Three Months of Being a Parent

I'm probably doing laundry or being spit up on as you read these words. Plus recs for Ian Urbina's reporting in North Korea, Wendy Molyneux's TED quotes, and Jennifer Murtazashvili's Central Asia.

Three months ago today, our son was born. It’s been a wild, unpredictable, exciting, exhausting, and other adjectives quarter of a year. I have gotten intimately familiar with the grain of the wood in our floorboard as I scrub spitup out of them. I have done laundry and dishes at a rate that, frankly, should qualify me for work in a commercial kitchen or midsize hotel. And I can pour six ounces of water into a bottle to mix with formula with the precision and confidence of a master bartender.

Three months is so little time and also so much time. So when friends expecting their first kid asked me for advice about the third trimester and the first months of a newborn baby (what people sometimes call “the fourth trimester”), I was happy to share some thoughts. I’m copying what I sent them here (with a few modifications and removing their names / identifying info).

It’s a little odd to be giving advice though, since Mollie and I are still very much in the middle of it. It’s like asking a 16-year-old who just got his learner’s permit to give you pointers on driving your Prius. He probably does have the the freshest memory of driver’s ed, but you should definitely take anything he says with a grain of salt since he’s got no experience at all.

That is me in this advice scenario. I am the teen student driver. And here is my advice on how to drive your metaphorical car (which is, to be clear, a newborn baby):

1) In the third trimester, it feels like your job is PREPARATION but it's actually CONNECTION

You can read all the books, you can take all the classes, you can buy all the best reviewed and highest rated baby gear, but ultimately you're going to be faced with the realization that every new parents faces: your kid is unique and you can't know what their deal is until you get them. Emily Oster did a giant review of people's most helpful and least helpful pieces of baby gear and what she found is that pretty much every single item had some people saying they couldn't live without it and other people saying it was worthless crap. It depends on your kid! Also you need so much less stuff than you think and the things you do need depend on what works. Pre-baby arrival you really only need: a car seat, somewhere for them to sleep, some diapers, some burp cloths, a place to change them, and some clothes (which definitely can/should be handmedowns). I read a ton of books (and already lent you my favorites) but that was mostly about my own curiosity and dealing with my own anxiety. 

Most, if not all, of that preparation went out the window once our baby arrived. What really mattered was the connection and the bond that Mollie and I had built over the years of our relationship. Because a newborn baby is really hard! And it's emotional! And scary! And there's much less time to focus on yourself or your relationship at first. At first, it's all baby. So use this time to build and deepen the connection you two have! You already have such a lovely relationship. You two are so supportive and caring. Lean into that! People kept telling me and Mollie to go on date nights and get as much sleep as we could. That kinda felt annoying and also impossible? Like how can I stockpile sleep? But what I wish I had internalized more is like "don't put all your energy into worrying about what will happen with the baby and how things will be and instead be on this journey together." I am positive that your pregnant partner is feeling all sorts of physical sensations and emotions and fears and excitements that are new and different and often overwhelming. Do your best to be there with her! Not to fix them necessarily or to analyze them, just to really be there with her, connected and present and just the two of you in a moment that's never going to exist again (because no moment does). 

2) Realize that you can't do everything perfectly and there's never a perfect option

I am still struggling with this one, for sure, and I bet it will be lifelong work for me. But do your best to realize that you won't be able to avoid all less-than-ideal outcomes involving your kid. This has begun already, I'm sure! You can't guarantee that you two won't get sick unless you never leave the house and never see anyone, but that would make you both feel sad and probably unhealthy which is also not ideal for the baby. So just do your best! It's ok. Maybe you end up with a stroller that is heavier but compatible with your car seat. Or maybe it's lighter but kind of a pain to fold up. Either one is fine! There's no perfect option ever. I felt this very acutely when it came to the medical questions around childbirth. How could we make a decision that guaranteed Mollie and the baby would be safe and also that the experience would be emotionally validating and transformative and beautiful? And the answer is we couldn't get that guaranteed! There is no guarantee. We just had to do our best and trust that we'd figure it out if/when things went wrong.

