Help a new dad

[Ian87]

Afternoon everyone

Our son was born on Thursday morning and I left to come home around 6 hours later, unaware that because of covid I wouldn't be allowed back into the ward.

I've been able to pop in and drop things off, but currently mother and baby are still there.

As I sit here at home I'm trying to get everything sorted so that wife can have as much sleep as possible when she returns. I appreciate that without being able to breastfeed myself there's a limit to what I can do, so I ask you, what would you do in my shoes?

What jobs can I actually do aside from the usual cleaning/cooking I've always done. I want to do as much as I can to take the burden from my wife as the birth was slightly traumatic for her and owing to covid we can't have visits from family in the house (although I may have to ask my mother, a nurse, at some point in the future)

I know the newborn phase is tricky having read a few threads here but what can I do, as a husband, to help. Ladies, what do you wish your husband did?

Open to any and all suggestions!

Luckily I'm not back at work for another 10 days and even then I should hopefully be working from home in the other room so will be on hand (my job rarely requires things to be done instantly as it's alot of document writing). I can also amend my working hours as it's a 24 hour company so if I find working from say 11-7 better than 9-5 it's an option. Will need to be the office from time to time though although it's only 20 minutes away.

I'm feeling woefully out of my depth here and looking for any advice to smoothe the transition and crucially, take some strain off my wife

You will feel pit of your depth - it's ok.

Be the gatekeeper for visitors and be led by your wife's needs.
Do as much cleaning and batch cooking as you can do before they come home.
Help with as much as you can so she can focus on feeding.
Above all, be nice to each other. It is hard work and you will not sleep!

Congratulations!

Be prepared to do all the housework and cooking for a while. I didn't do a thing for something like 4 months as I had a velcro baby. Get some juice cartons and small snacks for her and maybe use the time to prep some freezer meals.

Out, not pit!

Good idea and congratulations!

Obvious stuff like make sure house is tidy! Everything is washed. Pre cook some nice meals easy to heat up. You could get some nice candles in so your wife can have a lovely bath. Plan some light easy watching on netflix/TV.

If your wife is breastfeeding it's handy to have some items in a little basket on sofa eg water bottle, Nipple cream, couple snacks, muslin - it can be a lot of hours in one place in the early days.

If you have a cloth wrap practice how to tie it so you can have the baby on you. Watch lots of videos and practice.

Congratulations!

I'd say as a start you could give the whole house a deep clean and a proper tidy, cook and freeze some batch meals that you can reheat easily as needed, shop and make sure there are supplies of nappies, wipes, toiletries and snacks that your DW likes. My DH did all of that with our first baby and I loved it. Life was generally more chaotic with our second so it wasn't quite as well organised.

Yes to snacks and drinks - juice cartons, favourite tea, biscuits, dried fruit, cereal bars etc. Does she have a water bottle she can use around the house.

I was only able to breastfeed because my DH was so supportive. You might find it helpful to have a read up about it, both my DH and I were shocked by how demanding and all-consuming it is for the first little while. He was always there to take baby if I needed to rest, or help me with positioning etc.

And congrats on your little one!

You’re both going to be overwhelmed and hit with the responsibility of it all. Take the next 10 days as a ‘baby moon’. Don’t try to stick to normal routines.

Put clean sheets on the bed.
Do a good shop. Healthy and comfort food.

Your partner is breastfeeding - get some provision in. Lansinoh cream, breast pads, and keep a Savoy cabbage in the fridge ( l kid you not - those green leaves are so soothing).
But also have bottles and steriliser to hand - just in case.

Get all the laundry done and put away.

Cook some meals ahead of their return.
None of us find it easy - I promise you. We’re all just winging it. There’s no right way, just take time. Pregnancy only prepares you for giving birth. After that we’re on our own. Don’t put any pressure on what should be happening and what you should be doing.

Clean your teeth. Have a shower. That’s the most to aim for daily.

Oh. Travel mugs for cups of tea.

Get ahead with booking shopping deliveries/click and collects and put them on a calendar.

Make sure you have numbers for GP/midwige etc so if anyone needs anything you're not scrambling around trying to find the info. I was fine going home but had bad nausea (reaction from C section) for the best part of the week after birth. DP had to do loads of sorting with GP and pharmacist. I couldn't physically look after our son til I got the meds I needed.

