- This video is sponsored by Squarespace.
I'll talk more about them later.
So it's been said
that being a parent is the most difficult job in the world.
Really?
All I ever hear from parents is, "Oh, you're tired now?
Wait until you have kids.
Oh, you wanna be a minimalist?
Try that with kids.
Oh, you think you're busy now?
I haven't taken a (beep) in five years."
As soon as I found out
that my wife and I were gonna have a baby,
I was excited to prove everyone wrong.
There's no way that parenting is that hard.
So I decided to document my first 30 days being a dad.
Oh!
(breathes deeply)
(Frankie crying)
How to sum up the past 30 days?
It's been a bit of a rollercoaster.
I'll never forget the moment when I first heard Frankie cry.
I just lost it. I just started crying.
I just did not realize how much it would change me
meeting my son for the first time.
After having gone through such a challenging labor,
seeing Nat push to her limit,
seeing that Frankie was distressed at times,
knowing that both of them were okay,
was just this immense amount of relief.
And at the same time,
there was this immense amount of respect and admiration
for Nat and what she had done
and what she had sacrificed to get us to that point.
And then there was a moment
when we were wheeling him to our room
when I realized, holy shit, we have to take care
of a baby now.
(upbeat music)
The learning curve to becoming a parent is steep.
It's basically vertical.
We took every class you could imagine before having a baby.
So this is Nat's infamous binder
filled with all of the research from the past nine months.
Breastfeeding, parenting 101, CPR for kids, hypnobirthing.
We got a doula.
We read the books, we listened to the podcasts.
And it was still hard as (beep).
- The first week unequivocally for us was the worst part.
- It was
so hard. - The worst
week of my life.
- Yeah.
Since there was just so much to learn,
you're constantly Googling things.
Is it normal that my baby only looks right?
How much does a newborn sleep?
Why does my son look like Wallace Shawn?
Learning how to change a diaper, understand his cues,
bathing, swaddling, and mastering breastfeeding.
It was all very overwhelming
and it brought us to a breaking point.
You have so many moments where you think,
what did we just get ourselves into?
Why was it
so hard? - Why was it so hard?
Well, for us, specifically,
it was hard I think for a number of factors.
One, we were in the hospital for six days.
Frankie here was losing weight.
So we were really struggling to know how to feed him.
That was just so stressful and scary.
And then on top of that,
I don't think we had the best midwife care.
So we had a lot of guilt and shame through our experience.
And then on top of that, we were just incredibly vulnerable.
Like, we were brand new parents.
Not at home, but in a hospital sterile environment.
And we, I feel like, we lost our sense
of intuition and confidence in ourselves,
but it all changed really quickly
as soon as we came home
after six days. - Yeah.
- Look who it is?
- Whoop!
- Oh!
- So once we got home,
we really started to get into a rhythm
and things got a little bit, dare I say, easy.
It was still hard,
but nothing like those first few weeks for us.
And now Frankie's crying in the background.
(Frankie cries)
Nat got more confident breastfeeding,
Frankie started to gain weight.
After a week,
we were getting more than three hours of sleep a night.
I know, it's rude to brag,
and I've got to say that I got so good at diaper changes,
I could do it blindfolded.
(upbeat music)
He just shit on me, didn't he?
As we were getting close to the four-week mark,
Nat and I had a conversation
and decided that it was time for me to get back to work.
Do you wanna do some editing with dadda?
You don't.
That's okay. I don't wanna edit either.
After unsuccessfully trying to wing it on day one,
we decided to set up a schedule
and discuss responsibilities.
Wake up times, getting ready, bottle feeds, bath time.
When will I finish up work so Nat can have a break?
I really felt pulled in a million directions.
I wanted to focus on my work.
I wanted to prioritize my health.
I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Frankie,
and I didn't wanna miss a second of any of it.
As I tried to find my footing as a dad,
I made adjustments to make time for everything I could.
I subscribed to a meal prep service.
I cut my workouts down to three days a week,
and I started running everywhere,
to the gym, to the grocery store, to the coffee shop.
In the midst of this literal sprint,
I realized I needed to start letting go.
And as complicated as my life was getting with a child,
I needed to simplify my life now more than ever.
Truthfully, one of the reasons
you haven't seen me on here as much
is because I've been trying to shift my priorities
and figure out how to move my business
in a direction where I have more freedom.
Really, as I look back over the past couple of years,
a lot of the decisions that I've made
have actually restricted my freedom.
They've made it so I need to make more money.
I need to have more staff.
I need to have all these projects going
at one time just to stay afloat.
And more and more,
I am revisiting some of the core practices of minimalism.
How can I create as simple of a life as possible
where I can focus on those two to three things
that are absolutely most important, non-negotiable?
Because I'm realizing now
while I thought I was busy before,
I truly am reaching a whole new level of being busy.
I just know right now these moments are so fleeting.
And our time with Frankie,
when he's this little, is gonna fly by.
I've heard that from so many parents before.
So I'm doing as much as I possibly can
to be there for every single moment that I can
while also trying to get as much sleep as possible.
I'd like to thank my sponsor
for this week's video, Squarespace.
They're so generous that they said
that I could outsource this part of the video to AI.
That way I can catch up on sleep.
- [Narrator] This video is sponsored
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He's specifically requested to mention his biceps
and show photos of them.
By the way, these are all very real, unedited photos.
(Matt snoring)
What makes it so great?
Oh, where to start?
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- That wasn't nearly enough time.
- [Narrator] Okay. Back to the video.
- The past couple months have been difficult,
and I know that I've talked quite a bit
about the challenges, but honestly, as crazy as it's been,
the lows don't even come close to the highs.
- I love the wake ups in the morning.
I love when you finally get him up.
When you take up his swaddle and he goes...
It's like a newborn reflex where, like, their arms
just, like, pop up
and it looks like they're reaching out for you.
It's just the best
'cause you're like, "Frankie,"
and it's, like, 7:00 a.m. or whatever,
but you're just so stoked to see each other.
It's so cute.
- For the first couple weeks,
like, I just, there were two moments
where I was just, like, making eye contact with him
and I just started crying.
I just couldn't
help it. - That's pathetic.
- Yeah, I know.
I'm such a loser. - Pull yourself together.
- I know, yeah. It's been amazing.
Like, it's difficult. - It's been awesome.
- Like, it's crazy how, like,
these can be the most difficult weeks of our life
and the best at the same time.
- Yeah. It doesn't make sense.
Like, that's well said.
And I can't really, like, describe how that can be the case.
'Cause it doesn't make sense
that those two things can be true at once.
- So my older brother, Mark, who's a dad to three
gave me some of the best advice early on.
He actually texted me on Father's Day
and he said, when parenting is hard,
it's usually a sign of good parenting.
It's so easy to be a bad parent,
to not care, to not research, to not worry.
Doing those things is hard work.
It's exhausting, but it's what makes great parents,
and it's what makes great kids.
- Aw. Hey, bubba.