So, you’re about to be a Dad™…

*Please note, if you wish to follow the links in this post visit my substack at https://austinpalaoro.substack.com/p/so-youre-about-to-be-a-dad

Have the anxieties that cause your head to sway uneasily crept up on you yet? Are your coworkers and family members asking, “is the baby here yet” every five minutes? Then they point and laugh about all the sleep you will soon miss desperately. How about listening in horror as someone uses this as an opportunity to tell you about their nephew, who was born with a foot growing out of his neck and missing his eyelids? Like you aren’t stressed out enough, maybe your experiences with baby wrangling amount to diddley squat? Well, you’re not alone…

A mere eight weeks ago, I was where you stand now. That hundred-tonne baby train barreling directly toward me, your run-of-the-mill college dropout who can see thirty on the horizon and pays his bills by spending sixty or more hours a week inside an enormous warehouse. I’m a regular guy, just like you, and thanks to a tiny baby girl, little Delilah Allie, I’ve found some of the answers you’re looking for! This article will discuss helpful tips on how to better prepare yourself and your home to make life easier after B-day (baby day), both for yourself and the angry milk goblin soon to be living with you and pooping on all of your stuff. Later in the next article, we’ll be going over different aspects of being a supportive partner leading up to and in the delivery room, what to do, what to expect, and what to know when it comes to infant care. In essence, I’ll be telling you all of the things I wish someone had told me a handful of months ago.

Part I. Pre-baby home preparation:

Section I. Clean and organize like you [really do] have OCD;

The best thing you can do, for all involved, is to prepare your home for the days following that first ride home from the hospital. This involves getting useful products, familiarizing yourself with said useful baby tools, cleaning just about everywhere you can think of, as well as setting things up just right. Adjustments will have to happen regardless, as your typical infant is as unpredictable as the kind of guy who lives behind your local 7-11; however, the less you have to adapt post B-day, the easier everyone’s life will be. The first part of preparing your home is simple and doesn’t take much explaining. It simply consists of spending the time to not only clean everything from laundry to vacuuming to dusting, but to stay on top of those things regularly. Believe me; you don’t want to come home from what can be days of labor to a messy home, loads of laundry, and a sink full of dishes.

While doing this, it doesn’t hurt to look at everything you own around your home and downsize unnecessary junk. You won’t have time for all those sundries anyways (be honest, you probably don’t even use any of them), and you’ll, assuming you’re not living in a castle, need the space for baby things. At the very least, stay on top of your laundry and empty that kitchen sink as often as possible. The first few days were the most difficult for my wife and me, sleep being infrequent and, if we’re still being honest, a pipe dream. Even if you could sleep, you’d be too worried over how fragile you think infants are to take your eyes off the tiny Abu Ghraib prison guard, even when they’re not remorselessly engaging in erratic methods of “noise torture.” Why be stressed, exhausted, delirious, AND have to do more chores than necessary or risk your home smelling like farts and soggy pizza. Do yourself a favor, don’t be a slob.

And don’t forget to do any special projects before B-day! For instance, I painted Van Gogh’s Starry Night on the wall of my daughter’s nursery. Surprisingly at around five weeks or so, looking at her wall entrances her, even when she is super pissed. Success! She loves it!

Section II. What you’ll [actually] need;

If you happen to be a slacker like me, the following products will be entirely foreign to you, but they will prove invaluable after B-day. These are your tools, my guy. You must go out (well, mostly order online, it is 2022 and shit, so, you know) and spend too much money on them, then learn how to use them properly and efficiently. You should also go out of your way to create several registries; at the very least, you will receive free items from businesses like BuyBuyBaby. Best case, your family, friends, and coworkers will help you with some litty baby merch. Now, I’m sure not all infants act entirely the same as the next, but the following are the products we frequently use, allowing us to keep our sanity most of the time, which is nice.

*Please note: these are not sponsors.

Bath time;

• OXO Tot bathtub;

A simple, easy-to-keep clean bathtub that collapses in on itself for easy storage. Also, the massive straddle in the middle makes keeping your baby’s head above water at least a little easier. You can find add it to your BuyBuyBaby registry here.

• Burt’s Bees Hooded Towels;

The first bath you give your newborn is probably going to be rough, so make it a little easier with these soft, hooded baby towels; put one on your newborn during bath time (for real, it helps keep them warm), and have the second one on standby for when it is time to dry off. You can grab them on Amazon, or if no one buys them from your amazon registry, it’s cheaper here on their website.

• Bathtub thermometer;

This thermometer is excellent; it’s cute as hell, beeps angrily if the water is too hot, and has a digital display that makes adjusting the temperature easy-peasy. You can find it here, once again, on Amazon.

• The softest sponge you can find;

I simply bought one at the nearby Fred Meyers, but if you like, you can add one to your amazon registry. My daughter enjoys the warm water I squeeze out of it over her head, followed by soft head and face dabs.

Comfort;

• Bouncer & Rocker Duo;

You’ll quickly discover that much of your time will be spent trying to keep your infant chilled out, requiring different methods of getting the teeny feral human to sleep. This baby chair is my favorite. I can put Delilah in it, turn on the vibrating function and rock it with my foot as I play Modern Warfare or write this. You can find it here. *Requires a C battery.

