Hey first of all congratulations! It is great that you want to be involved. As a matter of fact, you should try and work as a team so that all of you can enjoy the situation as much as possible. As you already know from your first child, it is hard work but it is also so wonderful and unique to have a new baby at home.
It is hard to give advice, I think, as we don麓t know many things, for example: will you have help from other people too? How old is your other child? Is she going to be breastfeeding? However, I will tell you what in my experience helped (or I wish my husband had done!). Hopefully this will give you a guideline. Of course I also suggest that you ask her now so that you know what she expects.
Here goes my list of suggestions:
1) If she is going to breastfeed, then only she can do it. But basically you can help with everything else. Make sure she is not the one ';responsible'; for taking care of the baby, and you are the ';little helper';. Make her feel that you both are responsible for the baby. This will be a relief. And your baby need his/her Daddy too!!
2) Learn to change nappies and to dress the baby. This way you can take turns on doing so, or simply take over if she asks you to.
3) Make sure your wife gets some ';time off'; every day. This can be as little as the time to take a shower and get changed in clean clothes, or as much as the time between two feeds. During this time, take care of the baby alone (and don麓t ask her every five minutes how to do everything!!). Maybe your wife, if she feels like it, can even go out with a friend, your other child, or go shopping.
4) Wake up sometimes at night with her. If you are working it is one thing but if you are home, it is not fair that she is the only one not getting any sleep. If the baby has eaten, you can then take care of getting him/her back to sleep (so that your wife can sleep a little more).
5) Take care of dinner. Either by cooking if you can, by getting food delivered (try to get healthy food and not pizza/burgers all the time) or getting frozen meals. In fact, a good idea is to stock up on frozen food (cooked or bought) right now. This way you won麓t have to think about it later.
6) Tell her that she is doing a great job, praise her and pamper her a bit with the things she likes.
7) If you have time, try to keep the chaos level at home down. You can do this by cleaning after yourselves (if you or her had something to drink, then put the cup or glass away in the dishwasher right away, etc etc). If you can clean try to keep the main areas relatively tidy. You don麓t have to be a pro cleaner, just keeping the mess under control can be really helpful. Another way is that you take care of the baby while she does this.
8) Take care of the other child. Also, take care of the baby while the other child gets to spend some time with mommy. Get the child involved in taking care of the newborn (according to the kid麓s age of course!) so that he or she is less jealous. Children are very emphatetic and they love babies. If your kid feels he/she has got a place with the baby s/he will be prouder of being the ';big brother or sister'; and this will help to keep the jealousy down. Of course it is totally normal for him/her to be jealous, so try to be understanding.
Ok this is all I can think of right now. Basically, your wife will want to be with the baby a lot and she is also hard-wired to do so. But we all need a break even if it is from the most beautiful thing in the world. Getting these breaks and being able to know she can rely on you is the greatest gift you can give her! It will give her physical as well as emotional energy to take better care of your little one.
One last thing: of course you do not have to do ALL of this!! These are only guidelines so that you can discuss them with her. It is also based on the information that I have. I hope this helps.
Take care and enjoy your new baby and your beautiful family.Moms i need advice for helping my wife?
Before your baby is born, spend time making and freezing meals so for the first few weeks neither of you are spending too much time trying to cook.
Next speak to family and friends and see how many of them can spare one or two hours per week for you both to go out for a walk on your own. If either of you have your parents handy ask them to help out with washing or dusting.
One of the biggest problem's after having babies is that you are tired, so anything to save time to come or arranged with friends and family all help.
Your support is invaluable as well as helping with night time feeds and nappies. but reminding your wife how proud you are of her and how happy you are that you are together will always be a welcomed comment.
I'd definitely say washing bottles, dishes, laundry, and diapers. Don't make her feel overwhelmed by helping too much though. Also you can make sure you keep the older child busy. He/she will need lots of love so they don't feel left out with the new baby.
YOU ARE A GOOD HUSBAND. .UR WIFE IS LUCKY
Ok HOw old is your first child ?.take care of that child .If ur 1st child is too young make her/him understand abt the new arrival so that she/he doesnt feel neglected or feel jealous. Help ur wife in feeding the child, changing diapers,giving a bath. U take care of the kitchen n house.give her complete rest.(if she wants)..
All the best.
just give her your undivided attention and do what ever she asks you to do especially with baby stuff like changing diapers and stuff also if you have enough money always make sure she has a fresh bouquet of roses
Just offer to help with the baby, and let her get plenty of sleep. Trust me she's going to want to sleep!
I think you are going to do great just because you are thinking ahead. When my husband took time off work to ';help'; me, he treated it like a vacation for himself. It was worse than being alone! You probably won't have to wait on her, necessarily, but plan on doing the cooking and the laundry. Cooking and cleaning the house would be a huge bonus. Otherwise, just plan on giving her moral support especially if she's breast feeding. BTW - all I wanted after I had my babies was a massage! You are sore all over for a few weeks. Since you already have child at home, try taking him/her out and doing something alone together. Not only will it be good for the two of you, she'll enjoy having alone time with the baby. The second can be overwhelming at first, but if you work together, thing will go much more smoothly.
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