Here are my new dad tips for you Alex. Been there not too long ago:
1. get lots of sleep now. Try to bank a bunch of it. You'll need it. Your sleeping nights will be gone soon. You'll soon learn what it's like to exist on a couple hours sleep every night for months on end. You'll try to fall asleep at 10 pm and wake at 6 am like most. Between those 8 hours you will be woken up about 8 times. If not a crying baby, then your wife shifting around, or worries that the baby isn't ok. Especially if you have a monitor in your room. Whenver the kid moans or hums or gurgles,you'll wake up. So sleep now. Do not ignore this tip. You will thank me in a few months.
2. go hang out with your friends lots, right now. Because once baby is there, you won't see them for about 6 months. First, your woman will put a stop to your partying. Secondly, your buddies won't want to hang around your house with a crying baby and an angry wife (and she'll be plenty angry about a lot of things in those first 6 months, especiallly if she gets post-partum). So go drink, carouse, and generally cut loose now while you're unencumbered by responsibility. When the kid grows up, you'll find you won't have an appetite for it anymore anyways...so do it now.
3. Hire some people at work for your team. Get them up to speed now. You will be a zombie for the next half year. You need capable people in place to pick up the pieces you're going to drop (and you will drop them). It's inevitable. Happens to every man. It's money well spent. If you have to, make budget cutbacks in other departments to get temps or interns in.
4. Enjoy internet pornography. You won't be getting any from your wife for a while. Breast feeding a baby is not a turn on for your wife, so she'll probably have zero sex drive for a while after the kid is born. Despite the fact that her massive boobs will be a turn on for you. It's quite frustrating.
5. All the crazy shit you used to get away with that your wife overlooked will now get scrutinzed and tied to a guilt trip. Sort of like this: "How can you do/look/be like this...don't you care about what sort of impression you're leaving for the baby?". It's remarkably effective. So get good at hiding stuff, like juice, porn, toys like guns and cars, drinking, smoking, etc...you have to go stealth. Just because baby is here doesn't mean life has to end. You can still indulge. You'll just need to be more careful about it, and moments will be more rare in which to enjoy them. Making the fruit all the sweeter.
Write these tips down. You will soon know them to be truth.
Shit aside, good luck with baby. Alex - I truly hope your kid is happy and healthy. That's the most important thing in the world.
