Dads Only

They say a woman becomes a mother when she first feels the baby stirring in the womb, but a man only becomes a father once he sees the baby for the first time.

I'm not a bio parent myself, but if that stereotype is true I think you should expect some emotional discordance during this phase.

I think you aren't wrong to be worried, but I think if you focused your mind and energy on nesting and getting excited with your wife, it would help bridge the gap.

I'm 100% sure biology will win out and you will be changed forever when the baby does come

Father of a 2 year old chiming in. The saying that a woman loves the child at conception, the father falls in love when he meets them, is so true.

I felt the same way. So unenthusiastic. Going through the motions just to be supportive. Now I love this kid more than I thought I could love anything. It's so fun being dad, and it gives you a whole new life to experience the world through all over over again.

I’m also concerned that I’m seeing the baby as a problem instead of a… Source of joy?

Since your kid isn't born yet, there's not really much joy you can get from them. Even when they're very very young they don't give you any smiles or do anything funny. The "joy" comes later, and boy it's worth it, at least for me.

Your feeling is completely rational. Your life will be more difficult for the next 4 years. And after that it will still be difficult but you’ll just kind of be better equipped to manage it.

When your kid is born, you will get a nice hit of oxytocin for a few weeks. It will help a bit but don’t expect to fall instantly in love with a newborn who doesn’t smile at you and sucks all the energy out of your wife. For me I really fell in love with my kid around 9 months, making her giggle.

Find an outlet. For me it was to run a mile and then knock one out in the shower. In total the run and shower took only 20-25 minutes. Useful for later term pregnancy and also the first 6 months with a newborn. Anyway you need a way to reset yourself into a positive state.

There's a lot of great advice here, and I was definitely in your boat, faking it for my wife's sake quite a bit.

This is an important takeaway: what you are feeling right now is not unusual.

But seeing my daughter, holding her for the first time, watching her grow, learn, develop a personality... her first "dada", mush mouthed "love you", her big grin every morning when she sees me, when she hops off mama's lap and crawls over to me babbling "dadadada" then a few minutes later crawls back to mama and then tries to get us to sit in a way where she can be touching both of us... there are so many moments nearly every day that make it all worth it.

I think your main issue is how you're framing this in your mind (or at least how you've framed it here) and how I assume you've framed this with your wife.

This isn't about whether or not you made the "right" choice. It's far too late for that now anyway, and framing it that way carries a shit ton of subtext for your wife that you probably aren't cognizant of.

Do you not want a kid? Do you not want to be a father? Do you not want to be doing this with her? Do you just want to not have responsibilities? Do you feel like you were pressured into this? Is this some resentment towards her? Will you resent the kid?

These are only some of the really fucking negative ideas that could be put into her head when you say you aren't sure you made the right choice.

Or is this what's going on (the far more likely situation with most future fathers): You're scared as shit about everything coming towards you, you're scared about the amount of work this will be, concerned about how this will effect your relationship with your wife, worried about how your life will change in ways you can't even imagine from this side, lamenting the loss of free time and freedom you see coming, worried you might not be ready to handle this or raise a kid properly...

Fears, being scared, worrying? Those are things you might be able to bond over. I'd be surprised if your wife wasn't scared of a lot of these things too. My wife and I were scared.

But what seems like just a subtle semantic difference between "Oh shit what have we signed up for" and "I'm not sure this was the right choice for us" has a massive gulf in terms of emotional meaning and undertones.

I highly reccomend you try to take some time to try and figure out what you're really feeling here. Maybe you are resentful of the situation. I hope you aren't. Like I said earlier, most future fathers go through some terror of "what the shit am I in for what did I agree to?"

If you'll excuse a bit more ramble, what you're feeling now might come back from time to time after your kid is born. Particularly when things feel tough, it's not unusual to feel the weight of all the work you've stepped up to do. I still do from time to time, a year and some months in.

