You’re Going To Be A Dad – By Daddilife Books – A Review!
When I was pregnant with my first baby Florence, I remember pouring through Pregnancy magazines and manuals all the way through, devouring the information about the step-by-step stages of my pregnancy and relishing all the details. I even took a big stack of magazines on holiday with me which is when my husband began to read them too. He loved soaking up the information just as much as I did but the one thing he found wrong with it all was that none of it was for his perspective. While he loved knowing how I was feeling and found help from the words, none of it catered for anything that he was experiencing himself and I remember us discussing how that side of it would have been helpful too and perhaps more in tune to what he was looking for when perusing.
We read those magazines and manuals through each of my four pregnancies despite having been there before but at no point did it ever change and did we find a read that took things on board for a daddy’s eyes. This has all changed with the book “You’re Going To Be A Dad” by popular website Daddilife and now, just published, is the book he’s always looked for when preparing to be a new Dad.
You’re Going To Be A Dad, by Daddilife, deals with all the topics of pregnancy from the step-by-step guidance on each stage of the journey to birth to quite more besides including conception, labour, the first weeks of fatherhood, what to expect and reflections on the first year of parenting as a Father from your sex life, to sleepless nights created from quite a different route, a baby!
Such a detailed book with chapters taking on perhaps a more scientific approach when looking at each stage. Reflections from a group of Dad’s, met at the start of the book and featuring throughout, alongside checklists for each pregnancy and after birth stage as well as how to understand your partner. Written in this way, with real life experience rather than “expert guidance”, I find gives a very real approach to information as well as a human element that is often overlooked in favour of simply providing details.
Week, by week, month, by month and with so much information written in a very understandable way, it’s hard to imagine any new dad, first timer or otherwise, not finding this super helpful. A frank conversation in a book covering things that my partner certainly has never given much thought to, not because he doesn’t care, but because he doesn’t know and wouldn’t look for it. Things like the miracle of conception and how and when is the right time to try for a baby. I’m sure my husband still doesn’t really understand how ovulation works but this book explains it in a way that I think he’d have appreciated. It also deals with male feelings from the apprehension and worries to the elation a new baby brings to a family.
I think for men especially, talking about wanting babies and their feelings is often hard. We have been wrongly programmed to believe men shouldn’t think about their own feelings but we know now, more than ever, that this is something we have to change the way of thinking of and this book definitely allows for a more easy understanding of male emotions when it comes to preparing starting a family. Has that ever been done before? I’m not sure that it has actually and with this book, devoid of the glossy pictures in my own reading matter but certainly no poorer for it, I think we have found a real gem. Men of all ages and stages in life can benefit from the wisdom and advice gifted here by fathers from all walks of life, all living different existences but all with one thing in common, they’re about to have a baby and life will change beyond how they know it or, as we all find when we have a baby, than we knew was possible.
I think for men especially this kind of informative language in a book is very important and something dad’s can really use to help them through a massive life change. It’s always been so female orientated but actually, we live in a day and age where equality is key and that shouldn’t work only one way. Thinking about and catering to expectant fathers is just as important as for the mothers and this book is a triumph for that.
Masculinity still takes up a great deal of what a lot of men see as acceptable and i don’t think the matter interferes with that whereas potentially it could be seen to be a bit too feminine if written for mothers eyes with a dad just getting a look in. This book is for his eyes and may just help them experience the best of conception, pregnancy, birth and beyond as well as perhaps, helping them not say things in labour like “How much longer will this go on for, I don’t think I can take much more!” which let me tell you from experience as a woman in labour, is not particularly helpful. My family laughs a lot at the fact my husband asked the midwife this when in the throws of labouring but actually, it was a question born from being scared and this book will 100% help to alleviate that for him. I read it almost cover to cover during a very busy weekend because it’s written so interestingly and with humour and fun as well as being a little like an appliance manual (just what my husband would order).
Perfection for all wanting to be and expectant fathers as well as those having gone through the pregnancy already and embarking upon the toughest role of their lives now that their baby is here. I found camaraderie in the contributions, which came from over 50 new dads and dads to be in the UK, US and Australia (and more) and the fact that currently climes were taken into consideration with COVID-19 was a real plus.
Buy this book for new dads and dads to be in your life, you and they will thank you for it!
The book “You’re Going To Be A Dad” has just been published and is ready for purchases available FREE on Kindle or priced at £11.99 on Amazon here.
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