Dad's Perspective On Postpartum Care
Interview with Dylan
When I announced my first pregnancy, I was hit with a barrage of advice (not all helpful), whilst my husband Dylan didn’t get any tips at all.
So I asked Dylan to share what he has learned as a father of three children and what he wished someone had told him right back at the beginning of his journey to parenthood. I asked him the question we often discuss as women, like what has he learned about fatherhood and what does he wish he'd known before becoming a father himself?
Dylan talks about the three things families can do to smooth the transition from couple to family; buying services instead of things, focusing on the birth AND the time afterwards, and sharing the physical and emotional load.
Listen Now
We explore the following questions:
Did you, as a man, receive any advice or suggestions during pregnancy, birth, and baby care similar to what women often experience?
What are the key lessons you've learned about postpartum care over the years with your three children?
Why do you recommend prioritizing services over buying things for new parents?
How has paying for help around the house impacted your family, especially during the postpartum period?
How important is it to have a discussion with your partner about returning to work and work-life balance after having a baby?
What are your tips for sharing the emotional and physical load of parenting with your partner?
How can investing in services and sharing responsibilities benefit the entire family and improve relationships?
What advice would you give to other fathers about preparing for the postpartum period and supporting their partners?
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello and welcome to Newborn Mother's Podcast. Today I have one of my very favourite guests of all time. It is my husband, Dylan Smith.
Dylan Smith:
Thank you. Julia. Thank you very much. It's lovely to finally be here.
Julia Jones:
It is nice to have you on the show. We've been trying to do this for a while. So today the topic that I wanted to talk about is some tips from man to man. So we were kind of talking about how when I was pregnant, people used to stop me on the street, friends, family, and random strangers with all sorts of advice and suggestions on all aspects of pregnancy, birth, and baby care. But Dylan as a man, did you have a similar experience?
Dylan Smith:
Not really, no. I don't remember much hassle like you talk about or people have been bailing you up and telling you what to do or what not to do. And I think it's probably common of most guys that the focus is on the birth and the focus is on the baby and the mother perhaps. But no, I don't remember any conversations, any heart to hearts, any sit downs with any of my male friends about what was to come, if anything. I remember one kind of confusing comment, which I wasn't quite sure what it meant at the time, where one friend was talking to another friend and made the comment. It was something like, oh, it's good to get the girls back into work, something like that. So I can't remember whether, or I don't know whether that was a reference to needing more financial contribution into the household or whether it was going to be good for their mental health. It was sort of a throwaway line that confused me at the time and still confuses me now. So note, can't say I was inundated with any kind of advice or encouragement.
Julia Jones:
And so having the discussion that you often read as well, like letters from moms, what I wish I knew before I was pregnant, and here's what I've learned from motherhood. So recently we had friends who had a baby, and this has happened a lot, but particularly for this friend, you did just write down a few ideas for them, a few suggestions of things that you've learned. We've been parents for over eight years now. We have three children, so you did do a little bit of that. Here's what I wish I knew and I thought it would actually be really great to share with everyone. Sure. There's a lot of partners, men, fathers out there who they're just about to have a baby or maybe just had a baby and they're thinking, what did I get myself into and why didn't anyone tell me that it was going to be like this? So we had sort of three areas, didn't we? Three suggestions. And the first one was about getting services and not things and stuff. So do you want to talk about that one, Dylan?
Dylan Smith:
Yeah, sure. So I guess I can see the decisions that we made together change over time over our three kids, but certainly to answer that question, what do I know now that I didn't know right at the beginning? The first one, and the main one really is just around preferencing services. So many people, I was really reluctant. I'd never come from a family that paid for cleaning or clean the car or anything like that. So it was just to sort of do it yourself and roll up your sleeve sort of mentality. So I was really reluctant to do that and probably saw it as a weakness really. But over the experience of the three kids and certainly by the third, then it was just a really, really clear decision to preference help around the house, cooking food, anything that made our life around the home just that bit easier, particularly around the time of the birth and the immediate sort of month afterwards.
