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Becoming a new dad is exciting, but overwhelming. It’s not just the emotional toll and physical responsibilities of keeping a tiny human alive, but also supporting your partner as her body recovers from giving birth, and dealing with the sudden change in lifestyle — especially the way it suddenly feels like you don’t have control over your time anymore.
“It took me a while to wrap my head around the enormity of the change that having a baby represented,” one dad told us.
At Peacock Parent, we’re all about helping parents get the support and help they need to reclaim their time, be present, and actually enjoy parenthood. So we sent out a survey to dads asking what they wished they had known before becoming a parent, what caused the most strain on their relationship the first year of fatherhood, general tips for new dads, and, in hindsight, how they would have spent their money differently. We analyzed their answers to bring you the 5 best tips for new dads. Enjoy…
Skip Ahead: Best Tips For New Dads
Tips for New Dads: Sleep deprivation is real. Hire a night nanny if you can.
Sleep, specifically not having enough of it, was mentioned by nearly every single dad who took our survey. Here’s what we heard:
- “Sleep deprivation is real. I think I still have PTSD.”
- “The sleep deprivation and dealing with a colicky baby got to me very quickly. It was hard for me to be positive, and I made a lot of negative comments, which made my wife feel like she had to be strong for both of us.”
- “The early days are a mix of beauty and chaos—both are normal. I wish I had known how intense the sleep deprivation would be.”
Lack of sleep was also cited as the biggest stressor on their relationships with their partners during that first year. There’s no worse killer for relationships than exhaustion. When you are severely tired, you don’t communicate as carefully or as often, and it’s easy to start allowing resentment to creep in and take each other for granted.
Luckily, there are ways to ease the sleep deprivation! One of the best tips for new dads is to hire overnight help, whether that's a newborn care specialist or a night nanny.
“My wife and I own a medical practice. We had just started the business 6 months before our son was born. As such, we had to get right back to work within 2 weeks. It was challenging. We wish we knew about night nannies,” wrote one dad.
Scheduling a night nanny for 2-3 days a week for the first two to three months of your child’s life can really help. We personally booked a night nanny to come 7 nights a week. It was totally worth it since we both slept more soundly knowing someone was available for the baby, who wasn’t one of us. If your wife decides to breastfeed, a night nanny will still wake her up to feed the baby, but handle the other tasks like burping, changing diapers, and keeping stimulation low to help get them back to sleep faster.
Several dads who filled out our survey said in hindsight they would have spent less money on toys and gadgets, and instead invested their money in hiring help like a night nanny. Those who did have a night nanny listed it as one of their best investments: “[A] night nurse was worth every penny.”
Besides a night nanny, hiring a sleep trainer is another amazing tip for new dads to help with sleep deprivation. A night nanny makes a world of difference early on, but working with a sleep trainer is an investment in your future sleep. As one dad wrote: “Sleep training is the key to a happy, healthy baby.”
Official “sleep training” — when babies learn to fall asleep by themselves — typically doesn’t start until around 16 weeks. But we found it helpful to have someone who could teach us about healthy sleep windows for the baby from the beginning, so that we could start introducing the skill of sleeping to our little one early on, and build a more predictable routine for us as parents too.
Sleep training is an interesting industry with a lot of people claiming they’ve cracked the code. Through Proxy, we’ve vetted several of the best sleep training options out there, including both in-person and virtual support. Proxy subscribers can save up to $500, depending on the provider you choose.
To get started hiring a night nanny, sleep trainer, or other newborn expert, sign up for Proxy, and for $40/month, we’ll match you with the best services in your area that align with your budget and needs. We personally vet every service we recommend.
Bonus Sleep Tips For New Dads: Buy a bottle warmer and mini fridge for either your bedroom or the baby’s room, and keep your formula, breast milk, or whatever else you need in the middle of the night in there. “At 2:30 in the morning, when you're exhausted and the baby's crying, it’s one less motion [you have to do] in the middle of the night,” says my friend Andrew Howell, the co-founder of the parenting resource MyTribe.
Tips for New Dads: Discuss expectations with your partner ahead of time.
Sleep may have been listed as causing the most strain on new dads’ relationships with their partners, but mismatched expectations around chores, household duties, and scheduling was a close second.
