Display your dominance early.
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Congrats! This is a terrible idea though 
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Above advice is good⌠Iâll add to not freak out if you feel like youâve lost your partner for about a year starting mid way through pregnancy.
My wife is 0 drama, one is the reasons I married her, are got real emotional and a bit crazy from about halfway through her pregnancy to 6 or 7 months after child birth. Was semi common for me to get home from work and her to be in tears.
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SS + GOMAD, ldo
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Someone else already gave you the GOAT book, but also just listen to your newborn. Itâs not as difficult as tv makes it out to be. There will be timing cues youâll become familiar with like sleeping cues and feeding etc. Iâm only 4 months ahead of you with my second kid but thatâs a lifetime in baby-time. My point is donât overthink things, let the baby tell you what to do for the first few months. And those are the easiest months of your kids life until theyâre like 40 so enjoy. Honestly, congrats. Itâs so fun to watch them grow up.
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For pregnancy, Expecting Better by Emly Ostr is great. She has a book about childcare too, but I havenât read it. Thereâs an updated version of Dr. Spock that I found useful as a reference for someone who didnât know anything about babies, never changed a diaper, etc. I also found a book called The Baby Ownerâs Manual useful. Itâs got stuff like an illustrated, step-by-step guide to picking up a baby or swaddling.
Your local hospital probably offers infant CPR classes and a general baby care classâdo these as like a date night with your wife. Figuring out a pediatrician is a good thing to do now too, and this is something you can completely run without your wife needing to do anything other than show up. I didnât really know what I was doing when we picked a pediatrician, but:
- Most important thing is to have someone you feel comfortable talking to and who says things that align with your parenting philosophy. A good pediatrician is a critical resource.
- Scope out their office to make sure they have lots of exam rooms and that youâre not going to be in a cramped waiting room for 15 minutes with a crowd of sick kids every time you go there. Also make sure they require their patients to adhere to the standard vax schedule.
- Practicalities: Do they have Saturday hours? Is the pediatrician so old theyâre going to retire before your kids are grown? Is the practice big enough that there are going to be other doctors available for sick visits when your doctor is out?
General parenting books to read before you have a baby:
Raising Human Beings
The Self-Driven Child
How to Raise Successful People (this book has the cringiest title of any book I have ever owned, and I once owned a book called The Millionaireâs Pregnant Mistress [long story], but itâs actually good)
You should read these before you have a baby because theyâre kind of philosophical and youâre likely going to want more bang for your buck in terms of immediate advice when youâve got a real live baby kicking around.
Other good parenting books:
Precious Little Sleep - good for exactly one thing, but itâs the most important thing that you can screw up in your babyâs first year. New-parent sleep deprivation is extremely real, and getting your baby sleeping through the night ASAP is really important for everyone.
No Bad Kids - this is my #1 parenting book, but itâs only really applicable for toddlers and up. The author, Janet Lansbury, also has a really good podcast.
@Fatboy8âs point is really key as well. Itâs important to have people who are not your wife to talk to about things. One thing that really hit me was that our baby became real for my wife much earlier than for me, for the obvious biological reasons. There was a tough period for me where a lot of her emotional center of gravity shifted to the baby during the pregnancy, which is normal, but that shift didnât really happen to me until I was holding the baby and changing diapers and really living it myself.
Good luck! Youâll do great and parenting is awesome, especially once your baby sleeps through the night.
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Donât worry about shit and piss. Itâs gross at first, but both will inevitably get on you, even on your face at some point, so just roll with it. Also, when they are old enough to walk around, yet still wearing diapers, your kids will definitely touch their own shit at least once.
Summary: invest in hand lotion because your skin will get cracked as hell from all the hand washing.
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On a more serious note, enjoy it. Take a moment to appreciate your baby. My oldest just turned 15 and dlk9s jr turns 13 in a month. I was looking at pics for his Bar Mitzvah and wonder where the hell the time went.
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Also want to add, and this is probably more applicable as your kid gets older, but be the person you want your kid to grow up to be. Donât be incongruent with what youâre telling your kid and what your kid is actually witnessing you do.
If you want your kid to be kind, make sure youâre showing them what that looks like.
This is especially important with your relationship with your partner. Model what a good, kind, communicative relationship looks like so they know what normal is.
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Can you talk a little more about Expecting Better? My wife told me to order it but I recognized Emily Oster as the economist who pushed for reopening schools before COVID vaccines were available and my radar went up.
Read some reviews and some of her blog and her schtick seems to be an economist whose null hypothesis is that conventional wisdom that you need to do X is wrong unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary and only a few things meet that standard so you donât need to worry about everything else. Thatâs a fine thing to keep in the back of your mind, that most likely you are going to have a healthy baby no matter what unless you act recklessly, but not sure that is the approach I want to take.
Specifically, Iâd go with the null hypothesis that the conventional wisdom of the medical community is correct unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Should generally try to follow it where you can even if the marginal impact for a lot of it is, at best, small.
Baby girl is 4 weeks old and her hobbies are crying, yelling and complete and utter meltdowns. Havenât slept for than 90 mins straight in a week. She also refuses to sleep in her crib.
But im sure it will all be worth it when she hates me at 14 years old
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Hereâs some serious advice. If you or partner is bilingual, speak the non-English language to your kid almost exclusively. This seems obvious to me, but I know tons of parents who donât do it (or not nearly enough) because they are worried it will affect their ability to speak and understand English. Your kid will pick up the other language effortlessly and they are never not going to be fluent in English.
