Being a New Dad – 10 Things I Wish I Knew

Hey guys, Andrew here with Dadverb

Long video alert. This is 10 things that I wish I knew before I became a dad

And fun note, this is a video that's going to be in our course launching very soon

It is called Father Figured. It is a course for expectant dads

So if you want to learn more, go to dadverb.com to sign up our email list. Let's get into the video

So number one, sex life changes. We're getting right into it. guys, maybe I was a little naive to that fact, uh, and maybe everyone was already prepared for

that change and it's, you know, I don't know how, maybe I was alone on an island there, but

uh, for me, personally, I wasn't really prepared, uh, for how sex life would change after

kids. For some couples, the sex drive goes up, some, in our case, goes down a little bit. I'm not saying

it's the end of the world. It's not going to stay like that forever. Uh, and it changes for a variety

of reasons, hormones, whatever. I'll be honest and say that for us, it was easy to get

By the way, sex life, I feel like it's like a taboo topic, but it's like it's important

It's important. So I'm being honest here with you guys, all right? Before it was easy to get like hot and bothering and it going quickly, frequently

After kids, it's like we really have to make time and mindfully prioritize instances where we can reconnect as partners

That's, um, schedule sex. No. No, man. No, man. Beforehand, scheduling sex wasn't really a thing, and maybe I'm dumb, but that's not something that I thought many couples had to do

After kids, you know, they're crying, they're pooping, you're exhausted, and it kind of takes a little bit more work to kind of build up to an intimate level, I guess you could say

We really have to communicate more about that and be more conscientious. Conscientious, there you go, on when to shift out of parenting mode or for me dad mode and into husband mode

it's really easy to stay locked in one mode. So, you know, being conscious of when to make that shift when the kids go down and all that

it's really important and staying communicative. That's huge. Now, like I mentioned before, I'm not trying to scare you or anything like that

It's not permanent, and it's different for everybody. As our kids have gotten older, though, finding time for ourselves as partners has gotten easier

And not just for sex, but just like for everything, for watching TV, enjoying things that we used

do before. It gets a lot easier as you know down that routine. Now real fast, I just want to take

a quick moment to thank our newest channel sponsor and that is Nanit. I'm so glad that I actually

get to say that. I've been a fan of the brand for a while. But around 2015, 2016, when smart

monitors first kind of came onto the scene and just exploded, Nanit quickly ascended to be one of the

best monitoring systems in the entire market. It delivers remote viewing right from your phone

and you can get sleep insights, breathing, motion monitoring, and growth tracking

Like I just mentioned, this honestly has been my favorite monitoring system for years

If you follow my channel or you've sent me DMs, I've recommended it a bunch

So if you want to learn more, you can use a link below to check it out

Thank you, Nan. Number two, you don't always bond with your baby

So when guys learn that they're expecting, they kind of set this bar and have certain expectations of what the initial experience is going to be like

And often one of those things is that they're going to love and bond with the baby right off the bat

I honestly say that that's what happened to me. That's what happens with a lot of guys. It's great

But for some, that's actually not the case. An instant bond with your baby doesn't always happen right off the bat

And it's important to understand that if that is the case for you, it doesn't mean you're a freak

You're not the only person in the world to feel this. And most importantly, it doesn't mean that you're a bad person

It's just something that takes time. And it will happen. One common sentiment that guys might have is like, you know, I don't have the right to talk about, you know, what I feel

as a new parent because, you know, she did everything, right? She struggled more than me

I'm not struggling. I could figure it out. It's hard for some guys to, like, open up about that

So it's important to know that while the focus is often on mom, and rightfully so, you

know, I get it. Like, dads, they're an integral part in this whole process as well

And we're going through things too. So if you need to open up about it, it's important that you do so

Now, one step deeper than that, though, not just moms, but all parents can

experience some sort of postpartum mental health challenge. And it manifests itself in many different

ways, including postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, rage, ambivalence. It can take many forms

