When your baby is born you will likely be housebound for a while. That means that you’ll be home to help your wife and tend to your wee one. This is awesome, sure you’ll be pretty sleep deprived, but it’s still awesome. There’s nothing better than gently hugging on your son or daughter, and on your wife for doing all of the work. It’s an incredible and sweet experience.
What you’re going to learn quickly is that you won’t be going out any more, forget about your bowling league, after work drinks or baseball team. It’s simply not in the cards for you to be entertaining yourself after work. Speaking of cards, you can forget about poker night too. Instead you’ll be in your home, a lot.
I was given this tip from a colleague when we announced we were pregnant with our first child, Sam. The tip is to stop watching movies now.
The tip is a really good one, assuming you enjoy good movies. Please tell me you do, don’t tell me you liked The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. If you did just stop reading this post now, because it’s clear that you could be entertained by watching spit-up dry, there will be plenty opportunity for that.
The idea is that by the time your baby is born, you’ll have an arsenal of good to great films to watch. The early childhood days are filled with your baby either sleeping, pooping or eating. Surprisingly babies aren’t nearly as much work as you expect, except at night when you were planning on getting some sleep.
You’ll be spending loads of down time at home, so you want plenty of good entertainment to fill the time. If you’re nearly a dad, or you’re a new dad, and you’re reading this yelling “Doh!”, fear not.
There’s always decent video sites like www.hulu.com. I’m not sure of other international options for good online entertainment. Any suggestions?
Photo by: TheMacGirl*
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While I agree that you do spend a lot more time at home once you have kids (I have two, 8 and 16 months), I have to disagree that putting your entire life on hold is a requirement.
First off, new parents need to make sure to spend time away from each other, trust me, you will almost definitely get on each others nerves, especially after long nights and little sleep.
My number one tip would be to make sure that you develop a balance. Make tradeoffs. If you have poker night (although I would suggest keeping it to a couple of hours at most) make sure she has a couple of hours to do something with her friends.
The movies thing is a good idea though, although you may just want to get Netflix and expand your movie viewing horizons.
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While I agree that you do spend a lot more time at home once you have kids (I have two, 8 and 16 months), I have to disagree that putting your entire life on hold is a requirement.
First off, new parents need to make sure to spend time away from each other, trust me, you will almost definitely get on each others nerves, especially after long nights and little sleep.
My number one tip would be to make sure that you develop a balance. Make tradeoffs. If you have poker night (although I would suggest keeping it to a couple of hours at most) make sure she has a couple of hours to do something with her friends.
The movies thing is a good idea though, although you may just want to get Netflix and expand your movie viewing horizons.
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We were rather lucky with Elle. She was an easy baby in terms of sleeping etc. But I do agree that there are many more moments where you are sitting at home…I LOVE MY TIVO. For me I TIVO shows and watch several episodes at a time…Mad Men, How I Met Your Mother…Entourage…
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We were rather lucky with Elle. She was an easy baby in terms of sleeping etc. But I do agree that there are many more moments where you are sitting at home…I LOVE MY TIVO. For me I TIVO shows and watch several episodes at a time…Mad Men, How I Met Your Mother…Entourage…
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To pick up on something Greg Hollingsworth said: you need to make time for yourself, and for both you and your partner as a couple. In the beginning, you also need to give each other a gentle push to actually take that time. “I saw that Chick Flick is opening next week. Why don’t you go to that with Old Friend?”
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To pick up on something Greg Hollingsworth said: you need to make time for yourself, and for both you and your partner as a couple. In the beginning, you also need to give each other a gentle push to actually take that time. “I saw that Chick Flick is opening next week. Why don’t you go to that with Old Friend?”
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@Greg: Thanks. I didn’t mean putting your whole life on hold, I meant that you whole life has changed – at least it should have. I agree that new parents (and seasoned ones) need to take some time apart to unplug from daddy/mommy mode. Great tip to make the tradeoffs. Thanks.
@Jeff: I *really* need a TIVO 🙂 My VCR channels don’t go high enough to record my essentials like Daily Show and Colbert Report. 🙁
@Mark M: I agree with you guys. Not sure I understood your Chick Flick reference those.
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@Greg: Thanks. I didn’t mean putting your whole life on hold, I meant that you whole life has changed – at least it should have. I agree that new parents (and seasoned ones) need to take some time apart to unplug from daddy/mommy mode. Great tip to make the tradeoffs. Thanks.
@Jeff: I *really* need a TIVO 🙂 My VCR channels don’t go high enough to record my essentials like Daily Show and Colbert Report. 🙁
@Mark M: I agree with you guys. Not sure I understood your Chick Flick reference those.
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You are spot on about your life changing when you become a new parent. The fact is no one can really prepare you with the changes that are about to happen, but be patient it is all worth it.
We didn’t have it when our son, Aaron, was first born, but I would highly recommend getting one or two premium channels on cable, HBO or Showtime. If you have digital cable then you also can get a lot of movies and premium series on pay per view at no cost. This makes it unnecessary to go to the video store most of the time.
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You are spot on about your life changing when you become a new parent. The fact is no one can really prepare you with the changes that are about to happen, but be patient it is all worth it.
We didn’t have it when our son, Aaron, was first born, but I would highly recommend getting one or two premium channels on cable, HBO or Showtime. If you have digital cable then you also can get a lot of movies and premium series on pay per view at no cost. This makes it unnecessary to go to the video store most of the time.
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I have to disagree. Over here in the UK there are a lot of providers of DVD hire over the internet. It’s great as you can keep the DVD as long as you need, so my wife and I catch films when the baby isn’t crying or needs attention and not worrying about late fees. It’s a great bit of ‘us’ time.
And I still get to go to the football!
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I have to disagree. Over here in the UK there are a lot of providers of DVD hire over the internet. It’s great as you can keep the DVD as long as you need, so my wife and I catch films when the baby isn’t crying or needs attention and not worrying about late fees. It’s a great bit of ‘us’ time.
And I still get to go to the football!
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