“Miscommunication about expectations [caused the most strain] —especially around sleep, household duties, and emotional support,” wrote one dad. “We were both doing our best but needed clearer ways to share how we were feeling and what we each needed.”
One of my favorite tips for new dads about managing expectations comes from Andrew Howell with MyTribe, who recommends setting aside time before the baby arrives to talk to your partner about expectations, a care plan, and even small details like where you’re both going to sleep.
“Try to create as few surprises as possible after the baby,” he says. “Are we both going to try to sleep in the same room with the baby in the bassinet? Are we going to alternate? Because some of those things on the fly can get really stressful, and at two o'clock in the morning, when everyone is tired, it's easy to disagree.”
Brian Page with Modern Husbands, a parenting company that focuses on how to manage money and the home as a team, says that finances and hiring help should be part of these early conversations as well. “The day-to-day finances is where the choices that we make compound, and if we don't discuss them in relation to managing the home and child care, we overlook things like the opportunities that outsourcing provides,” Page says. “My recommendation is, when money and home management intersect, to consider your values and your joys first, and find ways to spend money on those things, and work backwards.”
Even after the craziness of the first few months dies down, becoming parents still represents a big shift in your lifestyle. One dad wrote that he wished they had made “the necessary changes to our lifestyle before kids. We didn't make them in advance, so it was jarring when they hit all at once.”
Nowadays, there are so many tools and services out there to help families manage and start conversations around household tasks, chores, and scheduling. Here are some of our favorites we’ve vetted through Proxy that you can start to use before the baby arrives:
- Our Home Flows: Meet one hour/week with your partner for three weeks to learn how to prepare for the mental load of parenthood. The personalized coaching sessions will walk you through logical ways to identify where each of your time and resentment have the potential to build, and most importantly, provide solutions and systems to help free up more time to enjoy parenthood together. It usually costs $600 for all 3 sessions, but Proxy subscribers save $150.
- Persist: This app is designed to help families rethink household tasks. You fill out a series of questions to help understand who in your house is doing more or less of the work and where your time is going. They have super cool pie charts and analytics that spell all of this out for you. They then have coaches and assignments to help you find the balance that works for your household. Proxy subscribers get 15% off all of their services.
- Maple: This organizational app is designed to help families manage their households. It will help coordinate all the family planning and information you need — from meal planning to chores — in one location that you both have access to. The Family Plan costs $119/year, but you can save $30 with Proxy and pay $89 for the year.
Bonus Tips For New Dads: Weekly planning meetings with your partner are a great way to continue to stay on the same page about running the household. My partner and I sit down with our coffee and calendars every Friday morning and use the time to coordinate everything from what we are eating for the next 7 days to travel planning. Read my article on How To Plan Your Week With Your Partner for all the details on planning your week together. Even if you don’t feel it’s needed yet, start this routine before the baby comes so that you have good habits in place.
The One Thing Moms Wish Dads Would Do More
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Tips for New Dads: Be a parent, not a babysitter.
Dads emphasized the importance of fully engaging in parenting, rather than taking a backseat or just “helping out.” As one dad said it best: “Be an active participant, not just a helper. You're not 'babysitting'—you're parenting.”
This new dad tip means taking initiative with baby care, decisions, and bonding, and not waiting to be asked to do something. Learn to soothe your baby, change diapers, and wash bottles and pumping parts.
“Make sure that you and your partner act as a united front against all challenges,” wrote one dad. This includes initiating the conversation about whether it’s time to bring in any hired help at home, especially if you’re not taking a long paternity leave.
Investing in support isn’t a replacement for your co-parenting duties, but it can relieve the emotional and physical demands of primary caretaking and household management from your partner. Hired experts will also help her feel less lonely and lost during those stressful early months if you’re not able to be there all day, every day with her.
Brian Page of Modern Husbands says that you won’t regret being the one to initiate the conversation about hiring help.
“It'll be the best sex of your life when you tell your wife that,” he says.
Page says after he saw how happy it made his wife when he suggested hiring a housekeeper, it opened up their world to the benefits of outsourcing. “Outsourcing the tasks that you've identified with your partner that you're both not good at and neither of you enjoy will release stress,” he says. “But you have to take that first step.”
