Fatherhood for Beginners: Family & partnership, #1

By Darren Hartmann

How to quickly become an expert on all aspects of having a baby

 

Do you want to learn all there is to know about family planning, pregnancy, childbirth, and babies? Are you wondering how to balance family and work in your new role as a father, regardless of whether you have a permanent job or a freelance career? And you'd like to successfully keep your relationship intact and maintain a fulfilling sex life?

 

Or perhaps you're looking for a great gift?

 

Fatherhood for Beginners covers:

• how to overcome your fears of becoming a father
• how to deal with changes in your sex life during and after pregnancy
• how to tell that your partner is pregnant
• important dos and don'ts during pregnancy
• how your relationship will change and what you need to keep in mind
• how to stay fit with our "baby workout"
• different options for childbirth
• how to baby-proof your home
• how to build an intimate relationship with your baby
• how to announce the arrival of our baby to the world
• how to deal with parenting disagreements
• navigating legal and insurance matters pertaining to your baby
• ...

 

Are you looking for answers to these questions and many others? Then Fatherhood for Beginners is the right book for you! You will learn everything you need to know about family planning, pregnancy, childbirth, and babies. It is the perfect introduction to the topic of fatherhood and serves as a guide for parenting your child through the first year of life. It is also a great reference book to keep around.

 

You'd also like...

• a book that provides the most important facts about becoming a father without any fluff?
• a book with plenty of information, tips, and checklists?
• a book with more than 25,000 words?

 

Then your search is over! Click the "BUY NOW" button!

 

and

 

Start your happy future now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronny Quaas
• Release date: Jun 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393460565

Darren Hartmann

Darren Hartmann is a 34-year-old journalist born and raised in Seattle, Washington. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and baking, and he is also working on restoring his father’s old Mercedes. Darren grew up in a middle-class household and was only seven years old when his mother passed away. To this day, he has a very close relationship with his father. Darren lives in the beautiful Emerald City with his wife Claudia and their son Eric, who was born in January 2018.

Book preview

Preface

My name is Darren Hartmann. I live in beautiful Seattle, Washington with my wife Claudia and my son Eric. I studied journalism and have worked for an online news portal for several years.

Many questions came up before and after the birth of our son, creating the opportunity for an exciting research topic. I read several books about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting and spent hours combing the Web for information. This book is ultimately the result of my interest in the subject.

I owe sincere thanks to my wife, Claudia, for her input as well as hours of detailed discussion. I have incorporated many of her perspectives into this book. I would also like to thank my editor, Evan James Wilson.

Fatherhood for Beginners is meant for expecting fathers and makes for a great gift. It addresses the topic of becoming a father head-on without all the fluff. It is also a bomb – a bomb of information I have planted to familiarize expecting fathers with the topics of family planning, pregnancy, childbirth, and babies. I made sure to keep things concise and have included many helpful checklists, infoboxes, and insightful tips.

I look forward to your feedback!

Seattle, Washington, November 24, 2019

Introduction

The Moroccan Sultan Mulai Ismail is said to have fathered 888 children over 30 years together with 4 wives and 500 concubines. You’re probably not that ambitious, and neither am I. But as the Hawaiian saying goes: A journey begins with the first step in the right direction. You are likely reading this book because the journey of becoming a father has recently become relevant to you.

The word father stems from the oldest part of our vernacular, just like other terms used to signify family relationships. The word papa occurs in 71% of world languages, and it will likely be one of your child’s first words. My Erik’s first word happened to be mama, and the joy of experiencing that moment still makes me smile, especially when life becomes stressful.

This book covers not only everything I found to be important in terms of family planning, pregnancy, birth, and little Erik’s first year but also my experience working from home and balancing my job with my marriage and sex life with a new baby in the picture.

Why should a man become a father in the first place? Looking back now, answering this question for myself is easy. I can briefly summarize in five points:

You get to be a kid again. You will play and wrestle, try out the coolest new toys, and go sledding with your child, for example.

You are a hero. My little one must have asked me 1,000 questions by now, and he (still) fully trusts every answer.

You will experience life from a new perspective. As adults, we take many things for granted. Children, however, are discovering their world for the first time and without a filter – parents are just along for the ride.

You are needed. And not just by your boss, but by your flesh and blood – a truly extraordinary feeling!

You will evolve. As a father, you will change as a person. But don’t panic! The increase in responsibility, new emotions, and your sense of purpose will result in growth and greater maturity, and a new and better version of yourself will emerge!

Learning about becoming a father is the start of your journey! I hope you enjoy the book!

Family Planning

Within the child lies

the fate of the future.

Maria Montessori

You probably bought this book because you and your partner have decided to conceive a child – a decision that can inspire many questions and trigger conflicting emotions. With this guide, I seek to help you and your partner – and especially you – answer all your questions as well as provide valuable information that explains and eases the entire process leading up to birth.

If your baby has already arrived, I still have plenty of tips and tricks to offer you as well. We will start, however, at the very beginning with your desire to have children.

The scientific perspective

Perhaps you already know from personal experience: Once a couple decides to have a baby, their love life tends to change drastically. Passion takes the back seat, and the woman’s cycle and determining the perfect moment of ovulation become the focus. The couple tries every trick in the book to somehow speed up the process, and life starts to revolve around conception. But does this accomplish anything, or is it better to take things slow and steady?

Science tells us that the right basis for determining the ideal time to procreate should not be the calendar, but you, the man. I know, I know. It sounds too good to be true, right? But if science is correct, it’s you who should take the reins and set the pace. And there is a simple explanation: Nature has endowed you with instincts that allow you to recognize unconsciously when your partner is ovulating. When the time is right and she is fertile, you will instinctively desire to copulate.

Proof can be found in the animal world. Male gorillas, for example, are anatomically very similar to humans, and they don’t follow a week-by-week calendar that tracks their mate’s cycle. No, the male instinctively knows the best time to create offspring and naturally desires to mate. The same goes for homo sapiens.

As far as the man’s instinct for conquest is concerned, we can also learn something from our animal friends. Even our distant past as a species confirms that of the two sexes, the man is the hunter. He desires not only to conquer his woman but also to take care of her. Only in this way can he achieve satisfaction with himself, which is essential biologically when it comes to procreating a child. The conquest increases the man’s testosterone level, which in turn contributes to generating healthy sperm. This is why it’s known to be particularly hard to conceive if the man has not yet successfully achieved the conquest. In the same sense, if your partner assumes the role that nature has intended for you, the man, you may start to feel emasculated. Even if you don’t necessarily perceive it at first, the effect may still be a reduced level of healthy sperm. But this doesn’t have to happen. Communicate with your partner and make it clear that allowing you to set the tone will help you conceive together!

Differences between you and your partner

Statistics show that a man’s interest in having children depends on certain factors. For starters, his partner primarily drives this desire. If she’s not ready for pregnancy, he probably isn’t either. His childhood experiences, professional success, and age also play a role.

For a woman, the desire to have children usually arises because of other aspects. Work and career are important factors to her as well, of course, and nowadays, she may also calculate whether having a baby is practical from a purely financial perspective. But such deliberations usually come up for a woman after she is already feeling the desire to become a mother – a longing that likely stems from wanting a higher purpose to her life, to share her experiences and knowledge, and to develop personally as well as in her