubtedly a useful skill to have on its own, the relief my wife feels because of my efforts so far outstrips the direct impact on our children that I’ve bought myself plenty of grace well into the future, which is an essential gift to be given (and to give) in this phase of parenting.
For every time you wanted to help but couldn’t, this essential skill you’ve learned will work to offset—even if by just a little bit—any feelings of inadequacy.
Whatever you choose to start with, start small and take pride in it. Be the guy who labels, stores, and organizes mom’s milk. Take the Saturday overnight shift. Be the bath master. Get good with the bulb syringe. Burp baby better. Manage baby’s schedule. Whatever it is, lean into it, and, dare I say, nerd out on it. Then, pat yourself on the back and do it again.
4. Practice “good feels” near baby
This idea is simple. You want to associate your “good feels” with your baby. Every strong relationship you have relies on shared joy, but since infants are blank slates and can’t contribute much, take the opportunity to share with them your totally biased and obviously correct opinions on everything and anything. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, forge the path for your new disciple. Take your world and make it theirs. Your baby won’t understand any of it now, but this act forms a shared foundation to build upon later. And in the meantime, it doesn’t hurt that you get to do something you love, and a few minutes of self-care can go a long way.
So listen to the music you love. Watch your show. Play your game. Do whatever makes you most content in the confines of your home, and put it on display within arm’s length of your baby. Physical distance is important. Otherwise, the only thing that matters here is your joy.
5. Take out the trash
OK, so we’ve addressed building your confidence, stabilizing your environment, and enabling an early connection with your child. Now, let’s get back to basics. Even after all of these efforts, you’ll still primarily be on “mom support” duty. Your infant intuits this, too, so don’t fight it.
When my wife was pregnant for the first time, I stumbled into a practice that I now routinely use. I ask her to list the things she most dislikes doing—especially house chores—and then I work to prioritize them on her behalf. In some cases, I take the chore off her plate directly; for others, it’s better to just swipe the credit card.
Because, final pro tip: If you have the money to pay for help, do it. This goes for anything, from the trivial to the bougie. I didn’t immediately recognize the value of hiring our doula until we truly needed her, at which point she was worth her weight in gold, and I wanted to have another kid just to recapture some of her value (if my wife’s reading this, I’m kidding!). Some ideas that are well worth paying for are monthly cleaners, a meal delivery service, and even overnight childcare.
Helping mom is as much for you as it is for her—trust me on this. If “happy wife, happy life” is true, then “happy mom, you’re the bomb” is even more so.
6. Remember to go slowly, accept how you feel, and manage expectations
If you feel good about your role and are proud of your efforts, you just might feel like you’ve got nothing to worry about—you’ve got this. I hope that’s true. It’s still worth, in my opinion, understanding what’s driving your emotions, or, better yet, getting ahead of big feelings before they come. With big life changes, especially ones so rife with fragility and uncertainty, the mind often has to catch up to the emotions we feel through our daily lived experiences.
So move through these steps slowly, and repeat to yourself that today is a single day and that by simply attempting to connect with your new baby, you’ve been successful. Eventually, these efforts will pay off, and the bond you’ll have primed will result in something more wholesome and incredible than you could ever have imagined. By then, you’ll have a firm foundation to rely upon, and you might, like me, even find it difficult to look back and recall any insecurities you felt during this momentous transition.
