Reddit reviews The New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First Year (Third Edition) (New Father Series (2))

Here are two, one for pregnancy and one for the first year.

https://www.amazon.com/Expectant-Father-Ultimate-Dads-Be/dp/0789212137/

https://www.amazon.com/New-Father-Dads-Guide-First/dp/0789211777

If it helps at all, I bought my husband this after he read the same guys first book about pregnancy itself. It's a fun easy read and I read chunks of it too. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789211777?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

I am due a month before you and haven't started doing this yet, but maybe soon think about stocking up on things you need around the house on a day to day basis so you don't have to run out as much when the baby arrives. Things like toilet paper, detergent, bulk snacks, freezer food, etc.

You're welcome! I cannot recommend therapy enough. I never thought I needed therapy because it was ingrained in me from early age that "we know it all and therapists are a waste of time and money." My decision to seek therapy has lead me to entirely new world view that I never thought was possible. It's what allowed me to write my response to your post. If I had tried to respond to your post a year ago, I would have written something vastly different.

Last night I was thinking about what I wrote and had another thought I wanted to share. All of the advice I gave you won't really come into play until your baby is a toddler and starts pushing the boundaries, trying to find his/her independence. The first year of parenting is really learning how take care of a helpless infant and watching them grow and change. You won't need to apply any parenting techniques until your baby is walking/talking. So if you want to try therapy (which I think you should), you have time. I wouldn't suggest you do it right after baby is born but maybe a year from now.

For me, therapy taught me how to detach from my parents and my emotions so that I can use my logical brain to process information and respond. I used to be so quick to anger over little things but I've come to realize that was an emotional response, which I learned from my Ndad. Up until therapy, every decision I've ever made in my life was driven primarily by emotion and a little logic. Now I've flipped that on it's head - every decision I made is made primarily by logic and very little, if any emotion. This has allowed me to work on my social skills, which are completely lacking because like you, my Ndad used to yell, scream, and sometimes physically assault me if I crossed him for something he felt I did wrong (which most of the time was just me being a normal kid). I learned from him that when things don't go my way, I need to respond with such ferocity that no one would ever dare to do me any wrong. My therapist calls this the "easy way" parenting style. It's easy to beat your kid when they do something you don't approve of. It's much harder to get down to their level and explain why what they did was wrong and teach them the correct way to do it. My Ndad never did that for me. Your Nmom never did that for you. But I won't allow that to be done to my children, and now, neither will you :)

Becoming a parent is scary and hard for anyone. But for people like you and I, becoming a parent brings up a whole world of emotion and pain because of what we've lived through. If you don't want to be the mom you had, start by learning to heal yourself. However that looks for you, either through therapy, or reading books on narcissism, or just reading through this subreddit. If you start there you will change the course of your life and the life of your soon to be born baby. And the rest of parenting? We're all really winging it anyway. Kids change so much over their lives that you never really know what you're doing until you're in the situation and you're figuring it out on the fly. Fix yourself and you'll do great.

One last thing. I suggest you buy this book for your husband. Don't tell him you're buying it because he probably won't want you to. Just get it for him. That's what my wife did for me and it was the absolute best thing she could have done. I learned so much about becoming a dad from this book. I recommend it for all new dads. Good luck!

I loved having the audiobook version of this. Narration was great and you still get a PDF w/ the Audible version that has various lists (what to pack in your hospital bag, for example) that you can print out.

My baby girl is due anytime this month, and I wish that his follow-up books had audio versions too.