Preparing to Become a Dad

Preparation is mostly information, not equipment

The retail version of getting ready for a baby is a list of objects. The useful version is a list of things you understand. Tommy's structures its partner information around exactly that progression: finding out about the pregnancy, appointments and scans, getting ready for the birth, and caring for a newborn — with money and work treated as a separate task to be handled in advance.

ACOG's guide for partners sets out the shape of the nine months so you know what is coming: a first trimester where she may need more rest and nausea is common, a second where energy usually improves and movements begin around 20 weeks, and a third that is "usually the most uncomfortable" and also the busiest.

Learn what happens in labour

The single best preparation for the birth is knowing roughly what the next twelve hours can contain, so that a change of plan does not read to you as a disaster. The NHS advice for birth partners is to read about what happens in labour and to attend antenatal classes, where you will cover the signs of labour, contractions, pain relief options and what happens afterwards.

Its practical checklist is worth doing rather than reading: know the route to the hospital or birth centre and how long it takes, know where to park and how to pay, keep your phone charged and on in the final weeks, and pack your own bag with snacks, a charger and a change of clothes. Familiarise yourself with the birth plan even if you did not write it, and expect it to change. We cover what the role actually involves during labour in a separate guide.

Sort the money and the leave during pregnancy

Leave entitlements, notice periods and pay differ by country and are covered in our country guides rather than here, but the timing advice is universal: do it now. Most schemes have notification deadlines that fall well before the due date, some allow leave to be shared or transferred, and all of them involve paperwork that is miserable to complete while sleep-deprived.

The wider budgeting question is worth a serious evening. Household income usually falls at exactly the point that costs rise, and financial worry is a named risk factor for paternal depression. Knowing the number in advance is less frightening than discovering it in month two.

The three safety things to get right

Some preparation is not optional. Get the car seat and know how to fit it before the due date, not in a hospital car park; rear-facing, correctly installed, and never in a front seat with an active airbag.

Learn the safer sleep rules from the Lullaby Trust and learn them properly, because you will be the one putting the baby down at some point: on the back, for every sleep, in a clear flat separate sleep space, in the same room as an adult for the first six months, with no pillows, duvets or cot bumpers, and never asleep together on a sofa or armchair.

Third, book yourself onto a baby first aid course, or at minimum learn what to do for a choking infant and how to recognise a seriously unwell baby. It is a couple of hours and it removes a specific fear.

Learn the handling before you need it

Confidence with a newborn comes from repetition, and there is no reason the first repetition has to be your own child. DadPad, developed with NHS partners specifically to give new dads and dads-to-be the practical knowledge and skills for the early weeks, exists because this gap is well recognised. Antenatal classes usually include nappies, winding and bathing. Handling someone else's baby beforehand, if you get the chance, is worth more than any amount of reading.

Line up one honest conversation

The thing most first-time fathers fail to arrange is a person. Once the baby arrives, the entire social apparatus points at your partner, and partners routinely go months without anyone asking how they are. Identify now the friend, sibling or colleague you can tell the truth to, and tell them in advance that you are going to need them in about four months rather than four days.

It is also worth agreeing with your partner, before the birth, what you will do if either of you is struggling. Naming the two-week threshold for persistent low mood while you are both calm makes it far easier to act on later.

Go to the appointments

Antenatal appointments are the part of preparation most partners skip and most later regret skipping. Attending is how you learn the vocabulary, meet the people who will be in the room, and find out what is actually being monitored and why. It also means that when something is flagged at 28 weeks, you are not hearing a summary of a summary in a kitchen that evening.

Tommy's has separate partner-facing information on appointments, scans and tests for precisely this reason. If work makes every appointment impossible, pick the ones that carry decisions: the booking appointment, the 12-week and 20-week scans, and any appointment where results are being discussed. Ask your employer about time off for antenatal appointments, since in several countries partners have some entitlement to it.

What genuinely does not matter

Whether the nursery is finished. Whether you have the right pram. Whether you feel an overwhelming connection to the bump — many partners do not, and it predicts nothing. Whether you cry at the birth or do not. The things that actually determine how the first year goes are dull: sleep arrangements, money, division of labour, and whether either of you can say out loud when you are not coping.