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Yeah, the first 6 months can be a little brutal. Youâre giving all your time and energy to this thing and they arenât really giving you anything back except pee, poop, and tears. It gets better when theyâre able to start smiling and their personalities start to come out.
I have a 9 year old daughter. SHe doesnât hate me yet, so you can say Iâm kind of an expert at this!
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Lol
Its our second child. But her brother slept like a champ first few months (not so much since then). This one is grumpy as hell. I mean i agree with her, i just wish she handles her frustrations with alcohol and ranting about nfl refs instead of crying.
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There are lots of good parenting books, but the one thing there is major disagreement on is about sleep training. Some advocate cry it out (or versions thereof), but some say cry it out is cruel and inhuman. I forget which book it was, but one of the ones we read had an excerpt where it discussed how cry it out would lead to your baby not trusting you and irreversibly damage their relationship with you.
Iâm not going to advocate one way or another (you may also decide to switch later if one method isnât working), but you should talk to your spouse and decide what method you want to try and make sure whatever book you pick is consistent with that method. Pregnancy/infants are tough enough already, so no need to add to the stress by having a book tell you you are being cruel due to your choice of sleep method.
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Are you going to get the book for her, or did you decide to veto it?
I texted her my concern and waiting to see she what says. Wife had told me she heard drinking a glass of wine a day was okay during pregnancy and clear now that it was from a friend reading this book. So I cited that and said while I believe a glass a day isnât going to doom the baby and will most likely be fine either way, Emilyâs reasoning on that is pretty sketchy to me, seems pretty obviously best practice w/ solid reasoning not to do that which is why no medical association agrees with it. The most I would want to run with that particular piece of advice is feel free to have a drink during a handful of big events like weddings we have during the pregnancy.
To be clear, wife isnât going to read the book, she wants me to research and figure out what to do. Says she is already doing enough carrying the baby and what not, lol.
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A friend of mine has a wife who is an obstetrician. We went out a couple of times when she was in her 3rd trimester. She had a glass of wine both times. Part of me was hoping someone would make a comment about it just to see the sparks fly. I kind of think she was too.
Echo Bobman in the recommendation for Osterâs book. Itâs become more controversial than it deserves to be, primarily due to the alcohol discussion. My thoughts on this:
- Like her or not, Oster is a very competent consumer/evaluator of empirical research. I think sheâs very credible in terms of evaluating the existing medical studies in terms of their empirical limitations.
- Itâs totally reasonable to decide that your personal risk preferences do not align with hers. You can learn that the evidence on alcohol during pregnancy is actually not decidedly in favor of complete abstention AND decide that you want to abstain.
- Itâs easy to focus on the alcohol question and say, âShut up you dumbass economist - we want to minimize risk for our baby, and that means no alcohol.â But the issue is much broader, and this is what the book talks about. You face this type of choice all the time. Do you eat tuna, sushi, soft cheese? Do you work out? Do you keep working? Do you go on bed rest? All of those questions have an answer if your goal is âabsolute risk minimization regardless of costâ. But for most people, absolute abstention from any risk at all isnât a realistic outcome, and itâs useful to think explicitly about what tradeoffs youâre willing to make.
Other things:
- Sleep is critical. We didnât realize it at the time, but our first was super difficult and colicy. She cried all the time, and we were getting no sleep at all. It was crushing. Thereâs not a ton of advice here, other than to be aware of sleep and be forgiving to each other.
- Sorry, the one piece of sleep-related advice is this: Sleep begets sleep. I was a moron and thought it was obvious that babies would sleep better at night if they didnât sleep during the day. No matter how intuitive I thought this was, it didnât turn out to be true.
- In terms of actionable planning, the one thing we had to buy far earlier than expected was the crib. There was an incredibly long lead time combined with the fact that crib manufacturers apparently go out of business a lot. So if youâre definitely getting a crib, you should probably be looking now. That being said, you would probably be fine with a Pack n Play or equivalent.
Good luck!
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First off, thanks for all the responses. I read them all then felt a little information overload and had to reread a little bit for information to stick. Didnât respond to everything since multiquote was annoying me, but think some of the topics are still a little abstract since I donât think Iâll truly internalize until I experience them, like the sleep game, poop/piss, etc.
Second off, found out from blood work that weâre having a boy. Trying to figure out how to have the most destructive gender reveal party, any tips? 
Definitely going to check these out. We have the second visit coming up next month, so will make sure to ask.
re: booze
Definitely seems like a reason to cut back a little anyways from my end. As a result of this pandemic, Iâve gotten a little lazy and fallen into some bad habits imo. Plus, Iâm a beer nerd and without my partner sharing a 750ml barrel aged stout, they can be a little rough to finish in one sitting. 
Picked up this book and have caught up to our stage. So far so good and at least gives some exposure to a lot of concerns and unknowns. Itâs very light read and easy to skip stuff that isnât relevant to our situation.
Added a bunch of books to my list. Thanks for the quick summaries so I can slot them in to proper ages for just-in-time.
Interesting, this makes a lot of sense but neither of us are fluent in a second language. We both know enough Spanish to get by and she can mostly speak Greek. Maybe this will be an excuse to brush up on some language skills. 
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