For many parents out there who've never dealt with anything like this before, all of a sudden

after a baby comes, they find themselves having to deal with this on top of also, you know

overcoming the struggles of any new parent. It can feel heavy. You can feel deep and it'll feel like

you're treading water all of a sudden when you've never dealt with any of this before. Again, it hits everyone differently, if at all

So, you know, having a baby, it can stir up a lot of things. But it's important that you know that you're not alone, okay

You're not the only one feeling this. If you are, communicate with your partner and you've got to seek the right help

It's very hard to take care of another life and raising a baby, especially if you're

struggling with a lot of things on your own. So acknowledging the struggles early, that's extremely important

But also, your mental health should be just as much of a priority as, you're

your baby honestly So that leads me to number three I felt guilty about everything Guilt is something that I struggled a lot with And many of my friends have also experienced that as well I think the thing I felt most guilty about was probably like surrounding my presence

I felt guilty about just like not being around as much. Not being able to keep up with daily chores just because like my focus had shifted a little bit

For my wife, my wife, she felt guilty about virtually like everything

Not being able to exclusively breastfeed. That was probably like one big one

I'll get more into that a little bit later. But another thing that we found really difficult was taking help

I felt like I should be able to do everything on my own. I don't really need your help

I'll be all right. And I felt guilty taking any sort of help

But, you know, the reality is you got to take the help and just, and, you know

if people are all willing to cook your food or do anything, just take it and feel great about it

That people care to invest in your time and all that. And another thing I personally struggled with was understanding that a lot of the help that was being offered did come from a genuine place

A lot of time, they were like, hey, we're happy to come over and take care of the baby, give you guys a rest and all that

I'm like, really, really? Do you want to watch a baby that's going to scream and cry and poop and make your life a living hell for a few hours just to give us a break

Do you really actually want to do that? And I was like, no, no. And I struggled to think that like, that was actually genuine

But it was. It actually wasn't. and people did care about me. And, yeah, just guilt around taking the help

and thinking whether or not they were actually having, having a genuine care for our family and our well-being

which they actually did. I don't know what frame of mind I was into, but I'm telling you, being a new parent, man

I'll put you in some weird places. I had a buddy tell me that stress and guilt

comes from giving a damn, which in a way it's good. It means that you care

but you do have to give yourself a break and just let some things go

There are two things that I did that kind of helped me a little bit, first thing was I had to reassess my personal standard, you know, are big things in my head actually

small things, right? Are things cleaning things around the house and all that stuff? Is that actually

like a big deal? I should be stressing me out? Should we just kind of let that go and let things

you know, just get messy. It's just how it's going to be in and we'll get to a little bit later. The second thing I did was I had to mute a bunch of people on social media. Like they had this

perfect life that was completely in control. And it's very easy to compare their fiction to your

reality. They're highlight real to your, you know, everyday situation. And sometimes that's just

not healthy. So if you got to mute someone, you've got to quit social media for a little bit

go ahead and do that. It's actually really helpful. Number four, feeding will always be stressful

As guys, it's not something that we always clue into. There are professions and consultants and

businesses that have made a lot of money off of this one facet of parenting alone because it's

often a stressful thing in one form or another. And this isn't just like exclusive to the

baby stages. It is like, you know, when they get older, they become toddlers and all that

You may struggle with feeding. You're always going to be battling with different questions. Should we do purees or baby lead weaning? My kids hate vegetables. They're picky eaters

They don't want a balanced nutritious meal. They just want goldfish and nuggets, maybe four raspberries

If that, hey, how much is that meal plan PDF? Feeding is stressful, but let's let's dial it back

to the baby stage again. Where does that stress come from? So for many breastfeeding, it's easy

right? The baby latches, they feed, good to go. But with that comes pure exhaustion on your problem

I'm telling you, like, mothers are superheroes. It is exhausting to, like, get up multiple times a night to have to feed