Dylan Smith:
But I think that's carried on. So yeah, really clear that the value to the house is huge if you can just relieve some of that stress, some of the direct workload, but also the headspace that sort of often comes with that or is even worse sometimes. So yeah, we paid for a private midwife, which was great because then Julia, you didn't have to drive to go to any appointments. So she came and visited our home. We paid for meals to be delivered. We also got a whole lot of bunch of help from friends and family. So it wasn't like we paid for everything, but we just made sure that the basics were covered. And that was a bit of an insurance policy really. We paid for extra cleaning and because by our third we had a couple of other ones as well running around the house. Then we paid for extra childcare. So again, just got that real bulk of some basics covered off and done and looked after so that we could then have the physical time, but also the mental time with our new baby and with each other.
Julia Jones:
Yes. And coincidentally, we bumped into a couple of friends of ours at a party last week, and they are at a similar point in their parenting years where they've had their three kids, they're not having anymore. And the dad said to us, oh my gosh, what a waste of time and money is a pram. He said, we spend hours, weeks, months researching the best pram. We spent thousands of dollars. And no matter what pram you buy, you're going to end up hating it and you cannot wait to get rid of your pram. So that's just a great example. I think that when you're pregnant, you tend to think that what you need is things and stuff. You buy equipment, and we certainly did that and they did that, and that's just very common in our consumers culture that you buy things, isn't it? But in the end, what really made the biggest difference to us was having more help
Dylan Smith:
And even the larger, bigger efforts like extensions and painting rooms and getting the big furniture and that sort of thing. So we talk about prams and car seats and clothes and all the rest of it, but actually, yeah, there's also the larger items, which often you don't sort of bat an eyelid to do
Julia Jones:
To upgrade your car,
Dylan Smith:
Yeah, upgrade your car, upgrade your house, or even just a room renovation. I mean, there's tens of thousands of dollars of decisions. So I guess over the journey you might still want to do that, people might still want to do that, but within that space, allow for some budgets, some time, some effort, some resources into services just to balance it up or better still just go for as much services as you can. That's been our lesson, hasn't it?
Julia Jones:
Yes, definitely. And we did invest heavily in postpartum, particularly by our third because we did have a little bit more money available with our first and second. We didn't have much money. We relied a lot more on friends and family, but also I think we thought that that would be enough. And I think the more children we had, the more we realised that we just needed more and more help and you could never really have too much help. And with our third postpartum, I've written a blog post about spending $10,000, which may sound like a lot, but when you look at it in the context of a major life event and compare it to weddings where people spend on average $30,000, you realise that actually compared to a wedding, compared to renovating your house, compared to buying a new car, that $10,000 is actually not that large an investment. And some people will spend $3,000 on a pram or a cot without batting an eyelid. But we do seem to have a lot of blocks in our culture around asking for help, and we want to look really independent and in control, and we're coping. And somehow it's saying that if you need a cleaner or you want someone to come and give you a massage or bring you a meal or a postpartum doula, then that can feel sometimes you have to overcome some mindset stuff around that. And that's certainly been our journey, hasn't it?
Dylan Smith:
Yeah, that's right. And what it does is it just provides that buffer really, and even in the best scenario, there's going to be some difficulties or some times when you have to get up late either parent, and it's going to be hard. So definitely at some point it's going to be hard, even in the best case. So not about paying a doomsday and saying it's going to be horrible, then you need to bring in all these services. But regardless of what happens, it's a buffer. It's that sort of insurance policy just to smooth out the rough edges so that I guess when I came home at work at five o'clock, that there was some help in that journey for Julia at home, and so that it wasn't all hell hadn't broken loose at five o'clock and everyone was stressed and under pressure. So regardless of what happens, regardless of the birth outcomes and everything, then it's just that real safety net that your family can have in that time, which is really special. So it was worth every cent from my point of view.
