1. If what you’re doing is not working, try something else. 2. Feed –> Wake –> Sleep. For baby novices like John and I, this advice from Babywise was a lifesaver (and three babies in, it’s still working). It goes like this: when the baby wakes up, you feed them. Then you play together. Then they go to sleep. When they wake up again, you feed them again. The length of the sleeping and playing changes as they grow, but the basic rhythm was SUCH a helpful place for us to start in learning how to care for our babies. 3. All the babies I’ve ever known are obsessed with ceiling fans (especially if the blades are high contrast with the ceiling color). If you need a few minutes to get ready in the morning, lay your baby on the bed, turn on the fan for a few seconds, then turn it off and let it spin lazily. Baby magic. 4. Take the paternity leave. In the long arc of your career, you will never look back and wish you had worked those three days or two weeks or four months instead of being with your wife and baby. If you have a paternity leave benefit and it’s not your work’s culture to take it, be the change. (This one’s from John.) 5. Fun story: a few weeks after June was born, my Dad was changing her diaper. He called John and I into the room and said (very kindly), “This is not what her bottom is supposed to look like. Do you have any diaper cream?” Apparently a baby’s bottom is NOT supposed to be bright red? Right, got it. We did have and apply diaper cream, but after that, I also gave her an extra minute or two

I deliberately called this series “notes” instead of “tips” or “tricks,” because I’m thinking of what I’m sharing more as observations than prescriptions. Every baby and every family situation is so different, and I just want to share what’s worked for us and discuss what’s occurred to me along the way. Today’s post, especially, is pretty conceptual – thoughts on some of the paradigm shifts and ways of thinking that really impacted our first few weeks in a big way. If you’re looking for something a little more nitty-gritty, never fear — I’ll be back soon with a few more practical tips (yep, I’ll call them tips) from the first month and a half, and then I’ll follow that up with our favorite products from the first six weeks. Here we go! Choose a job with paternity leave. There is nothing that made a bigger difference in our first six weeks than both John and I being home with June. With a two-on-one dynamic, we were both able get more sleep, stay more calm, bond with our daughter, and learn how to take care of her. From helping me with breastfeeding to handling almost all of the diapers, John did so much; my experience would have been totally different had I been alone, or even with a family member, during the day. There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a career, but if you know you want to have children, I’d recommend adding “family friendly policies” to the top of your list as you search for a job. This is often easier said than done, I know, and I don’t want anyone to despair if this isn’t their situation — but I feel like I can’t not mention it. Just something to consider. Learn together. When