New Dad Advice To Help Your Wife After The Baby Is Born

Picture this — your wife has just become a new mother, and you see how hard things are for her. You just want to help her out and also be a good dad to your infant. Still, you have no idea how to assist her. You feel kind of helpless. At Dad University, we’ve shared some tips you can try to take off the burden from your spouse. Read on and follow our new dad advice.

Show Appreciation to Your Wife

Some new dads may already be leaving for work a few days after the birth, leaving their spouses alone with the baby. If you’re one of these men, try staying home for one day and see just how much work it takes to care for the infant. Your wife may make it look easy, but it takes real effort to keep the child happy, content, and safe. 

This amount of work is tiring, so make sure that you show your appreciation for all that your wife is doing for your baby. We recommend following their love language. If she wants words of affirmation, you can tell her that she’s doing an amazing job as a mom. Other people like receiving gifts or spending quality time with their loved ones. Whatever your wife’s love language is, make sure that she feels appreciated. Only you can provide that right now because your baby can’t give any feedback yet. 

Ask How You Can Help

There’s a lot going on when it comes to caring for a child. However, some women may not be comfortable asking for help because they see that you’re already working. Instead, you can take the initiative and be the first to ask how you can assist her. Remind her that you two are a team and that she shouldn’t do all the work by herself.

Some women will not ask for help, or they’ll say that they can handle the chores on their own. When this happens, it’s time for you to step up and do things without their instructions. Start with simple things, because she might already have a system in place. Disrupting how she does things may lead to disagreements. To get around this, simply ask if you can take care of a chore before you do so.

Have Some Empathy

It goes without saying, but men will never understand what pregnancy and motherhood will feel like — all the physical aches, emotional changes, and just the profoundness of giving birth to a human. There’s also the constant demand from the child, whether it’s breastfeeding or changing diapers. 

What new dads can do instead is empathize. Put your feet into your wife’s shoes and try to see what she’s going through, both the good and the bad aspects of it. This new perspective helps take away your focus on minor problems. Instead, you pay attention to your wife’s needs and how you can help ease the work. You get an inkling of how much physical and emotional toll motherhood can take, so you start doing what you can to alleviate the stress.

Give Her a Much-Needed Break

A child needs constant attention, so your wife may not get any breaks at all. It’s important to let her rest and take some time for herself. Take over the responsibility for a few hours or a day and let her take a break. Another piece of new dad advice we can give is never to criticize what she does during her free time. Whether she just stays in bed with her phone or wants to go shopping, that’s her own prerogative. It’s important that she feels some form of freedom to do what she wants. 

It may feel daunting at first, taking care of your child on your own. You will get better with practice, and you can always ask for help from your mother and other willing people in your family or friend group.

Take on Extra Chores and Housework

We’ve mentioned that you should ask how you can help your wife. However, taking on more housework deserves another point of discussion. This is mainly because caring for a child takes lots of attention, time, and energy, leaving your spouse unable to handle other chores. It will be up to you to take care of the other housework. 

If your wife is uncomfortable giving you that much work, you can always agree on a list of tasks that each of you will do. The clear divide can help her feel less guilty and allow you to be sure about what chores you should be doing. Plus, creating the list can open up healthy discussions about the division of labor.

Take Her on Dates

With the stress of pregnancy and caring for a newborn, she may not feel great about herself. You can help her feel beautiful and appreciated by taking her on dates. A nice dinner at a restaurant, a movie night, or a long walk in the park will suffice. 

What’s important during the date is to make her feel special and not force a connection. The latter can be done, but it’s not the priority and shouldn’t be pressured. This date is just to give you time to be a couple instead of being parents. While you’ll probably talk about your baby and nothing else, at least you both got a breather, and you made her feel appreciated.

Final Thoughts: Help Your Wife Care for Your New Child

As new dads, we all want to do it right and ensure that our wife and children feel safe and comfortable. Hopefully, this guide will help you become more involved as a parent. You’ll feel more useful as a dad while ensuring that your wife doesn’t feel too stressed or tired.

Watch the "New Dad Advice To Help Your Wife After The Baby Is Born" video here: