Ultimate Dad Guide to Surviving Pregnancy

 
For many soon-to-be-dads, the pregnancy period is a challenging time. It’s a time when most of us feel overwhelmed, scared, or anxious as we enter the great unknown. After all, there’s not as many resources to help us prepare for parenthood as there are for our wives.

This leads to a lot of uncertainty and insecurity on whether you’ll be able to survive the pregnancy. That’s exactly why we prepared the best dad guide for all of you.

We’re here to help you reduce your fears, anxiety, and anything else negative you might be feeling. With this handy guide, we hope you’ll emerge from this time as a calmer, more confident father and partner.

Below are Dad University’s top seven tips from the ultimate dad guide to surviving pregnancy.

Focus on Mental Gains First

The first thing you need to do is to focus on your mental gains, rather than your physical gains.

In this scenario, physical gains are the more tactical things you need to do as a new dad. This ranges from baby basics like changing diapers, feeding the baby, and burping the baby. All of this may seem like the most important thing to prepare for.

We know a lot of new dads get nervous about simply holding their new baby properly. But here’s the catch: give yourself a few days of doing these tasks regularly and you’ll find that your body easily remembers how to do them.

The same cannot be said about your mental gains, though. It’s much harder to get yourself fully into a fatherhood mindset.

Among other things, this means becoming more patient with your child, more understanding and dealing with your emotions, and doing the same for your partner. For many dads, working on their mental game means adjusting your personality and working on your self-control.

In a way, it’s also another way of embodying “mind over matter” — get yourself into the right mindset first and use that to help you get better with the physical parts of being a father.

Be Prepared for New Emotions

When you and your partner find out that you’re expecting, be prepared to feel a lot of new emotions. This is when you’ll start to feel things that you never did before — both positive and negative.

On the positive side, you’ll have an influx of feelings of love, excitement, hope, and awe. On the opposite side, though, you will also experience feelings of anxiety, fear, and doubt.

It’s common to be overwhelmed by emotion during this time. You might find yourself shedding tears or even full-on crying just from thinking about your soon-to-be-born child even if you have never been an emotional sort of guy before.

There’s no rhyme or reason when these feelings can take hold of you, either. You can feel so much happiness and euphoria in the morning then have those feelings crash and feel anxious or scared by the evening.

Your Feelings Are Normal

Experiencing a rush of new emotions may be shocking. Still, it’s all perfectly normal! You’re not going crazy or having a breakdown — you’re just going through a lot of change in your life and processing everything that’s happening and what may happen in the near future.

Millions of men have gone through the same journey you are going through now. More importantly, not only are all the strong emotions you’re feeling now normal, but they are also valid. There’s nothing wrong with what you are going through.

Have Empathy for Your Partner

A good way to feel better about everything you are feeling and going through is to have more empathy for your partner. We know you’re likely scared, anxious, stressed, and more, but what your partner is feeling is likely double or even triple the extent of what you are feeling.

Having extra empathy means recognizing what your partner is going through and the difficulties they are facing. After all, she’s the one carrying the baby, going through a hormonal upheaval, going through physical changes, and will soon be giving birth to your child.

Showing empathy will help the both of you process your emotions and experiences better. It will also help you better connect with your partner. Seeing things from their perspective will help strengthen your bond which is crucial for building a stable family foundation for your future child.

Don’t Fight Your Partner’s Emotions

If you and your partner have been together for an extended amount of time, you are likely already familiar with their monthly mood swings, cravings, and frustrations. Once your partner gets pregnant, chances are those emotional instances will get dialed up to five — or even ten.

When this happens, never fight your partner’s emotions. Most importantly, don’t judge it either. Doing so will likely result in your loss.

Pregnant women go through a lot of hormonal changes during pregnancy. This often leaves them on an emotional rollercoaster, which can be quite rough for future dads. What you need to do is to show more empathy, try to understand the events, and put yourself in their shoes.

Show Appreciation to Your Partner

Instead of judging your partner’s emotional rollercoaster of a pregnancy, you should show them how much you cherish them. Showing a little appreciation can go a long way in comforting them and easing their troubles. There are various ways to do this, from simple ones like:

• Thanking them for all of their effort.
• Asking what you can do to help them.
• Giving them small gifts.
• Doing household chores.
• Telling them they look beautiful.

The most important thing is to be sincere in showing your appreciation.

You Will Be Okay

Millions of men have walked the same road as you and eventually became great dads, despite all the confusion, second-guessing, or trial-and-error they had to go through.

You are already taking the first steps and showing great initiative in ensuring that you will be okay. By visiting Dad University and reading this ultimate dad guide, you already show how committed you are as a soon-to-be father.

Know that all your hard work will pay off. You will survive this pregnancy period and your children will too.

Preparation is Key to Survival

We hear a lot of people say that “nothing could prepare you for parenthood.” While that adage is true to some degree, there's no reason why we can’t or shouldn’t try to prepare ourselves as much as possible.

With the right mindset and enough preparation, you can emerge from the nine months of pregnancy like a new man — calmer, more confident, and ready to become the best dad and best parenthood partner that you can be.

Watch the "Ultimate Dad Guide to Surviving Pregnancy" video here: