Paternity Leave Essentials: 12 things dads can do to support their families

Congratulations, you’re officially a dad! Now what? 

Paternity leave is a precious time for you to bond with your new bundle of joy while supporting your partner in the challenging postpartum period. However, rather than waiting for tasks to be assigned by your partner, proactive involvement is key.

By taking on a proactive role, you can strengthen your bond with your baby, ease your partner’s workload, and create a nurturing and harmonious environment in your home during this important time of adjustment.

Remember, your involvement as a father is invaluable, and these efforts will be greatly appreciated by your family! Here are some practical ideas.

Things dads can do during paternity leave

1. Milk Management

One of the major matters of concern right now is… MILK. This is a top priority for Mummy because it’s an absolute necessity and a considerable part of baby’s life. All babies do during their early days is basically eat (or rather, drink milk), sleep, pee, poop, and repeat, so finding a way to help with any or all of these bodily functions will really help both mum and bubs — a lot. 

How you help depends on how your baby is fed.

If your partner is breastfeeding:

• Learn how to help with burping and holding the baby during feeding sessions
• Help to set up a comfortable nursing area for mum and keep it clean

If you’re using pumped breast milk or formula:

• Help with washing and sterilising dirty bottles
• Learn the proper practices for warming up and preparing milk bottles
• Learn how to do hands-on feeding for your baby

If your partner is pumping:

• Help with labelling and organisation of breast milk storage bags in the freezer
• Help to sterilise and clean pump parts
• Keep the pumping/nursing area stocked with water, snacks, and wet wipes

2. Diaper Duty

Diaper duty isn’t just a task; it’s an excellent opportunity to bond with your baby. It is also a shared responsibility that you should embrace enthusiastically — not just the woman’s job. Changing diapers, while seemingly mundane, also fosters a strong connection between you and your little one, so don’t shy away from learning the ropes of diapering and baby hygiene. While it’s natural to maybe feel grossed out by the poopy affair, sharing this task with your partner will garner much gratitude from her!

It’s also a good idea to take charge of the logistics of the diapering area by keeping it well-stocked with new diapers, wet wipes (a must), and baby clothes. Keep the area clean and pleasant by clearing out the diaper bin and laundry basket frequently.

3. Night Support

Night time can be particularly challenging for new parents, as you discover that your beautiful baby has little to no regard for curfews or ‘lights out’. Offer to share night-time responsibilities with your partner by taking turns to soothe the baby back to sleep, changing diapers, or assisting with feedings. Good teamwork will ease the burden on your partner and create a strong parenting partnership between you two for years to come. Bonus: a well-rested mum will be very appreciative of your night support.

Pro tip: It’s never too early to start discussing a night duty roster, even if your child hasn’t been born yet. Work out something for you and your partner — will you alternate nights? Or take on 4-hour shifts so the other can get some much-needed REM sleep? Or share each shift equally? Work out a schedule now while you’re both still clear-headed and not yet half-crazed and short-tempered from sleep deprivation.

4. Cooking and Meal Preparation

You don’t have to be Gordon Ramsay to ace this one. If you have culinary talents, great! Cooking nutritious meals for your family is an excellent way to contribute during paternity leave. If you’re not a chef though, helping to do meal prep (whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner) can still be a big help.

Plan and prepare meals that are easy to assemble or reheat, ensuring that both you and your partner have nourishing food without the stress of having to cook from scratch, e.g. sandwiches, pastas with healthier ready-made sauces, soups, etc. If all that fails, even being the one to take care of catering or ordering meals would be a great help for your partner, because it would help take that one extra thing off her plate.

5. Checking Household Inventories  

Dads, this is one of the best times to put those logistics and management skills you learned in the army to good use. Take charge of checking and restocking essential household supplies. This includes groceries, baby essentials like diapers and wipes, as well as toiletries and cleaning products. Keeping your home well-stocked helps ease the burden on your partner. Don’t wait until something runs out to restock it — especially baby essentials like diapers and wet wipes. You don’t want a crying baby and frustrated wife to be waiting at home while you run out to grab these things. Taking this proactive approach will ensure that your home runs smoothly, there will be fewer ‘emergencies’ and less logistical anxiety, and your partner has one less thing to worry about.

6. Running Errands 

This includes grocery runs and other miscellaneous errands such as picking up prescriptions and getting necessary medical supplies, dropping off mail, paying the bills, or attending doctor’s appointments with your partner and baby. Taking on the responsibility of running such errands will help free up her time and energy so she can focus more on caring for the baby.

This can also extend to managing helpers, whether they’re full-time or part-time. Managing a helper is another “invisible” task that’s often delegated to women. Step up and be the one to show the helper which areas of the house to clean, which tools to use, etc.

7. Laundry Assistance 

Your household laundry load inevitably increases with a newborn, since they spit up, pee and poop, and need costume changes ever so often. They also need special baby-safe and skin-friendly detergents which may mean doing a separate load for baby’s laundry and your regular adult laundry.

Volunteering to help with baby’s laundry, as well as household laundry, will again be super helpful in ensuring that clean clothes and linen are readily available for everyone when needed.

Pro tip: Keep a laundry basket on wheels in your baby’s diapering/changing area, so you can easily wheel it out to the washing machine when needed. Use plastic for an easy wipe-down, or a dustbin liner to line the basket, because wet soiled clothes from diaper blowouts are real.

8. Managing Baby’s Angbaos

As trivial as this task may sound, dads, taking charge of collecting, organising, and managing your newborn’s gifts and red packets will be another great help to mum. It can also be a meaningful and financially helpful task if you can keep a record of who gave what, write thank-you notes, and ensure that the money is banked in properly and used wisely for your baby’s future needs.

Speaking of managing red packets, if you’re hiring a confinement nanny, take note of the prevailing rates for giving red packets (the tradition at the time of this article’s publication is an average of $50 as a token of goodwill and luck for the start of work, to be given when the nanny arrives, and $50 – $800 on the last day as a bonus depending on her work). Prepare these red packets beforehand and be the one to handle them, so mum has one less thing to worry about.

9. Dealing With Family Boundaries

Family visits can feel overwhelming during the early weeks with a newborn, especially for tired mums trying to adjust to the new normal. Dads, you can be a true hero here by stepping up to communicate and establish boundaries with well-meaning family members regarding visitation.

Communicate your expectations and define clear limits to maintain a peaceful and manageable home environment so that your partner and baby can have enough rest and bonding time.

Politely decline non-crucial visits or limit them to short, planned intervals. It is also important here to be extra sensitive to mummy’s reservations and preferences, because she may not wish to entertain guests or have baby passed around among many fawning visitors, not to mention while she’s still exhausted, uncomfortable or in pain. Breastfeeding poses another privacy issue when it comes to visitors. Two-way communication is vital here — it’s best not to assume that she’s as comfortable with your mum visiting as you are.

10. Bonding With Baby

Paternity leave is the perfect time to have quality bonding time with your baby, before you get caught up in the hustle and bustle of work life again. It can be as simple as holding baby close and looking into their eyes, enjoying skin-to-skin contact, or engaging in activities like reading, singing, and talking to baby — whatever makes you happy too. These day-to-day quality interactions will not only strengthen your parent-child bond but also support your baby’s cognitive and emotional development — double yay!

11. Learning and Growing As A Parent

If you were feeling unprepared before, you may be feeling even more overwhelmed by parenthood now. The good news: it’s never too late! Now is the perfect time to start (or keep) learning and growing as a parent.

You could attend parenting classes or watch helpful videos, read books or blogs, and participate actively in discussions with your partner about topics like baby care, sleep training, parenting philosophy and child development. Your active involvement will visibly demonstrate your commitment to being a knowledgeable, supportive and involved dad, and incidentally also bring much comfort and joy to your partner. 

12. Providing Emotional Support

Last but definitely not least, be an endless source of love, patience and support! During this particularly demanding period, being present emotionally is just as crucial as physically helping. Offer a listening ear, be generous with kind words, express your love and admiration, and simply be there for your partner during those inevitable moments of frustration or exhaustion.

Actively monitor her moods, as postpartum blues affects most women due to the drop in hormone levels. If she seems depressed, you can connect her with a therapist or reach out to her healthcare provider’s postpartum support network, such as KKH’s Women’s Mental Wellness Service.

Sometimes, just being present and patient can make a world of difference to her. Getting through this transition together successfully as a team will not only strengthen your family’s foundation, but also be incredibly rewarding for you as a parent.

This article was first published in Women’s Weekly