As new dads, we just have to recognize that that can be an exhausting grind

And there's only so much that we can do to help. And that knowledge, acknowledging that, like, that can be stressful

I've noticed that for a lot of guys out there, feeding is a way that you can bond with your baby

and when you can't breastfeed, you don't have that bonding time, right? So a lot of us feel useless and wonder like, you know, what is our role here

Stress. Now, if your partner is able to pump, that's actually a great thing, right? You just take the bottle, put it in the bottle warmer, feed

Good to go. But here's another form of stress. Pumping doesn't work for everyone and breastfeeding doesn't come so easily

It may be difficult or borderline impossible. For me, honestly, I thought every mom could breastfeed easy formula

That's if you're lazy or bad parent. Breast is best. That's what the books say

That's what social media says. And frankly, that's what the nurses at the hospital made me feel

Just track with me here for a moment, guys. While I fully understand the ideology of lactivism and its prevalence in today's society

when it doesn't work as advertised, I've seen it bring families down and have it take

a heavy mental toll on some moms. In fact, let me read some of these excerpts for you

I'm a first time mom, and I was planning on breastfeeding, and I was experiencing many challenges

So I changed the exclusive pumping, which was very difficult for me. switched the formula at six weeks because of the challenges I had and it affecting my mental health

I will say my sister and I were formula fed due to my mom's milk, never coming in, and we were both

happy and healthy. I've known multiple people whose failure to provide sufficient milk for breastfeeding

or difficulty with lactating led both to anxiety and depression. I had major postpartum anxiety

postpartum depression, and my OCD sprang back into full force when my son couldn't nurse

I tried for months, saw all the specialists, and got on a first name basis with the lactation

consultants and felt lesser than when I couldn't nurse him. I didn't even realize how much I

wanted it until I couldn't do it. My struggles extended to every aspect of my life, straining

relationships as I skip activities so I could go pump I exclusively pumped for a year I got so jealous of other moms sitting there nursing I developed a completely different mindset for my daughter who due to jaundice got mostly formula at the beginning until we were able to successfully transfer to nursing

Reading all that, I hope that gives you some sort of insight as to what some moms feel. It's not an easy thing for everybody, right

And everyone has their own struggles in their own ways. One thing that does concern me, though, that I've seen is a major lack of empathy for some

people who supplement with formula. We've chosen to do that or not just supplement, but exclusively feed with formula

there's a lot of stones being cast at people for making that decision

which ultimately leads parents down the path of shame and guilt, which should not be the case

But ultimately, again, it kind of leads to stress. Now, I want to note, though, that, like

this isn't an argument between, like, formula versus breast milk, right? The point I'm trying to make is that parents shouldn't be shamed for going either direction

The baby's got to get fed. So you've got exhaustion, lack of bonding, general guilt

I'm not trying to scare you. Parenthood has many, many bright moments

And again, this isn't an issue for everyone. But there are some things that I wish I knew before I became a dad

And seeing my wife collapsed on the ground because of the shame that she felt for making

the decision to supplement with formula is something that I was completely unprepared for

Number five, invest in yourself because you cannot fix everything on your own

So there tends to be this notion that motherhood is instinctual and fatherhood is learned

And that is completely false. But there are going to be a lot of. lot of things that you may have questions about that you just don't know how to approach

So it's important that you invest in your own personal knowledge. In my experience, the times that I felt most frustrated was when I felt powerless

Now, I'm the type of person who's a fixer, right? I feel like that's where I bring the most value into my marriage, into my family

into our relationships. I feel like I can fix things like acts of service

That is my love language, acts of service. Now, when kids, they're throwing fits, they're refusing food, they don't want to do anything

that you want them to do. They're doing the complete opposite of everything you're asking them to do