Julia Jones:
Yes. And I think just to, of course, we did have help from family and friends as well a lot, but we did also find that putting some money aside for paying for help was really useful to have people who weren't emotionally involved in the situation. Because a lot of the time, there's a lot of baggage that comes along sometimes with having certain family members helping with certain things. And also if you have had any sort of difficulties, if the birth didn't quite go to plan or if the baby's born early, any other emotional stuff that's going along that then the people who are close to you in your life will be feeling that emotion too. So it can really help to have someone just come in from outside who's cool, calm and collected, not bringing their own baggage, not affected by the same emotional journey as you are on to just be able to really reset everyone and bring everyone back to a more calm, grounded, even keel. So yeah, I think there are a lot of benefits in paying for help, and we certainly did more and more of that with every baby, didn't there? I don't think we spent anything on help the first time we thought that family was enough, and it was great. It was certainly awesome, but I definitely think the more helped the merrier.
Dylan Smith:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Julia Jones:
And so the second tip you had was really about the transition, not just but unfolding over the first year or two after the baby's born, and specifically in our case that was related to returning to work. So can you talk about that a little bit too?
Dylan Smith:
Yeah, I guess this speaks to the idea that again, there's this big focus on the birth and on that immediate time afterwards, and as a partner, I had a certain time off and there wasn't really much thought about what the next 12 months would look like or 24 months. So again, over three kids I've sort of come to understand that and with your influence, Julia, through your work, that there's a lot of things happening over that first 12 months. And one thing to be aware of, and this is what I said to my friend in terms of this email that I sent through the second point was that just be aware that it's good to have a dialogue with your partner and check in with them around when they might like to return to work, whatever that might be. And just be aware that for us as the guys or the partner, it's very easy just to get through that initial birth stage and then go back to work.
Dylan Smith:
And then sure, things change, but there's no real life changes, there's no real career change that needs to be made because of the baby maybe going to work a little bit less or coming home a bit earlier, et cetera. But it doesn't really affect your career trajectory in many ways, but it has a huge impact on the moms, and that's probably something that I just wasn't aware of to be honest. I thought we're entering this baby stage, this family stage that Julia, that you'd be happy to and be really thriving in this. And just, this wasn't even really a conscious idea, but I just perhaps thought that that's it, Julia just want to be with the kids. And it wasn't something that I ever talked to you about Julia or that we talked about together. So it came as a shock at nine months after our first baby when you turned around Julia and just said, I need to get back to work more. I didn't get back to work at full stop, so just one day a week would be great. So I wasn't predicting that, I didn't think of about that. And then that was something that we tried to have a conversation about afterwards and certainly by the third then it was something that we were really tuned into to know just when it was right for you to go back to work.
Dylan Smith:
That sound about right, Julie? Is that how you sort of remembered it, that the first few times that it was more of a confronting discussion because it meant that I would have to change my work patterns to accommodate your extra work, but then by the third we sort of understood that and we're just onto that discussion?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I think so. I think for us, and probably a lot of people of our generation, both of our mothers stayed home for many years after having children. And so I think you particularly had this kind of vision of me just being a happy rosy cheeked wifey at home, and that's what I would love doing. And I didn't particularly think about it to be honest. I, I didn't really think about it at all what I would like or what I wouldn't like, but it was only after I became a mother that I realised how important my career was to me and how much I love my work and it gives meaning to my life and it makes me a better person and therefore a better mom. And I was a little slow on the uptake the first time because we didn't really have an ongoing open conversation.
