Good advice when bringing your second-born home from the hospital, by contributor Bill Kelly

My wife and I recently had our second of two boys. The first was 20 months when the second was born, and the nurse at the hospital told us that children, especially boys, are extremely attached to their mothers in the first few years, and that our oldest might be having abandonment fears since his mom had not been home for three days. So she advised that when we come home with the baby, Mom should walk through the door first and hug our oldest for a minute, and then I should come in with the new baby.

It seemed like a simple enough thing, so we did it, and he has not seemed jealous of his little brother at all. But it has made me wonder if it actually made a difference, or if it was just more of the bogus mind games that are put out there to sell books and advice to neurotic parents?

What piece of parenting advice have you actually taken, despite its perceived absurdity?

by contributor Matt Ledoux

Thanks Band of Fathers. Now I’ve realized I can’t send any more funny fun blog posts about our pregnancy your way. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that it’s getting too heated up and my little jokes are exploding like time bombs in my face. And when other guys are overly sweet (like the dude who wrote about being off the grid), that’s when I’m like a man on an island. With herpes. And no one wants to visit me on Herpes Island.

I tried to tickle my wife last night as she was reaching up to put away clothes in the closet…good ol’-funny-fun-times, right? I don’t even have to say how she didn’t like it. Because you could probably guess. But me, I can’t guess. I still try to get her to laugh. Because that’s my way to make her feel better. If I can’t make her laugh, I don’t know what to do.

I guess I have to be more serious. And sensitive. And tell her I’m proud of her for carrying this little person inside of her. And how, at 33 weeks, I see that she can’t sleep that well and can’t even sit herself up easily in the morning, and that I watch her struggling and how I can’t imagine how hard that would be. But I almost feel like if I point it out too much she’ll notice just how difficult it all is, and it’ll be harder for her to keep going. Which is why I come in with the jokes. But I just want her to know how much I appreciate her taking on all of the work now, and that I’m ready—and excited—to do my half when our daughter is born.

With that in mind, I wrote a haiku for my wife.

mea culpa me
I’m so proud of you, you see
love my mom-to-be