And don't forget you can pop back on here for any advice!

You've got me going now sorry.

You will both me immobile for lengths at a time with a sleeping baby so make sure you have Netflix/iplayer etc set up on your tv, healthy but tasty snacks that can be eaten cold, and.just generally be comfy.

owing to covid we can't have visits from family in the house (although I may have to ask my mother, a nurse, at some point in the future)

Just keep using it to limit visitors.
You'll be pleased about that.

Do everything else. Or at least a fair share.
Obviously change nappies and give baths as well.
Encourage her to get out on her own when she feels better.
Let her sleep as much as possible.

Give the baby cuddles, of course.
And her too.

Don't wait for her to tell you to do things.

What a lovely chap you are! Batch cook stuff you can just put in the oven, not something that needs stirring on a stove top. Freeze it. There are loads of freezer recipes on The Batch Lady on YouTube.

Get a food delivery set up including a list of the things you get weekly so you can just add those into your basket or have a well stocked cupboard, pantry and freezer.

Work wise I found it easier if Dh looked after Ds whilst I jumped in the shower first thing, he also helped me into clothes (c section) and helped me into a bra as I was wrangling myself into that whilst he held breast pads against my leaking boobs.

Make sure there is a stash of maternity pads in the house, pain meds, snacks and a thermos cup to keep drinks hot or cold. Maybe a water bottle with markers on that tell you how much you have drank. A phone app for feeding, nappy changes etc.

Expect it to be hard, expect it to be emotional, and take lots of video and photos and congratulations

You sound like a lovely husband and father. My DD was born 11 weeks ago and not having any visitors made for a very peaceful transition into our new life. Try and limit/ban visitors as much as you can, I had days of lying in bed with cold cans/frozen peas on my chest while we got to grips with bf and it was blissful not to have to host anyone!
My DH would take baby early evening so I could go to sleep, bring her up for a feed then go back downstairs so I got 5-6 hours sleep with a feed in the middle which really helped. On the nights DD wouldn't settle in her crib I would have her in bed with me and he sat in a chair watching over us (as I was nervous I would squash her!)
Echo PP's, batch cooking, lots of snacks and cold drinks. Even now he still leaves cold water bottles in the bedroom and nursery for me during the night.
You will both be tired, emotional, unsure of what's going on at times but just be there for each other. She may get teary/baby blues and will need lots of love. I remember climbing into bed one morning and saying to DH "I just need to have a cry, I don't think anything is wrong but please just cuddle me".
11 weeks on we have a beautiful, happy little girl and a mum and dad who are more in love than ever!
Congratulations to you both. You will always find support here if needed x

Also I arrived home to a freezer drawer full of maternity pads soaked in witch hazel and frozen, depending on the delivery she had (forceps and episiotomy here) she will thank you for it!

Everyone feel out of their depth, it's not just you. Thing I would do/ would have liked

While they're still in hospital
-batch cook and freeze, you might not have time once babies home

• check you have everything, eg.if you dropped all the nappies off at hospital, get more. Also paracetamol, maternity pads, breast pads

• write thank you cards to anyone who sent gifts

• Make sure everything is tidy for when they come home

• practice tying sling (or get one if you don't already)

When they get back

• nappy changes, rocking, walking round with in sling to get baby to sleep.

• bring wife snacks and more drinks then you ever imagined a person could drink

• try to have at least some non baby conversations

• wash they baby clothes from the hospital bag straight away, baby will have vomited on all the ones you have at home in a day or two

Congratulations!

Firstly, get some SLEEP. Seriously. Some newborns sleep really well, others a complete disaster in the first 3 months! You won’t know which one you’ve got for at least a couple of days. You’ll be much more use to your DW if you’re well rested and prepared for what could be a very difficult time.

Working hours - lots of young babies have a “witching hour” (or longer!) in the evenings where they cluster feed and won’t settle. This is probably the time your DW will need most support from you. So I wouldn’t switch hours to do later evenings if I were you. 9-5 is probably going to work well, but it’s nice that you have flexibility if things change.

