Balancing Work, Fatherhood, and Your Family

Work, fatherhood, family and friends; it can be a pretty tight balancing act. At times, it can cause you stress and can strain your family and professional relationships.

Don’t let things get out of hand, get organized and follow these tips before steam blows out of your ears.

Talk to Your Boss
It’s understandable that while your family may be your top priority, being able to provide for your family means that work may sometimes take precedence. To keep work from becoming your ‘all’, talk to your boss and reassure him that while you are concentrating on your family, that focus will not compromise your work ethic or productivity.

Manage Your Time
If your job offers flexible hours, make sure that you are making full use of this. If your work schedule isn’t as flexible, you need to manage your hours a little more carefully. You can use the time you commute on the train to catch up on paper work. If you’re not absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, use the hours after your kids are in bed to finish your work.

Share Responsibilities
In today’s economic situation, few households can manage to get by with just one salary. If you each work, you should try and share the responsibility of caring for your newborn. Whether that means taking turns in feeding, bathing, changing diapers or calling in sick when your baby has a nasty bug.

Get Some Help
If you can afford help, then by all means get someone to take care of your baby, even if it means asking your mother-in-law. Having someone help around the house to do the laundry will free up time for you to attend to your little one. Apart from helping with the birth of your child, a doula may provide help caring for the child and help around the house in the postpartum period. This will free up time for you to attend to your little one.

Back to top

Talk to other future and new dads in the forum