Julia Jones:
So I guess if anyone's listening at home, whether you are still pregnant or your baby's a few months old or years down the track, but it's really a good idea to check in and say, what were your expectations and what is it really like? Because it's often not how you think it's going to be. So you might be the opposite for people listening, you might feel like, I'm going to want to get straight back to work. And then you have that baby and you go, oh my gosh, this is the most amazing time. I don't want to miss a moment. And that wasn't my experience. But the point is you never really know until you're in that. So I think having that conversation open and being open to that because I agree, Dylan, when I did say to you it, I'm done. I need to work, you were quite shocked for me in order for me to work.
Julia Jones:
You actually went from working to working four days a week, which was a really awesome decision I think for our family. You became a much more engaged father and picked up a much bigger load of the domestic work, which we're actually going to talk about later on as well. And I felt really much more satisfied with my career. I felt like things were much more equal and we were really working in a partnership, which was really important to me. And definitely the first time that was a bit of a shock. And the second and third time I've returned to work sooner and sooner because I've known that that's what works for me and for our family. But the first time around you don't know that and it is a slow transition and you have to keep checking in with each other, I think.
Dylan Smith:
Yeah, I think that's it. And I remember back to that time and I was on about three or four different committees. I'm very social and to be part of things and part of community effort. And you were playing
Julia Jones:
Football as well, I think playing
Dylan Smith:
Football, which it just all like a normal lifestyle when there's the two of you. And it's not like you have to give up everything, but it just took me a few years delayed reaction to realise actually the lifestyle I've got is not sustainable because I'm either got a lifestyle of a bachelor or a lifestyle of a retiree where I've got many meetings, two or three meetings a week on in after hours because it's all voluntary and it's all good stuff, but it just meant that I wasn't as home as much as I perhaps could have been ideally for that balance. So again, everyone's different, all circumstances are different, but for me it was about having a broader view of what it's going to look like over 12 months, not just over the first month. And that was a key discussion for us to learn to have the idea of the work-life balance for both people.
Julia Jones:
Which leads us very nicely into your third tip, which was about sharing the emotional and physical load. And this has definitely been a big part of our journey, and I'm sure that a lot of you listening at home have been reading, hearing, talking about the mother load. So tell me, Dylan, that felt for you.
Dylan Smith:
My mother load, no, it, it's probably come in more discussion lately to be honest, but sort of seven or eight years ago, it wasn't perhaps that apparent in discussions, but I guess this is just about having that shared emotional, shared emotional and physical load and that this is probably the hardest to talk about to another guy because it feels quite effeminate to be talking about taking on emotional loads and sharing the efforts 50 50 and things like that. But I guess a couple of times I've taken on my feminist role and talked to other guys about this and I think it's something that you need to keep on top of because even with great intentions as I do and we do, it can easily slip. So the classic one for us is cooking, Julia, you love cooking. And so weeks can go by really without me contributing much to cooking. But what happens then is you need to know what's in the house to be able to cook. So that's an example of how whole patches of home life get taken over usually by the mother, by the woman who's at home, right, more because they've had the baby. So it's easy to slip into this habit even with good intentions of things just moving towards the woman or the stay at home partner to take care of household stuff, just cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, et cetera. So even
Julia Jones:
Though I would, yes, and whilst I love cooking, I don't particularly love shopping. So that's been quite good. We've kind of found some balance there because although I love cooking and I still do most of the cooking, we have probably handed a lot of the shopping back over to you now to make sure that there's a little bit more balance there.
Dylan Smith:
And then there's things like what we've done lately is just for me to pick up on anything medical where I can. But so I'm the go-to for any medical appointments for the kids, which just racks up by the time you've got three kids and you've got immunisation shots and doctor's appointments and specialists and all the rest of it. Again, it's very easy just to say, well, Julia's working from home so it's easy for you to do it. But I found it important. We've found it important to really be conscientious about that and truly try and work towards that 50 50 in the house, but also those other efforts, booking holidays, you're still the go-to for booking holidays?
Julia Jones:
Oh, I love holidays. I get excited about holidays and probably because it kind of depends a bit on my income, what kind of holiday we can have.
