It’s easy to feel a bit useless when a baby first comes onto the scene. Baby doesn’t necessarily want too much to do with dad to begin with as she’s only really interested in feeding. As I’ve said before, wouldn’t you rather hang around with the mate who isn’t shy when getting the drinks in?
With mum frazzled and baby not wanting to spend too long with the hairy milkless one yet, it’s normal to feel a bit like you’re not needed. Nothing could be further from the truth though. There’s several ways that you can help out your partner and your new baby.
1. Food and Drink
If your partner’s breastfeeding, she’s going to need to keep her own strength up. Regular drinks are the order of the day here. Staying hydrated is a must.
Our daughter tends to wake whenever she’s put in a cot, so my wife has her on her for the majority of the day. With that in mind I tend to cook meals that can be eaten with one hand. It’s a simple thing to do, but makes life a lot easier for your partner when she’s juggling a baby. Larger foods can even be cut up into smaller pieces. Get used to this, you’ll be doing it for the baby soon anyway!
As well as making things a lot easier for your partner, taking care of mealtimes means that you can ensure that your baby is getting the best possible milk by you providing nutritious meals for her mum.
2. Baths
Your partner’s just had a human pop out of her. The last thing she needs is to be carting around a baby bath full of water. Make sure you’re on hand to do the heavy lifting. Pregnancy and labour can cause a woman’s abdominal muscles to pull apart, which takes time to heal.
3. Helping out at Bedtime
If you can help out in the night, you’re doing your partner a huge favour. If your snoring is waking your child though, you can make a huge difference just by sleeping in a different room! There’s also several other different ways that you can help out if your baby is waking constantly during the night.
You can also help out during the lead-up to bedtime. By just having the TV volume a little quieter and the lounge lights dimmed slightly, it can help a baby to start to relax and eventually pick up cues that it’s time to go to sleep.
Of course, if you really want to go the full hog, you can look into ways to make your bedroom a more relaxing place in general.
4. Preparing Bottles
If your baby is bottle-feeding, you can take the strain off mum by mixing and preparing the bottles. It can take a bit of time to get all the bottles, washed, sterilised and mixed ready for the next round of feeding. A helping hand to remove that small burden can make all the difference. To learn more about bottle-feeding, visit blog.sellformula.com.
5. Keeping Baby Entertained
This is the best one. Not only does this allow mum to do some stuff on her own, but it also allows you to start really creating a close bond with your child.
As mentioned, babies are all for their mums at first, so you might have to be creative to stop your child from complaining about your lack of milk. I’ve had to sing, dance, and have extended bouts of fake hiccups to keep my daughter entertained while her mum is away, but now she enjoys hanging out with her old man. The easiest thing is just to walk around with her and play some calming music.
Give all these things a try, and not only will you soon find that you’re an essential cog in the baby-raising machine, but you’ll have also racked up some serious boyfriend/husband points!
If you’ve found yourself here, you might also enjoy some newborn baby advice specifically for dads.
If you can crack this one, your boyfriend/husband points total will go through the roof! How to stop your baby waking every two hours at night. You hero, go ahead and buy yourself that sporty two-seater now!
Now you’re indispensable at home, you might need to find yourself one of the jobs for stay-at-home dads that are available and viable nowadays