Cheers to Childbirth: A Dad's Guide to Childbirth support
Happy Fathers’ Day! You are now facing your new role in life, that of a father. With the birth behind you and your baby at home, the lifelong challenge of parenting lies before you. How’s that for a daunting prospect?
Many men report an odd sense of concern that they are handed this little child with no instruction manual, no test to pass or interview process to go through in order to prove their aptitude for fatherhood. Together with your partner, you’re out on your own and this can feel a little scary.
Once you make it home, you are on a whole new roller coaster ride. Your partner is still an hormonal fruit cake, but she’ll be back eventually. She will be fragile in a way you may not have experienced with her before. Many women are also fiercely protective of their baby, almost with a cave woman kind of ferocity. This is normal and healthy. Her attention will return to you eventually but in those first weeks, her baby is her entire world.
Get your act together for the day you bring your partner and baby home from the hospital. Have the house neat and tidy, with a few meals prepared and ready to go so that your partner is not required even to think about cooking meals on top of the demands of your new family member. Your partner will need really good nutrition when she is breastfeeding so relying on too much take-away food is not a good plan.
My brother Michael had a bit of a shindig with his mates just after his first child was born – a little ‘wet the baby’s head’ get-together for the lads. The next day he went to collect his wife and new baby from the hospital and brought them home to a house that smelled of cigar smoke and with a stack of pizza boxes in the kitchen. Needless to say, his wife wasn’t too impressed.
A few years later when they gave birth to their second child, Mike had learned his lesson. He had the house neat and tidy, all the laundry was done and he had lunch prepared and in the fridge. When they walked in the door he could open the fridge, pull the plastic wrap off a plate of sandwiches and say, ‘Voilà!’ That was more like it.
Arrange for extra help around the house if you can. Some help with the washing, cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping will make you and your partner’s life easier, giving you more time to look after her and your baby. Accept genuine help when it’s offered. Hopefully some meals will land on your doorstep from friends and family too. You can hire a postnatal doula who will help with these chores and can also help with breastfeeding problems and settling techniques for your baby if she’s qualified and experienced in these areas.
Most couples find the first six weeks of life with their newborn to be quite a challenge. As my friend Jessica says, ‘We all do it tough with newborns, some of us are just better actors than others.’ Don’t feel that you have to meet others’ expectations in dealing with this early parenting challenge and don’t feel that you have to socialise either. Your partner needs you more now than ever before. Anyone who tells you that the first weeks of their baby’s life were a walk in the park was either residing in another country to said newborn or seriously embellishing the truth. It’s exhausting but it’s not permanent.
It’s not cool to be a klutz with your baby and you are capable of doing everything your partner can with this child, except for breastfeeding, so get involved from day one. If childbirth is not a spectator sport, then neither is parenting. Learn to handle your baby with confidence, something that can only be done with practice.
People used to ask me how I ‘trusted’ Bruce to take our baby out on his own. This irritated us both because it suggested that men have no clue as to how to care for their own children and that they’re babysitting rather than parenting. Pah! You can be just as capable with and responsible for this child as your partner is.
Manage the visitors who come to your house by putting your partner and baby first. I couldn’t believe my eyes the other day when I saw a status update on Facebook from a new father declaring that he and his wife were home from hospital with their new baby and it was open house to all Facebook friends!
One visitor in the morning and one in the afternoon is more than enough and you should try to have a day off in between with no visitors at all. Any more people than this marching through your front door will only exhaust mother and child. Let your visitors know politely when it’s time to leave: ‘It’s been great to see you. Thanks for the visit. Let me see you out so that bub can have the next feed.’
Alternatively you can have an open house a week or ten days after the baby is born. Invite friends and family to come for two hours at the most. Your partner can stay in the bedroom with the baby until everyone has arrived and then she can come out and present your baby to the important people in your life. If you don’t want to pass around the baby, have bubs in a baby sling strapped to Mum’s chest. Your partner can then go around the room introducing your new family member to each person, one at a time. Once she’s had enough, she can vanish to the bedroom to feed your baby and you can thank everyone for coming.
Remember: This is your family now. Others’ expectations for having a slice of your baby need to be put on hold so that you can look after your partner and your child properly.
Edited Extract from Cheers To Childbirth: A Dad's Guide To Childbirth Support by Lucy Perry. Published by Pure Publishing. RRP $29.95.
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