But this is what you signed up for. Just like marriage is for better or worse, and relationships can be hard fucking work, so can children. You've made the choice with the idea or gamble that what you get out of it will make the toughness and hard times worth it. The overwhelming amount of the time, it absolutely will be.

You've made the choice to do this, it's too late to turn back. So are you going to trudge through it like a member of a chain gang, or are you going to cherish every little thing there is to cherish and be there for your wife who is giving up just as much or more than you will be?

Babies are a great source of stress and responsibility, it’s natural to feel some pressure. You’re not a bad person for doing what dads are prone to doing: looking for a problem so you can solve it.

However, you need to set all that aside. Your job right now is to chill out and be supportive. What will be will be, the challenges ahead won’t be easier to tackle by stressing your wife out and straining your relationship. The practical response to what you’re feeling is to let it go and just be along for the ride for a while.

All that aside, having a baby may come with extra challenges but it also comes with tremendous benefits. Dads lose out on all the good pregnancy hormones and emotions and it’s hard to see the baby as real until it’s in your hands; but the moment that happens your life changes for the better in so many ways.

It is impossible to describe the moment when you hold your first child for the first time but it is a life changing experience.

Father of a 1,5 year old here. First off, I was kind of the same. But maybe we didn't have a huge difference in our feelings with the wife. As many have wrote, holding the child for the first time is really something, then her first smile, and the first day spent together just the 2 of us, hearing "Daddy" when you get home...

I understand the anxiety but you shouldn't get ahead of yourself and think about the problems. One good reasons for this from our example: our child sleeps from 9 to 7 with walking up just a few sips of water once or twice. I would never guessed this before and would have been silly to be anxious about it.

You'll be fine, just be sure to support your wife in this time and the feelings will come.

I’m a dad of two. I really enjoyed the book “The Expectant Father” by Armin A Brott. It really helped me understand how I was feeling and what my wife was feeling and what she was going through, too. You can find a PDF online I’m sure if you don’t want to buy it.

But anyway, congratulations!

Oh, and babies don’t need as many things as we imagine they do. So avoid buying everything you think you’ll need and just prepare the basics. You can buy things when you find out you need them. And don’t be afraid to buy used clothes etc. babies grow up super quickly.

Your feelings aren't abnormal, they are natural. Never feel like you are above therapy. It can give you a lot of skillsets to positively move forward.

The way you are feeling is perfectly normal and I'm sure you will be a great dad.

General worrying is fine and it seems like you have a good grasp of what to expect.

Is having kids easy? No. Is it worth it? Yes. I wish I could tell you newborns were easy, but they weren't (for me anyway). They can't talk or move, they typically don't sleep for long periods of time, need to be fed or changed constantly. The good news is that they are adorable and you will hopefully enjoy them anyway (some parents actually prefer this stage the best).

I prefer the toddler phase better, when they start to develop, move, talk, and play.

Remember that it's OK to not be perfect, just be there for your family and try to enjoy the time. It's over a lot quicker than it seems.

There is a big difference in "having" a baby or "being" parents. This hits after birth. Have fun, you won't regret it.

The only natural parental instinct is wanting to reproduce, and some basic desire to cuddle and care for offspring at a base level. Most people who gush and act ridiculously over positive about kids are exaggerating their joy because other people expect it, you know, the same reason people only post positive stuff on social media.

It is 100% fine to have conflicted feelings about having a kid. They are a ton of work, expensive, and also incredibly fun to teach and play with. It is a complete roller coaster of emotions, and hopefully you get to bond early and get to see the positives to balance out the negatives.

Enjoy the ride. You can't really do much anything else useful. Worrying doesn't help anyone. But if I remember correctly, for my first kid I faked a lot of the positive emotions to avoid stress for the mother... felt probably pretty similar to you. All rational, and seeing a lot of my future time and energy spent not for me and my enjoyment, but someone elses.