3) Pick a few things you care about and focus on those

Related to #2, since you can't get everything perfectly and there aren't options that magically tick off every box, be thoughtful about what really matters to you and what is important for your quality of life. Do you know that eating a particular meal means a lot to you and makes your day be better? Make it ahead of time and freeze a bunch so you won't have to worry about it. Or maybe the food doesn't matter as much to you but sleep does! Arrange for family support or a caregiver or a friend to come relieve you periodically in those first weeks so you can take naps. If you know you need alone time, don't be afraid to say no to visitors! If you know you need social interactions, don't be afraid to designate a friend to schedule a bunch of phone calls for you. Whatever it is that preserves your sanity and physical health, put your energy into setting up some systems that will allow you to maintain that.

4) Don't trust the due date

Don't wait! Babies come early! Sometimes they come late! But I know that I was like "Our baby is scheduled to arrive in 3.5 weeks so I have plenty of time" and then I ended up driving to the hospital with Mollie and the car seat still in the box it arrived in. That was unnecessarily stressful! For the stuff that actually matters, just get it done ahead of time! And second/third trimester is an easy moment to do things like compile all the email addresses for your meal train (if you're going to do one), use those same email addresses to make a blank version of a birth announcement email (if you're going to write one), write a to do list for labor/post partum (what forms need to get filed for health insurance, how do you order the birth certificate, who are you going to call to let your families know, etc.) 

5) Trust yourself! 

You've got this! You're going to be great. Ultimately, this baby is lucky to have you two as parents. Very, very few babies ever get even close to that lucky. Trust yourself and trust your partner. You two are amazing.

OTHER LITTLE EXTRA THINGS THAT I THOUGHT OF AFTER WRITING THIS

One thing I did in the early third trimester that was incredibly helpful for me personally is visit a friend and his 3 month old baby. They taught me how to feed him a bottle, burp, change a diaper, swaddle, and put him down. I basically just went over and hung out for like 4 hours and got to actually do all the things myself rather than just read about them. It was very, very helpful!

Another thing a dad told me before our kid was born to "do as many exercises to strengthen your core as possible" and I thought he was joking but actually all new parents struggle with back and shoulder issues because you're constantly picking up and putting down an increasingly heavy object so actually the idea of doing strength training ahead of time for those muscle groups and making sure your back and core are in great shape is a really genius idea.

OK THAT IS ALL! Let’s get into this week’s list:

My projects and upcoming events:

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Dan Harris, author of 10% Happier, is a big believer in the power of meditation to stop his brain from being such a jerk. I loved his book and it was so fun talking to him about initially resisting the “woo-woo” of mindfulness and then realizing how helpful it can be. Dan is hilarious and insightful and he speaks in a way that you don’t often hear when it comes to thinking about these practices. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts)

LIVE TALK: TED Conference 2024 - April 15-19, Vancouver. I’ll be giving a mainstage TED Talk this year which I am very excited (and nervous) about! It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever been on a lineup with Kesha, RuPaul, and Ray Kurzweil before. Info and details on attending here

This week’s list

GREAT:

Ian Urbina and his team are doing some breathtakingly difficult and important reporting on the situation in North Korea. I feel like the dramatic or eccentric stories about North Korea’s rulers get a lot of press but there’s much less coverage (partly due to how difficult accurate reporting is) of what regular people’s lives are like in the country. This is a group of researchers quite literally risking their lives to get a story out. Inside North Korea’s Forced Labor Program

FUNNY:

I’m giving a TED Talk this year and currently working on finalizing what I’m going to say. But nothing I could possibly write will ever approach the comedic heights of this piece by Wendy Molyneux (who you may know as one of the writers of Bob’s Burgers): Quotes from My TED Talk

INTERESTING:

Dr. Jennifer Murtazashvili studies “communities, power, conflict and how they all intertwine.” She’s an expert on Central Asia, with extensive experience in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. This interview (which you can listen to as a podcast or read as a transcript) is an eye-opening look at what experts often miss about the deep, extensive knowledge that communities hold. What Neighbors Know—and ‘Experts’ Miss

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Entering my 112th trimester,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.