We're in a place we've never been before. Our lives are going to change forever. We need to check out this book and that. Don't lift anything heavy. Eat as much as you want. Wait, no, don't gain more than 20 lbs in your first trimester. Do you have baby gates? Do you know which hospital and what method?
Jeesh! We just found out we're preggers and everyone is telling us what to do.... Not that I mind really, I don't have any experience in this kind of thing! I'll take all the advice and opinionated rants I can get right now. I'm looking forward to hearing all of my already-momma-girlfriends' tales of 10 months (yeah, 40 weeks of being pregnant, hmmm).
So, bring on the opinions and referred reading on being great 'rents. =)
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The thing that surprised me most (in a bad way) was the way people stopped, for quite a while, interacting with my wife as her - she was suddenly no longer M, a person, but "mother." People were interested in the baby and in her as the baby's mother. It was quite hard and unpleasant - like she no longer existed except in relation to our daughter.
I ended up needing to spend quite a bit of time focusing on her and trying to make sure the friends/family who were still looking at her in ways other than "Ada's mother" were the ones spending heaps of time with her.
A second one was the sheer disrespect shown to me as a father by so many people, professional and personal. I love my daughter. I like to spend time with her, and since I work full-time that's precious time. I like holding her and playing with her. For the first few months I wasn't really keen on letting other people whold her.
Perhaps I was unfortunate, but the sheer number of people who assume I have no idea what to do with a kid, who assume they have a right to play with my kid, who think I'm somehow bad and wrong for privileging my time with her over other people left me amazed. There's been a continual, low-level, corrosive attitude that since I'm "only" a father, I'm not really more important/clueful/engaged that some random and not-particularly close relative or (in one case) a friend's friend's girlfriend who literally threw a tantrum when I wouldn't hand my kid over because "she loves little babies." My wife doesn't get any of that shit.
Something that worked really well for us early on was marking off a time of day for my wife that was all hers - basically an hour where short of "OMG THE BABY IS VOMITING BLOOD" would be not important enough to interrupt her. This helped keep her sane during the period we were shell-shocked and the little one was feeding lots and we were getting used to it all. Also drilled into me the skills of keeping babies happy when awake and getting them back to sleep. It was initially in the evenings, but these days I, as the early riser, get up and spend the mornings with the wee one (feeding her breakfast now she's on solids, changing her into her clothes for the day, reading and playing until I have to get ready for work), and take her out into town to do Stuff (shopping, visit parks, whatever) in the weekend mornings.
It's great because I get daddy-daughter time with just me and her having fun together, and it means my wife gets an extra hour or two sleep on the weekdays, and an extra 3 or 4 in the weekends. The only drawback is... well, babies are creatures of habit. So the weekend of my birthday my wife tried to give me a nice sleep-in as a present. About 10 minutes into my extra rest I was awoken by howls of outrage drifting through from the kitchen, which appeared to translate as, "Daddy gives me breakfast! Not you! Daddy gives me breakfast! Where's Daddy?! Bring him to me this instant!"
Oh, and the two most useful things for my wife? The headset I bought for our cordless phone and her Palm pilot. Because breastfeeding is boring as hell once you get the hang of it, and being able to talk on the phone, read text, or browse, with no or one hand free is kind of invaluable.
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