It's way more fun to embarrass them when they are teenagers. You can actually see then cringe when you start saying out loud stuff like El Oh El, ZOMG, Dench and ask them if it's okay to friend them on "The Facebook".

Just found out my wife is pregnant with our first. We haven't been to the doctors yet, going next week. It Still hasn't sunken in yet all the way. We were only trying for 2 months, and didn't necessarily expect it to happen this fast.

I guess they count the 40 weeks from the first day of the woman's last cycle, which seems weird to me since conception is like 2 weeks later, but if we base if off of that the baby would be due 8/18. Boy = Parker , Girl = Aria... As of now anyway, could change.

Thought we were done with 2 (boy-4, girl-2) but had an oops last fall. It turned out to be a big oops as my wife is preggo with twin girls (fraternal). Was hoping for 1 of each for a nice balance, but it seems that my son and I are outvoted now.

I've read this thread for half a decade and loved it... Just got the confirmation today at wifeys 20 week ultrasound that.... ITS A GIRL! We are beyond ecstatic. Thanks to all for sharing your stories and lurking here has and will continue to pay HUGE dividends... I love you all (lol yes the family and I are drinking pink champagne so I'm a lil tippppps)

Edit...Also just realized the OP said they tried for 2 years, same with us.... I feel strangely connected to this thread even though I don't post much here. Best believe I'll be back in May/June to post some pics

Congrats Jay!!!


Twin girls is awesome! That is a GREAT "oops"!!!

A sincere congrats to all of you. I've said it a million times, I never liked kids, and never considered myself a "kid person", but after my daughter was born I'm really a changed man. It's like finding out there is something wonderful in the world you never knew existed.

That first 5-8 months is rough, but it gets better, it really does.

Congrats.

I found the 6th month to be probably the easiest out of the first year. I watched my boy pretty much exclusively for his first 10 months, as a stay-at-home dad, and I just remember the 6th month being the easiest.

He could sit upright and hold his bottle while he fed, and of course he was more aware and cognizant than any of the prior 5 months, but he wasn't yet standing or crawling (I don't think). The crawling isn't difficult for the parent, and it gives him something to do. But once he started pulling himself up and "standing" it gets harder because you constantly have to make sure he's not going to fall, or if he is, that he won't hurt himself by landing on hard toys or whatever. Once he started walking at 10.5 months everything got much harder. But my wife was off for the summer by then. And the difficulty is offset by the happiness you gain by seeing your child walking and being active.

My boy is 16.5 months now and he's literally able to climb onto the kitchen table, and open doors with lever handles. He can climb onto any couch or recliner, and he can let himself off our bed without hurting himself. He's very physically active and "handsy", but he's a bit behind with speaking or being socially conforming. Every new thing he learns to do takes time to adjust to, but for the most part it's offset by the joy of watching him develop and learn right from wrong.

A-Rod or anyone else that stays at home?

Any good advice you can share?

I'm super ****ing pumped, because I think I am going to get to stay at home. My wife is finishing up her masters for becoming a Nurse Practioner just before our baby is due. Assuming she eventually lands a job I will be dropping out of the work force because we really want to have someone stay home for at least a few years and it makes more sense for me to do so because she is just graduating and it would be really bad for her to graduate and then not get experience. I'm a software engineer so it should be much easier for me to dip out for a bit and then come back in in the future. We might have to make some cut backs, but we always have lived below our means and have been fortunate so far to have a bunch of savings and a good chunk of equity in our condo at this point so we are going to take advantage of that.

I think it's super awesome for men to stay home with their kids. But it is a really hard and mostly thankless job, especially when they are very little.

I'd rather work 2 jobs.

Not kidding.

Well at least one person will be thankful (my wife)

Yeah I didn't mean to imply that I would be glad to just "chill" at home. I know this will probably be the toughest thing I have ever done in many regards. Regardless I am really looking forward to it.

We are on the older side (wife will be 37 and I 36 when Kid is born) and had to deal with wife getting sick and going through chemo and radiation about 10 years ago and been told we probably had a very low chance we could have kids. We have been focusing on her health and planning on no kids. Wife decided to change careers to something she was more interested in and in the last few years we started talking about trying and finally deciding we were going to try. Wife was pretty certain it wouldn't happen and wanted to start early (she graduates in May) but I suggested just in case we wait so if it did happen easily she wouldn't be delivering in the middle of her last semester. Good thing we waited cause we got super lucky and got pregnant immediately after going of birth control.

Anyway we both feel very strongly that we would like one of us home for at least a few years since we are lucky enough financially to do so. Still a lot of things up in the air, but I would say it is most likely going to be me.

...............


Big thanks to A-rod's-Cousin who sent me a very long and detailed PM which I haven't totally sifted through yet. Was not expecting such a detailed response. Very very appreciated.

I'm in the same boat. We are both 37, and one of us could have stayed home, but we decided it would be better to have her spend 2 days at her on-campus day care a week and 3 days with her grandparents (retired). That would free up resources (meaning tuition) for her education. We expect that to be very expensive.

I've never gotten mad or upset with dealing with a screaming baby. Cora is a good baby but that doesn't mean she doesn't have her meltdowns or very difficult nights/days. I'm exposed to it, but I think if I had to do it full time I'd pull my hair out. Sometimes my wife needs a break and I try to ensure she gets them.