In terms of preparing for the nitty-gritty of how to care for your baby, The Simplest Baby Book In The World, is a great resource. Every subject has drawings with clear instructions so that you can efficiently digest the “need to know” bits of parenthood, whether that’s how to swaddle your baby tightly or the right way to change diapers. See more of my favorite books for new dads in my article on the 10 Best Books For First Time Dads.
Still, some of it you will learn as you go. “You can do your research ahead of time and read books and such, but expect to learn a lot as things happen,” wrote one dad. “You can't prepare for every scenario.”
With this in mind, we are so excited about a new Proxy feature we’ve rolled out called “Ask Proxy” that’s available 24/7. It’s designed to answer any questions you may have about the support you’ve already hired, or about hiring the right service or professional to address an issue you’re having.
Bonus Tips For New Dads: You don’t need boobs to help with breastfeeding - whether it be during the day or at night. “Get the baby out of the bassinet, change the diaper, and then hand a ready, willing, and able baby to your wife, so she's not doing all of that,” says Andrew Howell with MyTribe. Then afterwards, take the baby back to their room, burp him, change his diaper, and swaddle him.
What Great Dads Do Differently
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Tips for New Dads: Make sure you plan time for yourself and with your partner.
When your life changes so abruptly and you’re trying to adapt to the changes of being a new dad, it can be easy to forget to take time for yourself.
“You’re still you. It's easy to lose your identity in the early days,” wrote one dad. “It is important to make space, even tiny pockets of time, to do something just for you (shower, work out, get outside) - and that doing this is okay.”
Taking time for yourself when so much is going on can seem selfish. But it’s not. It’s how you show up as the best version of yourself for your family. For tips on carving out this “me-time” as a new dad, check out my article on 6 Ways for Parents to Practice Self-Care.
It’s also important to find ways to reconnect with your partner outside of baby logistics, recognize the exhaustion level you are both feeling, and remind each other that you are partners in this journey and on the same team.
“Check in with your partner emotionally, not just logistically,” wrote one Dad.
One really important way my partner and I make time for self-care and for each other is through our weekly planning meetings that I mentioned above. Alongside reviewing the kids’ schedules and our work obligations, we also schedule time for date nights and for each of us to have alone time. Weekly meetings might sound excessive, but a baby truly changes your schedule and routines, and you really do have to find time to reconnect and talk openly about the massive demands of your time/availability.
One way to ensure you have time together is to hire a babysitter once a week for a date night or day. You won’t regret the investment in your relationship. As one dad wrote: “I would’ve spent more money on childcare to spend more time alone with my wife.”
Subscribe to Proxy to get matched with the best vetted babysitting services in your area — plus, you’ll save upwards of $30 off your bookings.
Tips for New Dads: Be present because time is your most valuable resource.
Dads who answered our survey talked about how fast that first year went by and emphasized the importance of being present to enjoy it. Many said they wished they had taken more time off work:
- “I wish I had worked less.
- “Be Present, Not Perfect.”
- “I would have taken more PTO and spent less on baby gadgets.”
- “When they ask to play, say yes, because one day they will stop asking.”
- “Spread out your time off throughout the first year if you can, your career will always be there later.”
When it comes to how they would have spent their money differently, nearly all dads said they would have spent less money on toys and fancy baby gear. Half said they would have spent it on time-saving services in order to have more time with their partner and for self-care.
“I wish we had a trusted person come in weekly to help with household tasks like laundry, tidying, and meal prep,” wrote one dad. “It would’ve freed up more time for bonding and rest.”
The importance of how we spend our time as we’re getting pulled in all directions is what inspired me to build Proxy. By delegating and investing in time-saving services, whether that’s a part-time virtual assistant, a meal prep chef, or a laundry service, you can free up time to be a present, more engaged parent and partner. My husband always says our job is to keep our kids safe and to teach them how to keep themselves safe in the future when we are not around. That takes time and active engagement.
Get started with our free quiz, and we’ll match you with vetted services in your area that fit your budget and lifestyle. And if you want to use any of the services we’ve personally vetted with our preferred pricing, then you can upgrade to Proxy for $40/month.