If your DW hasn’t thought to do this, can you stick a table next to the sofa? Sometimes in the early days she might be stuck there feeding for a long time (babies are sleepy, so they nod off and stop feeding, then realise they are still hungry and carry on....). Having a table set up with a bottle of water, a couple of snacks and the TV remote can be a godsend! It’s so annoying to be stuck and suddenly realise you’re thirsty and hungry (I as too sleep deprived to realise this was going to happen, even though it was pretty obvious!)

Get her a nice treat. Something small, but that will make her smile. Hide it until about day 3/4. The hormone crash at about that time make everything feel like total crap. I remember just suddenly bursting into tears for no reason at all, it felt like the world was ending and everything just crashed over me. I doubt my DH could really have done anything if he’d been there, but maybe it would have helped!

It’s great if you can have the house in a good state when your DW gets back, but don’t put too much pressure on yourself. In some ways, setting a high standard at the start puts more pressure on both of you. There will be times when things slip, and that’s ok. It’s going to be tough when you go back to work.

Some really good ideas here. I'd just say do some research/watch youtube on the basics. If shes been doing all the nappy changes etc she will appreciate not having to show you how. I thought it would come naturally and be obvious but well at 2am with a screaming baby that has just pooed everywhere my common sense disappeared. How to bath a bby, how to change a baby, what normal baby poo looks like and how it changes in the early stages, what is worth a trip to the doctors and what isnt, how to tie a sling, etc. Also what worked really well for us was a small 'mini changing box' of a few nappies, bags, muslins, and a packet of wipes in baby room/our room/living room. Even though the baby slept in our room, the ability to take him out to be changed allowed the other person some sleep!
Most of all, just listen to her and check in with her.
All the best with the new baby

Some nice hand cream for the excessive hand washing.

Also do all the odd jobs like making sure bins are changed etc.

Pedal bins in all your loos with a supply of pads.

Supply of basic pain killers like ibuprofen and paracetamol. And rennie.

Nice towels washed and dried. Bath cleaned.

Make sure you have your sleep arrangements sorted. Baby should be in the same room as you for 6 months. Don't be scared to sleep in shifts. It may help survival!

Oh and watch out for the day 5 hormone surge. It's real and it can be difficult for all concerned (only speaking from my own experience here).

As above listen to your wife. You may both feel that a visitor after a week wouldn't be a bad thing. My sister came over with McDs a week after our son was born, make endless cups of tea for me and helped us choose a name! An external perspective can be helpful.

When wife is home, be ready to cut up meals, wind baby (I used to BF then hand DS straight over and go to sleep but he was always a quick/ efficient feeder), bring snacks or water at whatever time (the thirst from BF was INSANE). Cook, shop, clean if you have time. Sleep when you can- in shifts if need be.

Be ready to deal with emotions in your wife.

As a new first time father it can be quite hard to work out what your role is in things. However my experience was the important thing is to get enough rest yourself as well, also things like burp the baby and deliver him when he needs feeding and hold on to him to get him to sleep, make sure your wife can get uninterrupted sleep for at least 2 hours in a row, if you can get him to take expressed milk some times all the better.
I say he because ours is a boy but it also applies to girls.
Try to get out for a family walk to the end of the road within the first week, then a bit further the next week. That will really improve your feelings.
To be honest at first you are just functioning, after a few weeks you start to feel like it's normal, then you start to accept your role is now parent as well as partner and your identity becomes more rich.
Good luck!

When our son is as born my fiancé was brilliant at keeping on top of my pain relief. For the first ten days I had regular paracetamol and ibuprofen (you can have them together safely) but my head was a bit all over the place so there was no way I could keep on top of timings / how many tablets I'd had etc. My fiancé kept track of everything on his phone and brought me pain killers when they were due. He was very helpful!

Go to boots and buy a pack of multi mam compresses. They're a bit over a tenner I think. They were a lifesaver in the first couple of weeks of breastfeeding!

If you haven't already done so try to do some research on breastfeeding as then you'll be in a better position to support your wife. I read breastfeeding for dummies. There are a ton of YouTube videos, a lady called Emily Norris has made some good ones.

Finally - just all the stuff everyone else already said re. food & just generally trying to be helpful.

Good luck, it's hard to start with but I promise it gets easier!

Oh yes @firstimemamma

Giving me my anticoagulant 'self injections'

I'd forgotten about them