My primary piece of advice for all expecting parents is to sleep now while you have the opportunity.
The days leading up to the birth of a child are all a buzz with excitement as you rush around prepping for your new bundle of joy. This is all well and good, but sleep is better. Make sure you don't tire yourself out; YOU CAN'T CATCH BACK UP ON SLEEP LIKE YOU USED TO.
Sleeping in a chair in the hospital after the delivery will not give you adequate rest. Waking every couple of hours to crying for weeks on end will not rejuvenate you either. Walking your child to quiet him or her until you've worn through a pair of socks does not provide much rest either.
As long as you have a place for him or her to sleep, food for him to eat and diapers to keep him clean, the rest is all just inconsequential icing on the proverbial baby cake. Keep in mind that infants will not care how well-decorated a room is or whether or not their clothes match. Much of the advance preparation for babies is done for the parents' sake.
What will impact them most is having a well-rested, SANE parent who is not teetering on the edge of fatigue-induced clinical insanity.
So if you listen to one piece of advice, rest up now.
Sleep now, you'll never be able to again
Sleep habits of fruit bats and pregnant women
Owls. Fruit bats. Vampires. Pregnant women.
What do these creatures have in common? None of them sleep well at night and, in the case of pregnant women, neither do their partners.
A pea-sized bladder, sore back, indigestion, swollen ankles and tender breasts are ingredients in the uncomfortable cocktail that makes pregnant women sleep poorly. They all add up to interrupted sleep on the part of the pregnant woman and, by proxy, the expectant father will not sleep well either. Dads-to-be should make sure that in the months prior to the birth they eat a balanced diet and try to maintain a regular sleep schedule so they are not completely fatigued and unhealthy before the little one arrives.
This may be nature's way of preparing the new parent for many sleepless nights ahead. I would however much prefer being woken by my new, adorable (as he will of course be) son than by my wife's huffing and puffing as she struggles to roll out of bed. I'm actually looking forward to being woken by the little one, for now it's the wife that's driving me to exhaustion.
Pregnancy dreams, zombies and expectant fathers
I've previously mentioned ways that my pregnant wife is slowly trying to drive me insane. She may have worked in extradition based on her tactics; she yells at me to break me down emotionally, she tries to make me fat and weak with snack foods and she clings to me to make me feel paranoid.
Lately she's been dabbling with sleep deprivation. At first she was just kicking me in the middle of the night and scaring the crap out of me. Now she's trying a different route, waking me in the latest hours of the night to recap a dream that reads like a vampire / zombie / alien thriller.
"Whew!" she exclaimed a millisecond before she clung to my body, still waking from her nightmare. "Can you cuddle me?" She was already stuck to me like a barnacle, so yes honey, we can cuddle.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I just had the weirdest dream..." After a five minute synopsis, I knew I was not going to get back to sleep quickly. "... and there were toddlers in all the cars in the parking lot and there were no adults around, and we couldn't tell if they had been infected and were zombies or not. "
I was now awake and scared that the alien vampire zombies might in fact be down stairs. She's sure as hell not going to fend them off, so of course now I have to sleep lightly for the rest of the night.
This scene has replayed itself a couple times since then, but with no dreams as cool as that first night. Vivid dreams are a common occurrence during pregnancy and are attributed to hormonal changes and the emotional journey of becoming a parent.
All expectant fathers need to know is that you will lose sleep over it. Listen to your pregnant partner, comfort her, and may I suggest a slug of red wine before bed to help you sleep more soundly.
8 reasons why pregnancy makes fathers tired
Pregnancy can be rough on fathers as well as the mothers. It's clearly understood that pregnant women undergo lots of changes which leave them feeling tired, but it's not always addressed that those who are on their way to fatherhood can experience fatigue as well. Based on absolutely no laboratory research of my own, yet backed with a keen eye, I've assembled the 8 reasons why pregnancy makes fathers tired.
1. Late night snack runs.
Quite a few times during this pregnancy I have found myself out at night , past my normal bedtime, on a hunt to find a candy bar, a coconut cake or some macaroni and cheese. I don't have any problem doing so, and it's not like I'm out for hours at a clip, but it is a change to my schedule. More often than not, I end up eating some of what I buy for my wife.
2. Changes in diet.
An expectant father's diet is going to change from pre-pregnancy norms. Like I said in #1, I often end up eating some of the tasty treats I've gotten to feed my wife's hormonal hunger. In addition to the periphery of snack foods, the first trimester diet is often bland, and also includes less whole grains. This, combined with more snackey foods, leads to an increase in sugar and carbohydrates which may cause your insulin levels to gyrate, pack on a few pounds and make you fatter and sleepier in the process.
3. She wakes you up on the way to the bathroom.
Pregnant women pee with a regularity and frequency to which you can calibrate sensitive instruments. She's going to pee all the time, and the nighttime hours are no exception. In the process of making nocturnal bathroom trips she will inevitably wake you. This is particularly intensified in the later months when The simple act of getting out of bed requires a complex series of movements that look like a drunk man trying to get on his feet after falling from a bar stool. Several hundred calories are burned in the process, by the way, so you may need to get her a snack.
4. Baby room preparation.
Depending on how much work is going into your nursery, baby room preparation can be a black hole of energy and sanity. I personally removed more than twenty bags of plaster, each weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 pounds each in 90 degree heat. Needless to say, it made me tired
5. Increased household duties.
A pregnant woman's energy level and physical ability to do certain things around the house will diminish, and the slack must be picked up by you, the expectant father. While my wife has a decidedly severe clean streak in her personality, she has begun to slow down and isn't able to do quite as many things as she used to. Assuming that you usually split household duties, you'll have to pick up some extra slack to make sure things get done.
6. Getting yelled at takes a lot out of you.
(Please note, this has not happened to me. My wife is a saint.) It's emotionally tiring to be crabbed at and complained about. It may not happen often, or it may be several times a day depending on her personality and how far along she is, but most likely your pregnant partner will yell at you. Even if it isn't straight out yelling, there will be some emotional turbulence ranging from crocodile tears to women wanting to punch you in the nuts. She's hormonal and maybe scared, so you should do your best to get through it and not explode at her. Biting your tongue burns lots of calories, thus tiring you out.
7. Reduced exercise and activity levels.
As your schedule fills, the time available for exercise or peripheral activity decreases. Even if you don't work out five times a week, things like outside work, walks, pickup basketball or the ability to move more than ten feet away from your pregnant partner without her clinging to you affects your energy levels. Exercise is invigorating and makes you feel more energized. Pregnant women steal free time with the ease and glee of a bully stealing lunch money at school.
8. Increased stress levels.
Health, finances, nursery, pushy advice, family, work and health insurance are a subset of the things that increase the amount of stress that you'll experience as an expectant father. Stress works in a a tricky way. First, it makes your mind run like a Kenyan marathoner so it's not always easy to wind down at the end of the day. You expend more energy and can't sleep as well. Second, stress causes a release of cortisol in your body that not only helps pack on a few pounds by messing with your blood sugars, over time it will make you feel depressed and anxious.
On an interesting side note, items 1,2,7 and 8 also contribute to weight gain, which is part of the notorious couvade syndrome.