I will say that the baby is way more attached to my wife than me. Part of it might be because she breastfeeds, but when my wife picks her up she instantly calms down. It takes me considerably longer to calm the baby down. I asked a few friends and they all said that's normal. Sometimes when my wife walks out of the room the baby will just start crying and when she walks back in 30 seconds later she'll instantly stop crying. I'm ok with that.

Good luck man. Have hoopla kids videos on youtube ready at all times, because they can mesmerize children into silence, which sometimes you have to do.

It's definitely not easy. My wife still had it harder since she was getting up multiple times in the middle of the night to feed, then working all day. I just told jhall that evenings could be a bit cranky and low-energy between the mom and dad. Because of this, we really tried to be proactive about procuring a date night every few weeks for just the 2 of us, while grandma watched our son. Grandma was thrilled to do this and it's important to stay on romantic terms with your spouse when your marriage appears to be another job at this point. I didn't want us to lose sight of the fact that we still needed to be alone together and feel like a couple again. I think that helped a lot.

The hardest thing for Dad is that we don't have the ability to breastfeed, so it's just not as easy to bring calmness to our child as it might be for Mom. Our baby never appeared more calm than when feeding on Mom, but I just can't do that. Luckily she pumped a ****load of milk in advance so I was always able to bottle-feed him her milk during the day. We've still never had to use formula and he's still feeding regularly at 16 months.

Another key thing was around 8 months my boy was physically developed enough that I was able to start taking him to the local library for a toddler story/music/play time. Getting out of the house and watching your child develop among other toddlers was a lot of fun. You begin to see your child's personality when you can compare it to the others. 8 months later and I still take him there every Wednesday for a couple hours. A nice ancillary benefit is that he almost always falls asleep in the car on the way home.

As cliche' as it may sound, the lack of romance or affection is a serious issue once you have children. Personally, I think this falls more on the man than the woman, but that might be because I'm a man (and overthink everything).

It's tough when your mindset changes from thinking about "your girl" or "your wife" when you start thinking about her as "the mother of your children". For me the mindset did change, and I actively try to ensure I still think of her as "my girl" as much as I can. This is the same as when before children you are #1 in the relationship, and after children you become a very distant #3.


Of course every relationship and dynamic between couples is different, but I truly believe date night is more important than you think. One day it could save your relationship.

I don't think of her differently. I just meant that many evenings we're both exhausted and it's hard to be intimate when you are both changing diapers and wiping slobber off your clothes and food and boogers off your baby's face all night. lol.

But yeah it's still huge to be able to find a few hours for just the 2 of you to go spend time together with peace of mind every few weeks. Then bone in peace. Just a few hour retreat for your relationship. Then back to poo and boogers.

New fathers-to-be: Pay very close attention to these last two posts. They are invaluable.

Man we're getting really close now (Due date in 8 days), she is starting to be VERY frustrated that it hasn't happened yet, and I guess if it goes past the due date the doctor is going to do some form of natural induction (he separates something from something else w/his hand and it induces). Very nervous/excited and just want him to be here so she can have the relief of having it done and we can have our son

Membrane scrape?

yea believe that's it

My wife and I realized this when we were talking about trying last year. We knew it would be really important to us to make time for ourselves. After things get settled down after the initial craziness our plan is to get a sitter at least bi-weekly. We are torn between moving and staying near Boston, but one HUGE bonus to staying here is both our parents are about 1 hour away. My mom already told us she would gladly come up once a week, or we could drop the kid off down at her place for a sleepover with her. I'm sure we could get the same from my in-laws too.

Twins on the way....

Very excited but expecting no sleep from july

Have two kids, a couple of super simple bits of advice that are not reiterated enough to new dads IMO.

Your baby, for the first 3-6 months, (probably longer then that even) obviously has very simple needs in life. He/she is hungry/tired/ or dirty diaper (although my kids havent given a **** about the latter). The one thing I was pissed that no one told me enough, or tried pounding into my head enough was, is that if the baby is fussy and its not cause he/she is tired, FEED IT UNTIL IT SHUTS UP. I mean that just about literally. Works just about everytime IMO, my wife has given me **** about how it's the "easy way out" but IMO WHO CARES. This applies more for formula fed kids, or for older babys who are eating more solid food, but breast fed kids it can too, provided your babys momma pumps a lot.

Like I said previously, they are super simple, but that doesn't mean you can use the same strategies to satisfy their few needs forever, INSTEAD OF GETTING CRAZY AND FRUSTRATED, TRY NEW THINGS, DONT GET STUCK WITH CERTAIN HABITS, YOUR BABY WILL CHANGE FAST.

This bit of advice steers away from general advice but it's worked so unexpectedly well for me with both of my kids that I think it's worth mentioning. TRY SINGING SOFTLY TO YOUR CHILD TO CALM HIM/HER. I had never sang anything my whole life basically, still wouldn't in any other circumstance. But for some reason singing easy nursery rhymes in a soft voice works like magic for me. Actually have showed up my wife a couple times when she couldn't calm one of my children down doing this, and when your a new clueless dad, you relish the opportunities to do that trust me.

Ok thats all I got for now.

+1 singing

My oldest loved Bob Marley's 3 Little Birds and my youngest is a fan of the Disney animated Robin Hood theme song.

We have number two coming in the fall.

Came in right on the due date (Jan 22nd). Insane insane experience, wife gave in and cried for epidural at 8cm, then went to 9.5 like insta and they just YOLO'd it no drugs, so ended up being all natural was really intense to watch, what a battle.

Crazy experience, not a lot of sleep (although I caught up on a ton last night on our first night home, wife has just been a machine getting up for feeding constantly)