• 4moms Mamaroo multi-motion baby swing;

This baby swing is one of the more expensive items on the list. It isn’t beneficial in the first few weeks, as your milk goblin will probably be too small to sit comfortably. Still, a month or so in, it becomes a great alternative to the previous product. We were lucky enough to have it gifted to us for the baby shower. There is even an app to control it, which is neat. Bear in mind the maximum weight recommendation is 25 pounds, so despite being nearly $300, it will likely not be an option a year in. Purchase it here.

• Baby lounger;

Fundamentally a tiny baby bed, one that we can easily carry (with or without the boob fiend) from our couch to our bed and everywhere in between. Once again, another place for sleeping. Personally, we place a towel and thin blanket over ours. I typically fart Delilah (yes, you read that right) while she is in hers, sometimes causing her to spit up a little. No one can keep up with cleaning the cover and getting any actual use out of one. The one we got isn’t listed anymore, but this one checks all the boxes. These are also great for tummy time early on.

• Co-sleeper/Bedside bassinet;

Do you enjoy sleeping in your bed? Then you should find a co-sleeper that will sit snuggly next to it. I often work six days a week, at least ten or more hours a day, so my wife tends to sleep downstairs with Delilah; however, on my day off or while I’m away at work, having a co-sleeper is fantastic for getting some good rest with the enraged goblin. Ours is hand-me-down and similar to this one, although fancier variations are available.

• Crib;

This one is pretty self-explanatory, and you’ll be co-sleeping the first six months, but you’re presumably the one who has to put it together, so get one now. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy in the same way your box spring is probably, like ours, on the floor. The important thing is that it is designed for safety. You should look for less width between each infant prison bar and overall sturdiness. My parents actually got us ours for a reasonable price, found here.

• Boppy nursing pillow;

My wife is rarely caught not using one of these, while Delilah is noshing on her fun bags, used so frequently that we have two of them. There are cheap and expensive options; just make sure you have one if not for suckling, then for tummy time. Check them out right here.

• Baby Blankets;

Pretty straightforward; get a shit ton of baby blankets. Like, at least ten of them. If the hospital has a bunch of baby blankets lying around, I’m not saying take them, but I’m not going to discourage you from doing so.

• Swaddles;

Technically these are optional, but my baby is basically Houdini incarnate, so I went to BuyBuyBaby one day and purchased a few swaddles with velcro. She hasn’t worked velcro out yet, so thanks for that, Jesus. Both this one and this one have proved to be the most useful. I also got these ones, but at two months old she has basically outgrown them. Basically, you can spend five miserable hours getting the baby to go to la-la-land only to have her startle herself by farting or for reasons unknown, causing her to smack her own face. The only viable solution is to wrap them up as they do asylum patients.

General/Utility;

Wipe warmer;

Yes, this is a thing, and yes, you need to get one. The pterodactyl screeching that occurs the moment a room-temperature wipe hits her booty is terrifying; thank Betty White we have this one here. It hasn’t been turned off in these past two months, and until diapers aren’t necessary, I fully plan on working that thing to death. Just fill it with wipes and touch the “on” button. Thank me later. You can still thank me now, but thank me later, too.

Bottle warmer;

Having one of these is the only reason my wife is able to get any sleep when I’m home. We have a Dr. Brown bottle warmer; my only complaint is that the measurements on the water cup rubbed off pretty quickly, so I usually just eyeball it nowadays. All you have to do is put in 4ml of water per ounce of milk and push a button, all possible with one hand (the other will have a screaming baby in it). Check it out right here. It also sterilizes bottles and binkies, but meh, babies usually come with their own immune systems.

You should also get six or more bottles, a breast pump, many burp rags (my wife made a bunch herself), a bottle drying rack, nipple shields (basically nipple condoms, I suppose), and ways of storing milk both in the freezer and fridge.

Dresser and diaper changing table;

Getting a simple dresser is a must, much like the one I got here. It's simple and holds all of their clothes, towels, and blankies. You can of course, get one with a changing table, but if you’re balling on a budget, you can grab the same changing table as I did online from Walmart (For whatever reason, the gray one was only $35, plus $20 for a cushion). We didn’t even bother using a changing table until I ordered and built it just last week, and it was more at the urging of my wife. We’ve been using a mat on our bed upstairs or on our ottoman downstairs just fine until now.

Stroller/Car seat combo;

If your goblin is much like mine, then he/she-goblin shits an entire brick when you’re doing your damnedest to get them into and out of their car seat. Ergo, being able to go places without having to anger them you can simply plop their seat into a stroller; easy peasy lemon squeezy. Often they have storage as well, which is nifty. We got one similar to this one from an old coworker that reached out to my wife.

*You need a car seat in order to leave the hospital with your fresh milk goblin, by the way!

Time to wrap this up, something you’re clearly not familiar with if you’re still here;

The last couple of nuggets of baby knowledge I will leave you in this article is to be dang sure your baby mama is taking prenatal vitamins, iron, and (very important) folic acid! If your baby mama is like mine, you’re going to have to basically trick her into taking them; much the same that my parents would put our dog's medicine in a piece of cheese when I was a kid. Lastly, watch some videos on farting your baby. For real-real, it’s conducive to getting the big-headed milk goblin to sleep pretty regularly.

I hope you learned a few things, and if you did, you’d probably be interested in the article that will follow this one. In it, I will be going over what to expect in the delivery room, how to be a supportive partner and the first few days following B-day. If that sounds like something you need to learn about (if you’ve made it this far, you do), then subscribe, and I’ll have it ready for you no later than November 26th.

Written by Austin Alan Palaoro; November 17th, 2022