Dylan Smith:
And I think, look, holidays is not such a bad one. But I guess all jokes aside, what I see with us and with others is that when there is that imbalance, then it's very easy for resentment to kick in and troubles to happen because it's not really about that one thing that you blow up about. It's just the fact that for all week you've been working out what needs to be cooked and how to buy the food and what medical appointments they need to be kids need to get to and whose birthday party they're going to and what present they need and all of that, which is that classic emotional load, it adds up. And so it's a real danger for couples for it to lead to resentment and for fighting.
Julia Jones:
Yes, and I think you made a really good point early on when you were saying that it doesn't seem like a big thing early on. So eight years ago when our first daughter was born, we probably wouldn't have even really noticed these tiny cracks starting to appear because it's a little bit like a fork in the road and at first that gap is only very narrow. So of course, because I was the one who was breastfeeding and I had to go to my own six week checkup, then I would take my baby to see the lactation consultant to get her vaccinations done to see the child health nurse. So all of those appointments, but then once you realise you've had three kids in eight years later and you're still doing all of that stuff, and I'm like, hang on, there's no need for me to be the one who does all of this.
Julia Jones:
And that gap just gets bigger and bigger and bigger unless you really actively discuss as a couple. And this has definitely been probably one of our biggest sources of arguments over the years of being a family and it hasn't always been easy to approach it. And I've talked to many women who say, no, I can't talk about that with my husband. I don't want to end up with a divorce. And I think that's really incredibly sad. So I think really a huge contributor to how happily married we are and we've been married for 10 years now, is because we have had these hard conversations all through to make sure that we are both getting what we need out of life and that we're both contributing equally to our family. So that's been really important to us. I think
Dylan Smith:
It has, and probably in terms of those three areas, so preference for services over items and return to work or life balance. And then the third one, which is we've just talked about sharing the load, it's probably, it's the hardest to get right or the hardest to keep tweaking because I like doing physical exercise. So it's about squeezing that in where I can but not doing too much, not doing too little. So it's just, again, it's that ongoing conversation that changes every time you have a child or every time that there's a change in your circumstances. So that's probably the trickiest out of all three and the one that takes the most sort of juggling. But yeah, it's really about having a bit of a helicopter view and seeing what are the needs of everyone and what are my needs, everyone else's needs, and how do we make that happen?
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. So tell me Dylan, if men are sitting at home thinking, oh my God, why would I bother taking on the emotional load? That just sounds like way too hard work, but what is the return on investment? Because this isn't really just for mothers, the benefits I feel for the whole family. So in terms of investing time and money and getting help and making sure that you share the emotional load that women can return to work overall and over time, what does that actually mean for you and for our kids and for everyone,
Dylan Smith:
I think it is a special time. So you mentioned earlier Julie, about a wedding and what sort of financial outlay most people put in for that. So if you look at it at that point of view, but just look at it as a significant life event, then it's a special time. So you want to be able to enjoy that and not in some rosy coloured glasses way, but just have an understanding that this is a special time that you want to do whatever you can to make the most of it and to enjoy that time. And certainly without third, we knew more or less, obviously mistakes can happen, but we knew that this was going to be our last child, but that was the plan. So for me that was a real thought of, alright, let's try and do this as well as we can enjoy it as a whole family and relieve some of the pressures.
Dylan Smith:
And some of the pressures are physical, cleaning the house, cooking, childcare, they're just physical pressures that are there. So an investment in those areas is just about creating a really as better environment as you can for your family. So it's an investment for the family and therefore it's investment in the marriage for our relationship. Also, it's an investment for your working lives because by the third, with all that help and support from family and friends as well, I felt much more comfortable going and doing a day's work and coming back and walking through the door. It wasn't, wasn't hell of broken loose, there was stress everywhere and anxiety and sort of a disrupted house. There was a buffering that I talked about or it's that little insurance policy that just smooths it all out. So I felt better to go back to work. And probably Julia, you did too, given that we'd looked after ourselves in that environment as best we could in that time.
