I’m so excited to finally bring my best half – my husband Eddie – to share his perspective about parenting. Know a new {or newish} Dad? He’s going to want to read this. With no further introduction needed, here’s my babies‘ Daddy Eddie:
First things first, I’m not claiming to be an expert here, but I’m sharing what I’ve learned over the past 17 months. When you’ve decided to go down the path of children, you should be prepped for the “wow, dude you’re crazy” look, the typical “you’re never going to sleep [ever]” comments and those Dads who think their life ended at conception. Keeping it 100 with you, the comments typically skew negative, so take it from this Twin Dad – I’m here to dispel the myths and help you navigate a bit..
5 Tips to Navigate Being a Dad
1) The Dad Bod is unacceptable.
Can we start with the superficial for a moment? When you’re single, you got to look good for the ladies. When you get married, it’s the same damn thing, but you got one lady to continually keep interested. Here’s the kicker, you have a little one [in my case two] that I have to set an example for and healthy habits are important. This is coming from a person who’s childhood nickname was Egg-Head-Lardo [Kids can be so mean & amazingly creative]. I’ve learned kids are more intuitive than we give them credit for. Do your part, get some discipline, find the time, eat right and get to work.
2) It’s not the woman’s responsibility to do everything.
Hey dudes, it’s not 1950 anymore. If your significant other gets pregnant, you should be hyped to help with the kid when they get here. I do my best to go above and beyond for my kids because my wife carried two babies for 9 freaking months. We split the parenting duties, 50/50 – a straight partnership. That means I get up at 5:30AM every morning, change diapers, feed them, drive them to/from school and wake up in the middle of the night to comfort them. I just don’t get down with the idea that my wife needs to shoulder the workload and in turn this teaches our boys an incredibly important lesson – men and women are equals. We’re a team. We both bring the same enthusiasm, excitement, love and attentiveness with our boys because we truly want them to know that we’re present when we’re with them.
3) Babies are not easy, but they’re also not hard.
Let me help you shift your parenting perspective a bit. Rather than thinking babies are just babies, shift it to tiny humans. Like most humans, they perform better when given structure, so from a very young age to this very moment, they wake up, eat, nap and sleep at pretty much the same time every day. If you think I’m playing, our boys have slept 12 hours a night since they were 10 weeks. While we do have cute names for the boys like Romey and L-Dawg, we don’t baby talk them and when they do something that’s not kosher, we explain why their actions aren’t acceptable and discipline them appropriately. If they do something amazing, we praise them 10x over. I’ll say it again, kids are intuitive and they understand you, no matter the age. We speak to them as our peers, because eventually they will end up being just that…so start early and you’ll be repaid in spades.
4) There is life after you’ve created life.
You must make time for you and your significant other. Not possible you say? I’ll refer to my kid’s sleep schedule in #3. Just like kids need schedules, we schedule our date night a priority. Thanks to our amazing support team, we have managed to make a few weekend getaways too, which is basically a giant reset for us to reconnect. Since having the boys, we’ve also made a very concerted effort not to say ‘no’ to friends. Meaning we do what we can to see all of our friends, all the time even if it’s for short, quick visits. Our hope is that showing how important friendships are will rub off on them too.
5) You’ll love your partner more than you ever thought you could.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I love my wife and my kids, but I love her more. Without her, I wouldn’t have these healthy baby boys that consume my life so I always tell the boys, “I love you more than anything in the world with the exception of your mom.” She is truly my heart and soul. She’s the rock. After we had the kids, I saw her in a whole new light. Seeing her approach motherhood with such tenacity, passion and love made makes me fall in love with her over and over again every day. The love you have for your partner should only increase every day, even when your family grows and your love is shared by everyone.
Persephone here 🙂 I told you he’s the best! What do your men say has surprised them about being Dads? We want to know!
Persephone + Eddie
xo