I feel like that strips me of what I do best, which is fix things, right

Which then I feel powerless and then I feel frustrated. I started to realize that a lot of that

powerlessness comes from a lack of knowledge. Now as a guy, I do fit that stereotype of, you know

tossing out the instruction, just figuring things out. I had to learn that with parenting

It's a lot easier if I just invest in some baseline knowledge to help myself out

because I can't just figure everything else out on my own. Now, I'm not saying that you're going to Google, like

how to make a baby sleep and read that and learn it in five minutes how to solve that problem because that's its own puzzle

But investing in yourself will give you a better understanding on why your child is acting a certain way and how to cope

So, for example, investing in the Feeding Little's course for feeding toddlers, that's good

Learning about the Ferber method or, you know, doing the taking care of babies course for sleep

That's good. downloading Wonder Weeks and learning about baby developmental stages. That is fantastic

At one point, I thought that doing these things was, I guess, like, stupid. You know, I could just figure it out

But people have already done a lot of that hard work for you. Buy into them

Invest in yourself. It'll actually save you a lot of frustration. My favorite example of this is Wonder Weeks

Wonder Weeks is a wonderful app. It's only a few dollars in the app store. And with our second son, you know, maybe I was a little overconfident

I was like, you know, I know how to deal with certain things. things will be all right. I don't need an app to remind me like, you know, when he's going to be

mad. But at some point, you get to, you get to the stage where you're just like, why are you

crying? I remember going into the app and reading about like this, what's called like a stormy period

and he was going through a developmental leap. And on top of that, he was going through like teething

and doing all these things. And I was just like, oh, that's why he's so pissed at the world right now

And reading about that and understanding why certain things were happening, it put my

my mind at ease. It helped me act in a different way as opposed to just outright frustration

So again, investing in certain things, buying into certain things, reading certain things

certain articles is great. Don't just think that you can solve it all by yourself

Number six, find your tribe, but do what's right for you. Now, community is important

You want to surround yourself with good people that can empathize with you. Some groups on

Facebook can easily become an echo chamber, right? And if you find that right tribe, that that suits you

well, you don't join it, feed off of each other, it's great. But know that social media can be a

double-edged sword. And I have alluded to this earlier. But you're going to get advice from friends

and family and random people that you don't even know, which can get frustrating and stressful

And that's when you have to make the conscious decision to either stop listening to others

and lean on your instinct and just do what's best for you. Trying to keep up and listen to

everyone can get really frustrating and really stressful. I'm trying to do this blogger mom

and that Insta account told me to do this, and my Facebook group is telling me this

but this is what my friends are doing, and this is what my mom said to do, and this random YouTuber is telling me to buy this

So there's a lot of advice being flung at you from everywhere. It'll drive you nuts, right

So you got to just lean on your own instinct, and if you and the baby are in good health

and you guys are doing great, then nothing else really matters. Forget everyone else

So again, find your tribe, do what's right for you, and I'll dovetail out by saying

you don't have to tell everyone about it either. I'm a hypocrite though, because I have a YouTube channel telling everyone what to buy you

Number seven having a baby will challenge your marriage Having a baby is not easy It is definitely a test not so much in your ability to keep another human alive but rather in communication skills in patience in sacrifice

It's definitely a passable test, but as a guy, I think it is easier if you can just be mindful

that this isn't like a solo mission and to be open about exhaustion points, right? We all have

them. Now, I do want to take a moment to say that marriage counseling, it's not just for marriages that are on the verge of falling apart

Counseling is a great way to keep things in check and maintain perspective

because it's easy to get, you know, myopic or resentful about some things that really don't even matter

Counseling is a great way to, a great way to keep an open mind about things

and keep things in check. I mentioned it before, but, you know, this is still something that I'm working on personally

I'm trying to stop sweating the small stupid things, right? It don't really matter

For example, a lot of couples out there may have this innate sense of keeping a chore score

you know, like I vacuumed and washed the dishes, while I gave the kids the bath

while I changed three poofs today and emptied out the diaper pail. Like you're just keeping a tally of like what's been done

