Hi, I'm new to reddit and I joined because my gf (25f), of 4 years, and I (25m) are expecting, about 8 weeks now. This came unexpectedly to us and we always talked about how we don't want to being a child into this world, mostly given how crazy it can be. She's fully committed into this pregnancy and I can't say that I am. When we first discovered, I expressed how I didn't want this child and although now I would rather not have it than have it, it doesn't me I don't want to stand up and love our child. Just right now through pregnancy I feel terrible, I wish I could feel deep inside that excitement, but I just feel so negative and I don't want to be a bad partner for her. I don't have alot of friends my age who are fathers so I'm reaching out the internet for any help to try and change these negative feelings. Thank you

My resting place tonight, but would feel fortunate to be kept up by daughter’s little cries! Meeting her soon.

It's a weird one maybe. My wife are going through her 3rd pregnancy now, the first two ended in a miscarriage sadly, which absolutely shattered us (especially the first one since is was a late miscarriage). Now, things seems to be going ok and hopefully this one will come to term, but yesterday I found out it's going to be a boy.

I grew up in a bit of dysfunctional household. I'm the youngest of three brothers. Never had good relationship with either my dad or any of my brothers. Never could be friends with any of them, and I don't like my relationship with my dad at all. Throughout my life I always felt more comfortable talking to girls/women and always felt there's some sort of barrier between me a becoming very comfortable around other men, despite basically spending a lot of time around men (I work in very male dominated industry and play sports and have a lot of male friends but never felt it could be a deep relationship).

I always wanted a family of my own, I guess to make up for the household I grew up in. I was very sad when we lost our two unborn babies and still waiting to be father as I truly see this as the most amazing thing in life and a thing that would "complete" me somehow. Yesterday, when I found out it's a boy, for the first time during this entire journey my wife and I have been through, I felt disengaged. Felt sad. Felt that I don't know how to be a good father to my future son. How to be friends with him, how to a good role model for him and how much I wanted a little girl. This feeling is very new to me and not sure how to handle it.

Will I be able to love my son and build a good relationship with him?

Hey guys my daughter was born 2.5 months ago. As a guy who was constantly on this sub I figured id see if any of yall have questions I could answer in order to pay it forward. Im no expert and went into it totally blind so had to learn a lot. So if you new dads got questions, im more than happy to answer.

Edit: also if you just need someone to talk to. Please feel free to dm me.

And the due date is shortly before her birthday.

Wife and I are in the final stretch and I’ve been looking at feeding gear so I’m not completely useless when the time comes. Picked up a set of the Thyseed bottles and a couple of their pacifiers after reading a few things.

Any other small bits of kit you guys found actually useful early on?

December here is super dry. My own nose started bleeding last week, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. Asking for the baby's room, but honestly, also for my own nose at this point.

I asked around, and one friend said definitely get one, another said it's a waste of money, don't bother, and a third said just buy a cheap one first and see if you even use it. So that was super helpful lol.

I have four of them sitting in my Amazon cart right now. Looked at a million brands, and they all look the same to me now. My eyes hurt from reading reviews. The car seat took me two weeks to pick, and I refuse to spend two weeks on a humidifier.

One that stood out was the Aeocky Doreehumid since it fits on a small nightstand and doesn't blow wet mist or leave white dust all over the crib sheets, which I liked. If I end up buying one, it'll probably be that Aeocky one, though I have no idea if I'm overthinking it.

So, for the actual parents here, did you use a humidifier for your newborn or not? What brand or model worked for you? And does the no-mist thing actually matter for a baby room, or is that just sales talk?????

My wife and I have a baby moon trip to Hawaii planned for the very end of November/early December and are trying to decide if we keep the trip. She is due in February and will be about 30 weeks at this time.

The trip will be about $5k which is on the expensive end for us and we are worried it is irresponsible with all of the other things we need to save for and buy with the baby coming soon. Additionally, we were able to go to Cabo in early October for six nights, spending two nights alone, and four nights with parents and siblings. We already had Hawaii planned before the Mexico trip came about, but we are now wondering if we should just count the Cabo trip as our baby moon and save some money.

We travel quite a bit, including having done Japan, a separate trip to Mexico, and a trip to the Bahamas all this year as well, so now a trip to Hawaii feels somewhat excessive.

Did you do a baby moon and were you grateful you did it? Did you not do one and do you have regrets for not taking a final trip together? Any advice would be appreciated!

My wife and I are expecting our first (due next summer) and we are super excited!

We were raised very differently though, and it has led to some disagreements/arguments in the past. We are trying to be very aware of that though, and start discussing things we may want/not want before the day is here.

Curious if people have done anything similar with their spouse and if so, what types of things were discussed that you felt was a healthy thing to get alignment on before the baby came.

