There are a lot of challenges new dads face when entering fatherhood. Between careers, relationships, hobbies, and your new baby, you can often feel overwhelmed and like you’re losing your personal identity.
Life can feel like collecting rocks. It starts with one, but the more you keep collecting the heavier your pockets, until that point where you need to offload a few to make room for new ones. Your first job is a small bit of granite in your right hand that becomes a large chunk as you grow your career. In your left, you’re squeezing relationship limestone until it becomes a precious gem. Most of the time you feel able to walk down the street confidently holding both rocks in alignment, while your pockets are filled with chore-pebbles; round, flat hobby stones; and an assortment of different sized metamorphic family and friends. Sometimes you may drop a rock, especially as you’re juggling your current priority, but are quick to pick it back up—you’ve spent a lifetime practicing, and it’s all manageable.
…that is, until a meteor suddenly comes hurtling out of the sky and slams into your chest, scattering your rocks everywhere as you struggle to hold it up. The meteor is wearing a onesie that says, “Welcome to fatherhood!”
Becoming a new dad can truly feel like this. Transitioning to parenthood is a gift full of precious moments—like early morning cuddles, their first smile, heck even their spit up seems cute when you’re a new father—but at the same time it is confusing and overwhelming, offering many challenges to new dads. You may feel unprepared, you will feel exhausted, and all those rocks you were carrying? They haven’t disappeared either! You’ve got so many competing demands— how can you even start?
Why Did Nobody Prepare Me for the Struggle Of Being A New Dad?
To go about your day responsible for another human being can be jarring and feel completely out of your scope, even if you read the books and did the classes in preparation. Suddenly, simple tasks like making dinner have become a juggling act requiring perfect timing with no margin of error. You toss the meteor up (metaphorically!) while you scramble to boil water and manage hot pans—but be quick! That meteor is coming down quickly with a Big Emotion and that pot of pasta is boiling over while the chicken burns.
Things are just more challenging with a baby—even going to the bathroom becomes a carefully timed and methodical maneuver! You may start to wonder why no one explained this to you in the last nine months, if perhaps it’s just you and other dads don’t feel this way, that you are completely alone and maybe aren’t cut out to be a father after all….
Don’t worry—this is a big change! While you sit completely overwhelmed on the kitchen floor, bouncing the meteor on your knee, your rocks scattered all around you, know that you’re not the only dad who hasn’t quite mastered the juggling act yet.
Tips For New Dads
- Try to find patience, between cries and coffee refills. Remember there is no instruction manual. It will take time to find a new rhythm. Adjust your expectations while you figure out your new schedule and how it all fits together.
- Celebrate small wins! Tasks now require a 30 minute preparation period and the stars to align to be successful, so go ahead and celebrate going out for a walk, getting that little one to nap, or completing a trip to the grocery store.
- The beginning will be rocky but know your meteor is quickly changing and will be hitting a new developmental stage soon enough. Before long you will be pushing that meteor in a swing, while drinking your coffee and blowing the dust off those old hobby rocks you haven’t seen in a while.
- Talk with other dads—I assure you that you are not the only one feeling this way. It can help to swap stories with someone else who gets it and reassure you that other dads have prevailed!
Are All Father’s This Exhausted???
Parenting is tiring. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Babies don’t have a sleep schedule and that means right now, you don’t either. Which means it’ll get more difficult to keep those rocks—work, relationships, and all your other responsibilities—in the air, all the while never letting the meteor drop. Yikes! Aren’t your arms getting tired? And it’s not just being physically tired. You’re trying to keep your eyes on all the rocks so you don’t drop any, and the psychological exhaustion paired with the physical is really piling up! A slow paced dinner date with your partner and a ten hour sleep routine may have just been replaced with so much rocking you feel like you’re living on a boat.
