# Top 8 New Dad Tips - Crucial Advice For First Time Fathers | Dad University **Creator:** Dad University **Platform:** youtube **Duration:** 13m **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ ## Summary Jason Kreidman shares essential tips for first-time fathers to navigate the challenges of parenthood with confidence and ease. He emphasizes the importance of building familiarity with your baby, focusing on quality interactions, and being empathetic, all while managing the inevitable mistakes that come with parenting. - Don’t take your baby’s behavior personally; they are just learning about their world. - Prioritize quality time over quantity; being present during interactions is key. - Spend one-on-one time with your baby to build confidence and connection. - Accept that mistakes will happen; learn from them and move on. - Practice empathy by understanding your partner's experiences without offering unsolicited advice. - Get organized by creating a schedule and dividing tasks to reduce chaos. - Enjoy the present moment with your child, as time passes quickly. - Cultivate self-confidence; feeling overwhelmed is normal, but trust in your ability to be a good father. ## Transcript [[0:00]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=0s) in today's video i'm going to provide you the top eight new dad tips this is crucial information for first-time fathers now you might be excited but you're also feeling overwhelmed or stressed or even filled with anxiety because you're not sure what lies ahead well i'm here to help you you're going to want to stick around till the end of this video because not only is number 8 really important but i'm going to also tell you how you can get free [[0:26]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=26s) access to my webinar class hey guys i'm jason kreidman creator of the dad university parenting program i help dads gain more confidence in their parenting learn effective discipline strategies and help them better connect with their families let's get to the new dad tips number one don't take things personally your baby is not out to get you now sure sometimes it feels like that but your baby is not trying to make your life [[0:58]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=58s) miserable or give you extra stress your baby's just trying to make sense of the world around it your baby is going to cry whine and fuss guaranteed and it can be frustrating and stressful as a new dad when you don't feel like you can calm the baby down but i assure you my advice is to not take it personally if your baby cries when you hold it just hold it more often if your baby cries or [[1:26]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=86s) gets frustrated when you're giving it a bath just give it a bath more often you know babies thrive on familiarity and when you're a new dad you're not familiar with the baby and the baby's not familiar with you so it takes you doing things over and over again and for the baby to be familiar so that there is more calm in the early years of a child familiarity is a big thing the more you do something [[1:51]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=111s) the more comfortable you and your child will become the next new dad tip number two focus on the quality time instead of quantity of time now if you have a lot of time available or you are the primary caretaker of the child then that's great but for many new dads we may feel guilty that we're not spending enough time with our child we feel like the more time we spend with our child the better but we have this conflict with our work [[2:19]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=139s) schedules and other obligations so it becomes difficult instead of saying i should spend more time with my child say i should spend more quality time with my child if you are unsure what quality time means it means being in the present moment that could mean playing with your child giving it affection uh bath time feeding anything where you are specifically focused on the child you're not distracted by your phone or having a conversation with someone [[2:50]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=170s) you are solely focused on the child in that moment one way to start having quality time with your baby is to do the number three new dad tip spend one-on-one time with your baby now family time is great everybody enjoys it but there's something special about that one-on-one time that you have with just you and the baby when i was a new dad i didn't necessarily enjoy one-on-one time right out of the gate i recall my wife would say [[3:20]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=200s) you know hey i'm going to go out for some errands for a while and i i would kind of freeze up and realize uh oh i'm going to be alone with the child i don't know what to do but as you begin to spend more time with the child that one-on-one time becomes one just much more fun and two you become much more confident in your ability to take care of that child it only takes a few times [[3:46]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=226s) of you spending that one-on-one time where you get the hang of it and you feel much more comfortable it's like anything we do that we lack experience in we may have a lack of confidence because we don't have the experience being a new dad is no different you haven't had the experience of spending that one-on-one time with the child or giving it a bath or feeding or playing or doing some of these things that you might feel a [[4:11]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=251s) little bit timid about but it's okay just practice and everything will be fine that one-on-one time is just different you know even as my kids get older i still really value that one-on-one time and that foundation was built very early the one-on-one time allows you to connect it allows you to talk it allows you to play and quite frankly just allows you to be more present one because you just have to be but two it's also that focus [[4:40]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=280s) on each other so make sure that you're spending that one-on-one time with your baby and you will enjoy it getting back to this idea of practicing as a new dad no matter how much you practice you're going to make mistakes and that brings us to number four be okay with your mistakes you're going to make mistakes we all do we all make a lot of mistakes as first-time fathers but the idea is to accept it learn from [[5:08]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=308s) it and move on making mistakes doesn't mean that you are not capable of taking care of your child or that you are a horrible father it means that you just lack the experience so be okay with your mistakes and move on you maybe changed the baby's diaper wrong maybe you held the baby incorrectly or you didn't uh do nap time on time or you fed the baby wrong or you got them dressed incorrectly it doesn't matter [[5:36]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=336s) we all make these mistakes as we go along it's part of the fathering journey but you're gonna learn from your mistakes and continue forward the child is going to be okay sure you want to avoid major mistakes or things that have to do with safety but those can happen too so don't beat yourself up over the mistakes that you might make number five be empathetic if you've watched some of my other videos you've probably heard me talk about empathy quite a bit [[6:06]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=366s) but as far as new dad tips this is probably the tip that has the most impact on you and the people around you i urge you to learn about empathy being empathetic means that you are looking at a situation from the other person's perspective and really feeling it and understanding it from their point of view i'll give you an example your wife is telling you about her day and how she struggled with getting the baby to sleep earlier [[6:35]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=395s) now she doesn't want your advice she doesn't want your opinion she's just telling you about the situation so your response could be wow honey i'm i'm really sorry that you had to deal with that today it's not telling her what she could have done and how you know the things that she could have done differently in order to get that baby to sleep you're just simply listening and putting yourself in her place and saying you know what that [[7:02]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=422s) would suck i mean the baby wouldn't go to sleep the baby was crying it was frustrating it took a long time so that's what being empathetic is you don't even have to agree with the situation you don't have to say well i you know i would have done the same thing or i'm in that situation i would have handled it this way it does none of that matters it's simply understanding her situation and what she had to deal [[7:27]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=447s) with and maybe then what she is feeling and simply understanding that that's it it's not acceptance of it it's not agreeing with it it's just understanding it again she is not wanting your opinion or advice she's just wanting you to hear her and understand 99 of the time that's all that is needed number six get organized if you are a go with the flow kind of person or being disorganized is just how you are [[7:58]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=478s) and it works for you that's great but when you add a baby into the mix it can get a little chaotic there are two elements that i see as really important in getting organized as a new dad number one creating a schedule and number two dividing tasks for creating a schedule you want to have a routine that includes napping and sleeping and feeding and play time this will help you be more organized and it's predictability for both you [[8:27]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=507s) and the baby as your child grows predictability works really well it allows you and your child to know what comes next surprises as a new dad are not as wonderful and welcoming as they may have been before you had a child also the baby isn't going to follow the routine exactly you know it might be three o'clock in the morning and your baby is ready to party when they are supposed to be sleeping sometimes it is that unpredictable just [[8:56]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=536s) realize that it is totally normal and you aren't a horrible father for not sticking to the schedule getting off schedule is going to happen sometimes you just can't control that little thing that you want to control the second part of getting organized is dividing tasks this means actually writing down exactly what each person is responsible for so you might be responsible for the dinners on these days and in the morning routine on these days it makes things again predictable and [[9:27]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=567s) organized there's really clear expectations of what each person's responsibilities are whether it's feeding bath time or getting ready for sleep each person knows what is expected of them and this makes it easier to plan things or have other things on your schedule when you understand and know exactly what your responsibilities are i find that when you write things down and divide the tasks it becomes a little less overwhelming there is that predictability but [[9:58]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=598s) you also have the accountability and understand what your responsibilities are now for everyone that may look different because of your schedules and your time and your allocation of what your responsibilities are so you do what works for you just make sure that it is written down and documented this way there is less confusion and everyone's on the same page number seven enjoy the present so what does enjoying the present mean well when you're a new dad you will [[10:28]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=628s) often think about the future and you might say to yourself oh i can't wait until she can walk or i can't wait until he talks and we can have a conversation i caught myself doing this a lot when my first child was born i was thinking so much about the things that we were going to do and i think you have to be careful is as much as that is okay to think of that stuff you don't want it to overshadow [[10:51]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=651s) thinking about the current stage that your child is in and enjoying that stage you don't get that time back and while it might feel like some of those sleepless nights are gonna last forever the time goes by really really fast and you don't get that time back before you know it your child is grown and you do not want to have regrets oh i should have spent more time on that or i should have been focused on that [[11:18]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=678s) the time to do it is now enjoy the present before i get to number eight i promised i would let you know about my webinar class i created a class called six proven strategies to be a better father i'll put a link in the description below and you can choose a time that works best for you all right number eight be confident in yourself and this is the number one new dad tip i think we get overwhelmed we get [[11:46]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=706s) stressed out as a new dad and that's okay as i've said it's totally normal but you have to have that confidence that you are going to be able to do this and i can tell you that you're going to be okay it might feel overwhelming it might feel stressful and it is but you are going to be okay so we're going to stop the pity party stop feeling sorry for ourselves we're gonna get to it and move forward sure being a first-time [[12:14]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=734s) father isn't easy but you have a head start you care you are watching this video because you care and you are doing what you can for them if you are nervous totally normal if you are freaking out totally normal as well you know being a new dad brings up all kinds of emotions that we never had to deal with before my hope is that with these new dad tips you will focus on what you can do instead of what you can't do or [[12:43]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=763s) don't think that you're capable of doing i would love to hear from you what are you most excited about in being a new dad leave your feedback in the comment section below if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and click on that notification bell if you know a couple people that might enjoy this please share it with them and if you want to learn more and go deeper in your education be sure to [[13:07]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgg3OKFluQ&t=787s) attend my free webinar class information in the description below we'll see you next time