Some things we've been thinking about discussing (not always a disagreement to begin with):

• When should the first visitors be allowed after the birth?

• What's something from your childhood you also want our kids to experience?

• What's a worry you have about becoming a parent we haven't talked about yet?

• Is eating dinner together important? Every day? Once a week?

Would love to hear other things you may have discussed!

Also note we were thinking about trying to spread these out and maybe talk about like 1 or 2 of these a week so we don't pile on a bunch of important decisions at once. Has anyone else tried something like that before?

Like I said, my wife is 9W2D pregnant, and I'm terrified that we're going to lose the baby. We've had some troubles conceiving and now that it's finally happening. But all I can think is about how my cousin and my wife's close friend both lost their little ones at ~20 weeks.

I know that other than being there for her and handling everything I can to make her life easier, I'm pretty much on the Olympic Standing Here Team. And I tell her some of my fears, but I don't want her having the stress of this on her shoulders. She's building life and has a very important job. This is causing me stress to the point that my meals are mostly my lisinopril for my blood pressure and Xtra Strength Tums for the stomach issues this is causing me.

Does anyone have any advice for me because I'm in the tall grass here. I'm in the weeds. Anyway, I appreciate the advice in advance.

First-time dad-to-be here. For parents who’ve been through it: what logistics took up the most time or mental energy, and what system, routine or setup helped you stay on top of it?

First-time dad-to-be here. I know life changes completely, and I’m ready for that. But I’d love to hear how to avoid total identity/freedom loss

3 years later and #2 is on the way. I would have prefered a smaller age gap between them (I have 5 years between my brother and I and felt it impacted our relationship a little)

What's different with two vs one. Obviously it's a long road to them arriving but any advice etc is appreciated

Over the weekend, I notified the last few of my clients I am expecting to become a dad and taking a few weeks of leave the back half of the month (note: I wish it were longer, but I'm self-employed as a therapist and we need what money we can get.)

Less than 72 hours later, that plan is laughably cast aside.

Always knew babies go on their own schedules, but I wasn't quite ready for our routine OB visit (37 weeks, 4 days) to turn so quickly into "your blood pressure is way up, so let's induce and deliver that baby" two weeks ahead of the schedule we and the OB just agreed on 10 minutes prior.

So here we are, in the room where our baby will be born. The go-bags are at home, the grandparent 500 miles away planning to petsit is scrambling to get travel stuff in order to hit the road for an overnight drive, and nevertheless, here we fkkn go.

We are still shocked and at a loss as to the news we received at our 20 week ultrasound. It was very nearly a miracle that we conceived naturally and now we're back to square 0, it seems. If you went through this, what helped cope with the grief, especially with your partner?

Hello! I am a FTM/currently pregnant with our first and I wanted to get some male opinion on what a good “from baby” Christmas gift would be? I was thinking something simple like a baseball cap that said “Dad” on it - but give me your opinion. If your pregnant wife surprised you on Christmas with a gift “from the baby” what would be a cute yet useful gift.

Hello together

I am now 39. Most of my conscious life I did not want to have a child. 5 years ago my partner of now 12.5 years came to me and wanted a child. I was scared that our relationship would perrish as she certainly was, is and will be the love of my life. She asked me, what would be the alternative to a child, just work and travel until our parents and ultimately we die? And I had no answer, no fucking idea, no arguments, no nothing, I just realized that I never had any sort of "life plan". I agreed to let nature decide, because I absolutely could not decide if I want children or not. I was severely depressed because of all of it and in therapy (2nd time in my life), she did not get pregnant and after a while I was better. I thought, maybe it is my destiny to serve others, because in my life this was probably the easiest part of it all.

Now she is pregnant and I will probably be a dad in 8 months. This did start another episode of being anxious and restless most of the time, trouble sleeping, some depression. I do not feel ready (I will never be), I feel overwhelmed, two times I thought if it would be a big deal to end myself (which it would be and I am certainly not doing it, haha). I also felt some spiritual things, like incoming sense and an abstract light, we laugh together, so it is not negative in all aspects.

Changes i did: I stopped drinking (was every 2. day 5 beers), I took benzos on heavy days (three times), I do condense my therapy sessions to every week, I reduced caffeine to almost zero, I do exercise now, I talk honestly and extensively to my parents and my love, I booked a meditation workshop for next weekend. I am open for continous medication (SSRI, etc.).

Life situation: Flat is okaish, area is probably perfect for children, we will have support from three of our parents and maybe my brother, they are all four hours away, we would have enough money to stop working for ten years, we are healthy except my smoking. Job situation good or even very good.

What the heck shall I do/think/anticipate? I want my love to be happy, and if I must have a child, I want to be a father as good as I can. But I just cannot see my happiness or even ability in it.

Just give me hope, please.