A woman has a hell of a time recovering after birth.
Her insides have been stretched and torn. The hormone relaxin is coursing through her body causing joint pain in a kind of post-partum arthritis. She might be emotionally exhausted from all the oxytocin in her system.
After the birth of my daughter, my wife says that during the first three months she just powered through what she had to do to care for our baby. During that time, the bond grew between my wife and my baby and she developed a strong maternal instinct towards Victoria. Essentially, during the first three months my wife’s focus was exclusively on the baby.
This overwhelming instinct to care for a baby is obviously important for the propagation of our species.
Back in the day when things like sabre-toothed tigers were roaming around and famine was an ever-present issue it was clearly important for human mothers to have a maternal instinct to defend and nurture her offspring.
In the modern day, this instinct is still important but the danger from external elements has somewhat lessened (sabre-toothed tigers have given way to relatively harmless house cats).
At the same time, the instinct to focus all efforts on the baby may result in a new mother failing to take care of her own needs.
If you detect that your wife is not taking care of herself, this is where you need to step in.
Watch your wife to see signs that she is not eating right, not getting outside enough, not caring for her injuries after birth, and not taking her post-partum vitamins and minerals.
During the first month of our baby’s life, my wife was so focused on taking care of our baby that she stopped taking her doctor-prescribed iron pills and skipped meals. This led to extreme exhaustion. There was a point where her energy levels just plummeted over a very short period of time. I bought a few pounds of beef and ensured that my wife took her iron pills and vitamins every day from then on. Fortunately, she recovered very quickly after getting proper nutrition.
Keep an eye on your wife to make sure she keeps up her self-care. Make sure she takes the steps to take care of herself. Between a new dad, a new mom, and a newborn baby, the most capable and healthy person for the first three months is overwhelmingly the father.
It is up to a new dad to ensure that all members of his new family (including himself) is happy and healthy.
The corollary to this is that you need to run the household for a while during your wife’s recovery.
Remember: you and your wife are a team, and she will be on the injury list for some weeks (what those in hockey might ambiguously call a “lower body injury”).
Doing everything around the house that needs doing is how you help your wife recover from the injury list. Doing the bulk of the heavy lifting when it comes to child care is another way. So for the first three months at least make sure that you:
- Do all of the chores (yes all of them: dishes, laundry, vacuuming, cooking, and anything else that requires physical effort).
- Get your wife what she needs—water, vitamins, cell phone, whatever—so that she can physically rest.
- Change as many diapers as you can.
- Calm the baby by holding her as much as you can.
Taking the brunt of the physical load of the household chores and baby rearing should not be seen as being the family door mat. As your wife recovers, you should slowly re-balance the workload of running the house and taking care of the baby.
Doing all of this will speed up your wife’s recovery and also is the right thing to do as a husband and new dad.
Make sure that your wife takes care of herself and take care of everything else yourself for the first three months.
Your wife and baby will greatly appreciate it!
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This is baby advice that you never really hear as a new dad: how to take care of your wife after the incredibly difficult ordeal of giving birth. My wife is still recovering 5 weeks after giving birth to our baby girl. Great new dad advice in this post!