At some point it will get very easy to get to this mode where you're like, why didn't you do this thing when you normally always do that and you get like riled up about

like just dumb things, dumb chores? I heard this from another couple and it's really important to take this part in, right

It's really important to keep things into perspective and say like, you know what

like, wow, what was her day like for her to not have been able to get to do something that she

normally does every day? She must have had a pretty damn hard day. So when you're able to frame it

like that, you can catch yourself before it snowballs into a bigger problem than it actually

needs to be. I hope I did a good job in explaining that. Maybe I ramble a little bit too much

Number eight, wearing your baby is the greatest thing ever. Now, in my opinion, I didn't do enough

baby wearing and it was amazing when I did. It was the single best way that I got to bond with my baby

outside of bottle feeding. It also felt like a hack in a lot of ways because I would just wear them

and it gave me a decent amount of time when they were calm. I also had both of my hands free so I could

get things done all around the house while keeping them close at the same time. One thing I will say though

as a guy I personally didn't really like wraps like a solid baby rap or slings. I preferred my baby

Bjorn 1 also the the ergo baby 360 that was another good one too like more sturdy

carriers than wraps that's just me number nine expensive baby gear is blowing up but you don't

always really need it now this is weird coming from a baby gear reviewer baby tech

reviewer I guess in a way an advocate for a lot of this stuff I started reviewing

stuff just as a lot of big products for coming into the market right like outlet and

stuff like that and it really started to blow up you know a cocoon which is now a defunct

company. We've seen the advent of breathable mattresses, strollers with automatic braking sensors

that remind you if your baby was left in a car seat, bassinet that hush your baby for you

There's a lot of amazing tech and innovation out there. But what I want to make clear is that a lot

of the marketing and Instagram things that you see and influencers that are like touting product

and just hawking it at you, you don't need any of that stuff, no matter how bad you feel like

you need it and you're like turned to your partner and you're like, maybe you shouldn't really get that because XYZ bloggers are really liking it. And again, this is weird because I'm, I'm implicit

in telling you the stuff that you should buy too. So while I personally find this whole genre

with like with regards to say like innovation around baby gear, while I find that whole thing fascinating

I want you to understand that you don't need any of it. The way a certain product is going to

provide value to one parent is not always how it's going to provide value to you or your style

parenting. So I would, again, do research on certain products, but don't get really, like

riled up by whoever is telling you to buy certain things, because deep down when it comes down to it

you don't need any of it. All right, we're going to round it out here. Last thing, number 10

getting your time back is up to you, not your baby. Now, early on, I was told by, you know

my parents and other people, they're like, hey, you just remember to just get your baby and go out

right? And just make sure that you go out and you live your life. against, you know, of course your life's going to change, but just remember to go out and have

fun, live normally. And I guess somewhere along the way, I lost that, that insight. I let the baby

really dictate a lot of our time, which, I mean, of course, you should. I mean, the baby's the baby

You got to do a lot of things. But it's also really easy to just get so lost and lose your sense

of self and let the baby dictate everything about your personal life and your personal time

And I realized that it actually wasn't the baby's fault. It was us. We live

let that happen. So if I had to go back and do it over again, I would say there are some things that

we enjoy. Go ahead and indulge in some of those things, even if it's only just like a few weeks

postpartum, you know, like go out there and plan around your baby's witching hour, do the best

that you can and just like make the effort to go out and enjoy certain things again. Don't be

homebound and locked inside all day like you're in quarantine and stuff. It's important to get

out and enjoy some of the things that you did on your own. So yeah, there you go. I've said a lot

I hope it helps you in some way. And if you have any other comments, please comment down below

and share some things that I didn't cover. If you found this video helpful

smash that light button down there. It looks like a thumbs up. And share this video. Share it with other new parenting groups out there

Thank you for watching this video. God bless. We'll catch you later. Peace