Dylan Smith:
And then when you felt like it, you could step back into work. And I guess within that as well, the time we had when Clancy came along, there was a couple of other kids running around that we'd had previously. So they need looking after two. And we know that's an important time when siblings come along that the other kids need to get a bit of love and bit of attention and a bit of focus on them as well. So again, it's just about relieving the situation of some real pressure points and instead focusing that energy and effort towards the things that really matter.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, that's right. And I think just simple things like having someone to drop over dinner means that if you've been at work all day and I've been feeding a baby all day and there's two toddlers running around, but then you could get home and sit down and read the toddlers a book and look after the older kids and really give the baby a cuddle if I need to have a shower. All of these different things meant that the investment in what seems like something trivial cleaning actually has huge emotional impact and definitely helped out all of our relationships and our mental health too. And I would say as well, I think you mentioned it earlier, but it definitely helped me to return to work feeling calm and confident because I knew that when I stopped working and I had time with the kids, I could really spend that time with my kids because I wasn't like, hold on a second, I'm just doing 10 billion years of laundry so I can never hang out with you. Because I knew that when I was working, then someone else was going to be helping with some of that other stuff, and it meant when I wasn't working, I could really devote that time to my children. So I didn't have some of that working mom guilt that I think a lot of other people experienced. So yes, we're a huge fan in investing in services and getting a lot of help and sharing that emotional load. And it's definitely been hugely beneficial for our family.
Dylan Smith:
And part of my mindset, I guess, is it's a pretty traditional male mindset of wanting to best and wanting to look after everyone. And it's nothing different than that or it's very typical, but the way that we found to go about that was to bring in some extra help and not be afraid to do that. And it sounds like we've got all these hoards of people coming into the house, but whatever you can to allocate to that area is what I'd encourage people to consider. So about thinking. Yeah, it's not about having a huge big effort, it's just about starting somewhere and having some of those physical tasks looked after.
Julia Jones:
Yes. And I was just going to say, you can start anywhere because as I said, with our first, we only had help from family and with our second we had friends as well as family. And I think we started getting a cleaner maybe once a fortnight around that time. And by our third, we'd really learned our lesson and we had a lot more different kinds of help as well, which, and I guess that's what we'd say to ourselves, isn't it? If we could go back in time, travel back to nine years ago when I was pregnant with our first, that's probably the message we would give ourselves is you can just never have too much help.
Dylan Smith:
Yeah. And it's sort of flipping that idea of this is the best time in your life, this is a special time, et cetera. And then actually it's really hard at times. So it is just about flipping that a little bit and saying, yes, it is meant to be, or it is going to be a wonderful time and therefore let's do what we can to make that happen,
Julia Jones:
To make it a wonderful time. That's right, to smooth that transition, to support that journey. So have you got anything else to add, Dylan? Or does that about cover it?
Dylan Smith:
I think that covers it for me. No, just on reflection. Again, it's just something that it's not talked about. I certainly didn't have any of these sorts of conversations beforehand. So where appropriate, I try and just squeeze it into an email or a conversation or where I feel like it's going to be received well with guys I know. So at the very least, just be aware of these areas. Our decisions and the content of what we've talked about may not be relevant, but just be aware of these areas just to have a thought that, yeah, important time for birth, important time for the first month or few weeks when you've both got time off work and things like that. But the real work happens over the first 12 months, first 24 months when you settle in as a family.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I love it. Saying it as a much a longer postpartum journey to being a family, and if any men are listening at home and have any other suggestions, particularly experienced fathers, what would you go back and tell yourself? We'd love to hear from you too, so leave us a comment. Thank you so much for coming on the show,
Dylan Smith:
Thanks, Julia. Thanks for having me.
Julia Jones:
My pleasure. And we'll catch you all on the podcast next week. Bye.
Dylan Smith:
See you