When you’re drained physically and emotionally you do not feel your best when it comes to other aspects of your life, and it can wear you down. You question if this will change, or if this is “normal?” Remember that babies develop quickly, especially in the first year, so before you know it the current stressor is likely to resolve as your little meteor learns better ways to communicate their needs and hopefully starts to sleep better.
How To Cope With Exhaustion As A New Dad
- Know your limits! This may mean constructing a schedule with your partner to divide and conquer the night waking or bedtime routines.
- Recognize signs that you need a break and communicate with your partner about how you can both work as a team when it comes to parenting.
- Our patience is diminished when we are exhausted and if you are feeling extreme frustration, put your little meteor down in their crib where they are safe and walk out of the room for a few moments. This will not replace the sleep you need, but allow you to take some deep breaths and calm your body before continuing with a fussy baby. This will allow you to react in the caring way you want to approach your baby and not let frustration get the better of you.
Competing Demands Of Fatherhood
So now you have to do all of the things you were already doing, while exhausted, plus care for a tiny human. Your attention is divided between competing demands, and multiple rocks are contending for airtime. You may feel you’re losing your personal identity in fatherhood.
It’s not just juggling one set of rocks, either—you’re juggling sets of rocks, each that needs their own attention! Balancing career and fatherhood is no easy task. That recent promotion at work is great, it’s work you want to do and the extra money is important for supporting the meteor, but now it’s not just one big slab of granite; it’s half a dozen chunks of quartz that need to be kept airborne—and you only have one hand to do it! Because the other is keeping your diamond, now a whole necklace of precious gems, flying through the air, and the meteor seems to be turning into a larger shower of needs every day. It’s a lot, and there’s only so much of you to go around.
It can be hard to feel like you’re succeeding on all fronts when you have the demands of work and your family’s financial needs, as well as the needs of your baby and partner to balance. You may feel like you can’t do it all. You’re working all day but you know your partner is looking forward to some relief, too, especially if they’ve been home alone with an infant. And what about time for you? Is that still a thing? Your drum set is now covered by a Cocomelon comforter and you traded your weight bench for an exersaucer. With no space left in your pockets right now for your hobby rock, and little opportunity to relax and recharge, the need to keep all these rocks in the air can trigger anxiety, depression, or even regret if not addressed.
How To Balance Your Roles As A Dad
- It may take more planning, but we can talk about ways to schedule time for all of the things that are important for you to feel balanced and happy.
- You may be able to multitask some of these demands—an evening stroller walk to ease your baby to sleep paired with your favourite podcast, or raking the leaves while your meteor explores tummy-time on a blanket beside you.
- It takes a village! Maybe there are other supports and family members in your life who would love to soak up some baby time if presented with the opportunity. Don’t be afraid to ask for help!
You Are Not Alone!
This is all completely normal. Navigating fatherhood changes comes with a lot of emotions all at once. I don’t want you to be alone with this and I don’t want you to feel guilty for feeling mixed emotions. Incredible joy can exist at the same time as exhaustion, frustration, or questioning. Men often wish they had someone other than their partner to talk to about this kind of stuff, as it can feel selfish to try and toss a rock to your partner when they’re focusing on their own juggling act, facing their own set of emotions around parenthood, work, and life.
I want to help you explore some of the complicated emotions and experiences you face as you enter fatherhood, whether these are worries or anxieties about fulfilling this role, a block related to your own experiences as a child, or simply talking through the adjustment period because it’s new to you. I’m here to help you prioritize your needs with all of these pressures you face, and to help you develop strategies to feel good about your identity as a father. All of these are valid reasons to come to therapy!
At times it may all feel like too much, but believe me, you have the strength to hold that meteor and all the other rocks in your life. And when you feel that you don’t, therapy can help you practice your juggling. The meteor may be large, but the stroller makes it easier and the other stones pack away well in the storage compartment below.
If you want to book a free consultation to talk to someone about more specific help in your fatherhood journey, my colleagues and I at Transforming Emotions are here to help.
