By historical and global standards, a thirty-five year old is an "old dad," though it's just about normal in modern American life. As one ages, major lifestyle changes grow more difficult to adapt to and I was very concerned that caring for a newborn would be overwhelming. Everybody warned me about how awful, unrewarding, and exhausting it would be. Perhaps I have an especially agreeable kid, but making the transition has been very rewarding.
There have been some challenges and frustrations, but less so than with the fully grown adults in my life.
The first few months are jokingly referred to as the "fourth trimester," and there's no doubt that the infant is barely there in any real human sense, with faint and subtle twinkles of humanity that you have to watch for carefully. Around three months, the personality begins emerging and the child's able to interact in a way that can truly be described as bonding. There's bonding from day one, of course. But a lot of it is rooted more in the future potential of it all than anything in the here and now.
But the thing about babies is that you must necessarily work to be one step ahead of where they're at. There's some fixed point at which they begin gradually responding, smiling, giggling, and laughing in response to your playing with them. But how long was she aware of the play before she could prove it to me? Days? Weeks? Months, perhaps? You don't know, so you have to play before she can play back, talk before the can respond, and challenge them well before there's any hope of achievement.
After the basic custodial tasks to keep the baby physically healthy are accounted for, all that matters is play, interaction, socialization. Folks invest big money in Baby Einstein and Baby Mozart programs to try to stimulate their infant to maximize their full potential. But they're set up to get everything they need at that age from interacting with other humans. Infancy is the easy part, because there's no concern about spoiling them, about watching what you say and do to make sure you're inculcating the best possible ideas, or anything of the sort. They're too stupid to understand what you're saying, after all.
Perhaps there should be an infant care book for dads "What To Expect if You're Not a Chick." Much of "What to Expect" and every other infant care book assumes you're a mother. Breastfeeding was never an option, which is regrettable. To quote, "breast milk contains at least 100 ingredients that aren't found in cow's milk." Reading on and on about all the advantages of breast milk over formula and all the unique maternal bonding magic that comes with breastfeeding is frustrating when your nipples are just for show and mom can't be bothered.
After an extensive case for breastfeeding insisting that formula is difficult to digest, lacks hundreds of necessary nutrients, fails to deliver any of the emotional development benefits, and will give the baby a lower IQ, there's a small pop-up box consoling mothers (and only mothers) and encouraging them to make the best of having a nutrient-deprived low-IQ baby. And that's without very little information on the unique issues that come with formula feeding, namely watching for overfeeding, watching for the baby falling asleep and choking on milk, and preparation considerations. Google it, pal. I get it, and the book should absolutely encourage new mothers to breastfeed. I was formula fed, and I'm pretty smart and healthy. Right?
*crickets*
The brief note about circumcision suggests that Heidi isn't really keeping up with either medical research or public opinion. It's irrelevant for ourselves, since ours is female and we're not Somalian. But I was a bit peeved that she didn't at least gently discourage circumcision based on the facts. I won't even go into it here. But while I understand that this series necessarily must tread lightly to maintain a wide audience and avoid controversy, she could have at least offered enough of a summary of the two cases that the objective reader would grasp that unless there are pressing religious demands, it's not worth it.
Frankly, Heidi fails to speak up when she should and offers a lot of fluff that would be better left unspoken. For example, on the list of things to look for in a pediatric doctor, she includes a full paragraph on "officer decor," ensuring that your doctor's waiting room and office are warm and welcoming enough. I suppose the presence of cockroaches or bare electrical wires might be a show stopper. But this is just one of many examples of frivolous fluff implying that maybe I really am better off just googling free medical websites than sitting down with this fancy book that I paid real money for.
Most of those free websites articles are, after all, written by qualified medical professionals of one sort or another, while Heidi's qualification is that she was a freelance writer who had a baby herself. Congratulations? If I want unqualified and out-of-touch personal opinions, that's easy enough to find for free from female friends and relatives. Speaking of which, I feel like making the child interact with as many friends and relatives as possible is really valuable. Not only does it take the weight off of you, the parent, but it also affords the child a broader range of experiences (not to mention more microbes for their immune systems to get a bead on during this critical immune system development window).
At the risk of borrowing from Hillary, "it takes a village" to raise a child in the most active, dynamic, and stimulating environment possible. While even being a great dad still leaves something to be desired over just about any mother at this age, women comprise just about 50% of one's neighbors and family members. If you play it smart, there's always a sister, a cousin, a grandma, or a family friend eager to offer both experienced parenting advice or (more importantly) that feminine touch in the child's life. At some point, a step mother could enter the picture or the birth mother could overcome her challenges, but there are creative ways to close the gap in the meantime.
For all of its irritating fluff, I regret to say that it was worth the time and money to sit through this book, if only for a select few safety tips that hadn't crossed my mind. For instance, I didn't know that all modern cars have the latch in the back seat, explaining what the hook was for. I had been exclusively relying on the seatbelt which, while likely sufficient, wasn't the most failsafe carseat installation option. That and probably a dozen other things are the sort of thing you glean from sitting through an entire book that you can't get from even the best web research--because you didn't even know to ask the question in the first place.