The Fourth Trimester
Julian Murdoch (Rabbit) over at Gamers With Jobs has written an excellent article titled "the Fourth Trimester," about the first three months of being a father. It's terrific advice and I totally agree with at least 99% of what he says. You can find it here.I'll add one thing: control what you can control. When your child is first born, there is this gigantic, sprawling list of things you can't control, which makes it even more important to control what you can. As an example, learn how to install a car seat at least six to eight weeks before the due date.
That sounds like a little thing, if you've never installed a car seat. It's not. The damn things take an inhuman amount of force to install really, really securely, and you'll be floundering around for the first five to ten attempts, at least.
I thought I'd practice installing it a couple of weeks before Gloria's due date. She was four weeks early, though, and had the baby on about thirty minutes notice. I wound up installing the car seat for the first time in the parking garage of the hospital in August. It was over a hundred degrees inside the garage. I was installing the seat for the first time, dripping wet and frightened, and it was pure hell.
So don't be like me. Practice way, way in advance, because that's one thing you can control. That's a good rule of thumb for parenting in general, really: control what you can--survive what you can't.
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