Best Advice For New Parents
Somewhere there is a list as long as a CVS receipt of things no one tells you before you become a parent. Everything from the value of zipper (and more recently, magnet) pajamas to your inevitable new obsession with poop (your ability to eat ground mustard is going to be tested in a real way). Be warned: when you have a baby, your child is not the only thing being born. Get ready to welcome into the world everyone’s opinions and self-proclaimed expertise. That’s the real after-birth.
I’m No Expert
I’m not a parenting expert. I’m not a baby whisperer. I don’t know the secret tricks to soothe a screaming newborn. I don’t know the perfect way to hold a bottle to ease a gassy infant. I struggle each day to figure out who my baby girl is and how I can be the best parent for her. Most days I get 1% better at being her dad. Some days I get worse.
I have nothing to offer you to improve your skills as a parent. I can, though, offer you one piece of advice for you and your partner: Hold hands.
Having a baby is going to test you. It will test your patience, it will test your ability to function on minimal sleep, it will test your resolve and it will test your marriage. Frustration is real. Resentment is real. Jealousy is real. You are going to feel all of these things so please, hold hands.
I didn’t discover the value of hand holding until our second daughter was born. Perhaps it was experience or the wisdom gained after two years of parenthood or perhaps its was out of pure necessity. This time around, though, it has made a monumental difference.
In the first two months of my daughter’s life, amid endless struggle, I starting forcing a habit of holding my wife’s hand. It wasn’t always natural and it wasn’t always easy. I did it, though, and here is what happened:
The Results
We were reminded that we were a part of a team. We weren’t alone.
It is so easy to feel lonely as a new dad. There is only a short list of things you can do to help out and that list is even shorter if your wife is breastfeeding. It is even easier to feel alone as a new mom for the same reasons. You won’t always have time to sit down for conversation to remind one another of your support so use touch. Sometimes, when the world seems to be crumbling around you and the baby is screaming at the top of her lungs while the toddler keeps repeating “Elsa!” you need a wordless reminder that you aren’t alone and that things will only get better from here. Hold hands.
We felt connected at a time when our focus had to be elsewhere.
The advice you probably will hear over and over again is, “be sure to make time for one another.” Rarely is that advice followed up with suggestions on how to actually do that. The reality is that the first month as a new parent is awful. You aren’t sleeping, you have no routine, you don’t know your baby’s language and your house is a mess. The last thing you’ll be thinking about is date night. Hold hands.
We experienced touch at a time when intimacy was impossible/challenging.
Despite popular assumptions, you can experience intimacy without being “intimate.” Dads, put your frustrations and selfish desires aside and focus on creating real intimacy between you and your wife. Hug her. Rub her back, legs, feet, whatever. She just went through a physical trauma and is lifting a baby all day while chasing a toddler. She’s thinking about having to go back to work and worrying about when to register the baby for preschool. Her hormones are tormenting her by recreating Kingda Ka inside of her. When the kid’s asleep and the baby is napping put her first. Find a way to make her laugh, kiss her forehead, tell her she’s a super hero and for the love of all that is holy… hold hands!
We were grounded through one another.
Parenting is often an exercise in getting lost. Day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute you are focused on keeping the plates spinning and the balancing act. Your focus shifts with the frequency of an olympic ping-pong match. When the dust finally clears you have no idea where you are, what day is, the last time you showered or your kids’ names. You need to find safe, steady, solid ground again. Reach out that hand and find one another.
No Single Act
No single act alone can change your life, restore your marriage and make you a perfect parent. That is unrealistic. If the act is connected to things like selflessness, support, comfort, consolation and joy, though, it can make a seismic difference.
I think of the lyrics from “Don’t Give Up on Me” by Andy Grammer:
“I’ll reach my hands out in the dark
And wait for yours to interlock
I’ll wait for you
I’ll wait for you”
During the two hours where my wife’s and my sleep would overlap in those first few months of my daughter’s life, I found myself reaching my hands out in the dark and waiting. When my wife’s reached back and interlocked it was everything.
Hold hands.
