25 Lessons from Being a Father of a Two Month Old

There are some lessons you learn very quickly when you are the father of a two month old boy:

1. When changing a diaper never get careless.
2. When changing a diaper, always be quick and never, ever do it under a ceiling fan or in a cold room.
3. Baby smiles make your heart melt.
4. Babywise is the best book in the world (next to the Bible, of course).
5. Don’t be afraid to make lots of noise when they are asleep…otherwise they will never learn to sleep unless it is 100% quiet.
6. Learn their ques and stick to them (hungry, sleepy, needing a burp).
7. Formula and diapers aren’t cheap. Thank goodness for Target giftcards.
8. Make sure as a father you spend time with them every single day. Each day starts out so much better when I get to give him his first feeding. There is nothing cuter than picking up a happy baby in the morning.
9. Don’t forget to love your wife and let her know how beautiful she is and how good of a job she is doing as a wife and mother.
10. Don’t neglect your marriage,
11. Continue to date your spouse.
12. Inform yourself on vital health issues like vaccinations, circumcision, feeding/sleeping schedules, SIDS, and developmental milestones so you can make informed decisions for the health of your child and family.
13. Find a good pediatrician. Interview them in advance and ask them specific questions and listen for educated answers. We interviewed one pediatrician who was supposed to be really good. He didn’t really have any specific answers to any of our questions. Needless to say we found someone else.
14. Dads, make sure you change and feed them at least once or twice every single day. There is no better bonding time than feeding a baby and the awake time to follow.
15. Read to them. They don’t care what the book is about. They just want to hear you talk to them and see the colors and pictures on the page. I think Jonah will be a scholar as he constantly looks in awe at our bookshelf full of books.
16. Sing and dance (err…choreograph) with them. There is nothing better than being silly with a kid who doesn’t even know what silly is yet.
17. Encourage them. You can never start too early giving them words of encouragement. I often tell him to “finish strong” when he is at the end of his bottle.
18. Make sure you kiss your wife first when you get home and then see the baby.
19. Spend plenty of time watching them sleep. Cute.
20. Don’t spend much time teaching them poor sleep habits. If you use props to get them to sleep like a radio, swing, the car or car seat, etc they will learn to need that in order to sleep and you will have more difficulty than if you had just done it right the first time.
21. Don’t mind a little crying. If you pick them up every time they cry they will play you like a fiddle. I am not kidding. Even at two months…they know.
22. Develop a routine. Babywise is a helpful book for establishing that. Night time and bath time are also great opportunities for routine. Babies like when the know what is coming.
23. Get a diaper genie. Those things are phenomenal.
24. Make sure to go up a size on the diapers if they start peeing out the back of them. There is nothing worse than picking up a baby whose clothes are soaked…well, getting peed on is worse.
25. Go the extra mile around the house to give your wife some relief. Also, go the extra mile spending time with your baby so that she can get out of the house for a while and feel sane. It is so important for moms to have something “non-baby” to look forward to each day.