I was fortunate to have my loving husband by my side, offering his full support, during and immediately after the birth of each of our daughters. He was hands-on and seemed to know exactly what we needed. But like all good things, his paternity leave ended too soon, and his mind was suddenly (understandably) filled with the concerns and demands of the outside world. I don’t want to say that he’s become insensitive, exactly, but I would be a whole lot happier if he understood these five things:

1. I am so hungry! But all of our freeze-ahead meals are gone now, and there is not one remotely appetizing morsel of food left in this house. I need to get to the grocery store, but my plan for navigating that giant petri dish of germs and chaos with our newborn is still in its strategic phase. Please don’t call me on your way home from work to ask what I’ve made for dinner, because the answer is probably nothing. Don’t make me say it. Instead, call to ask what I’d like for dinner, or if takeout from your favorite restaurant sounds good to me. If I get to surprise you by saying I’d planned to cook, it’ll make me feel like a rockstar.
2. I need your encouragement and praise now more than ever. When most people truly excel on the job, they receive accolades — if not from a supervisor or client, at least from a coworker who understands the value of what they’ve accomplished. But when a I excel at caring for our newborn, the only feedback I receive is a litany of yelling and screaming — the exact same response I would get if I were failing miserably. This lack of any positive feedback, combined with sheer exhaustion, can get depressing after awhile. Please, make a point of paying me a sincere compliment as often as you can.
3. My maternity leave is neither an extended vacation nor a sabbatical. You do not have a stay-at-home wife right now. What you have is a woman who is simultaneously recovering from a serious physical trauma and adjusting to a brand new family dynamic. Your daily life may have already returned to the status quo, but please don’t assume that the same is true for me. It stands to reason that I would need more time, and it should go without saying that the weeks following our child’s arrival are not the best time to try and assign me a new household project or expect me to cover some of your usual chores. I’ll decide whether to take on any extra responsibility based on how well I’m recovering and adjusting to motherhood.
4. The six-week ban on sex does not extend to cover all forms of physical contact. The knowledge that a kiss, a cuddle or a massage won’t lead anywhere is no reason not to do it. Let’s try using the rare, quiet moments we have together during this time to reignite our romance and gradually build to a level of anticipation we haven’t felt in years.
5. Your right to complain to me about being tired is directly proportional to the amount of contact you had with our baby during the night. If you got up, changed her diaper, and either fed her a bottle or brought her to me to nurse… if you burped her after the feeding and then rocked her back to sleep, then by all means, tell me you’re tired and I will sympathize. But if you simply rolled over in bed and nudged me to say you could hear the baby crying before dozing off again, you have no idea what ‘tired’ is.

There’s no question that fathers and mothers experience new parenthood differently, and I’m sure he has a few things he wishes I could understand as well. I’ll be sure to ask him about it the next time we’re both home, awake, and lucid.