But the moment i first saw this tiny human - I cried and weeped and laughed and I can't imagine a feeling that can top this (we had a second 3 years later, and thats the only thing that compares to this moment). Seeing something so fragile, delicate and beautiful, made by you and your loved one... no fake emotions were needed by this time. Best day, best moment of my life, no doubt about that!

Sure, they're 7 and 4 now and theres a lot of energy that both of us as parents invested... but at least for us its the best spent energy, time and money we could ever imagine (ok, we both havent tried heroin yet ;-))...

There's not a lot to go with here, so I'm going to make a ton of assumptions. Feel free to course-correct as you feel the need and as appropriate.

There is no question that your life is now permanently changed. Your statement about this being a negative (or not positive) for the next 5 years makes it sound like you didn't really fully buy in. It seems like you treated it like putting up new curtains or choosing a color to paint your house with the idea that you can change it again in 5 years. This is a bell that cannot be un-rung.

So, now that I've possibly kicked you in the head with the reality of the situation, what is there to be done? I hear you focusing on the practicalities and costs of being a parent with the bills and tasks. Instead, I'd encourage you to reconnect with your wife. She's going through this, too. Instead of focusing on the bills, the mouth to feed, and the chores, focus on how this is all part of the journey with your life partner. It's not nearly as important where you are going as that you are on the journey together. Focus on the 'together'. Make it a shared experience. This will allow both of you to share the joys and, importantly, share the stress.

If you're experiencing regrets about how this is going to change your ability to 'hang out with the buddies' or to do certain hobbies, then I'd say you're focusing too much on yourself and other relationships. As your life partner, your wife and this experience is (or should be) the most important thing in the world right now. If you're rejecting that notion, you really need to think about why you're not 'all in' on this relationship.

I don't know how old you are nor how long you've been married. Having been married 35 years myself, I can say that you'll have to recommit to your life partner many, many times throughout the journey. Getting squared away on that concept now will serve you well along the way. You don't know and can't really control what's going to happen, but you can commit that no matter what life brings that it will be a fully shared experience with your wife. It's not the journey that matters. It's who you travel with that matters.

You'll feel better once you hold your kid the first time. Not less stressed, but a sense of purpose.

Hey not a dad so feel free to take what I am saying with a grain of salt.

First you are not a bad person and you are not getting cold feet. You are feeling overwhelmed, because you are.

A few things that might help you understand this better.

It is important to remember that hormonal change in women during pregnancy makes it almost impossible for them to not be excited and do the nesting thing. There is a hormone called oxytocin that makes this happen (there are more too). Oxytocin is often called the love drug because it helps with bonding. It will increase during pregnancy and here is a big rush during birth too. That makes the mom bond with her child. If this didn't happen all new mammalian moms would just leave or kill their babies.

As a guy you may not be getting that. Sometime guys will have similar hormonal changes by being near a pregnant woman, sometimes not.

This is definitely part of the disconnect between you and your wife. She feels like she is gaining something and you feel like you are losing something. This should change. I have friends who are dads and they have told me they didn't get the attachment to their kid till they could see and hold it.

So every time you feel this way just kind of remind yourself that this is not permanent.

Second is seriously considering going to the doctor and explaining all. This they may recommend a low dose anti depressions or something for the short term. There are some that even help you with sleep. This will not make you a "failure." Instead it is proof that you are willing to admit that in order to meet your family needs and to be the man you know you are. You need a little help. It is one of the strongest things a man can do. Families don't need a tough man that never needs help. They need a man who can be humble enough to know when they need help.

Plus this could be something that might really help your wife after birth. It is much more common than people realize for women to have severe postpartum depression. It is very common for women to hide this because they think they shouldn't be depressed. They think they should be happy because they have a baby now. Unfortunately it is not well understood, but there are a lot of extreme hormonal changes before, during, and after birth.

If your wife knows that you needed help. It is much more likely for her to ask for help if she needs it.

Best of luck to you I know you can figure this out. Just knowing this is a problem is the biggest hurdle.

Hopefully some real dads respond and give you real advice.