Ep 35: Six Weeks From Fatherhood: Jesse Ganes on Becoming a Dad

A first-time dad six weeks from his due date opens up about what the third trimester really feels like. Tony Cooper sits down with Jesse Ganes to talk through the physical and emotional shifts of late pregnancy, the conversations he's having with friends and family about how life is about to change, and the parenting choices he and his wife Emma are making before their son even arrives. They cover screen time boundaries, the science behind a changing "dad brain," sleep deprivation, division of labor in parenting, and why protecting couple time now matters so much.

Key Takeaways

• Screen time boundaries are a conversation worth having before the baby arrives, not after
• Pregnancy changes what a couple can physically do together, and renegotiating that takes patience
• A father's brain physically changes to respond differently to a baby's cry, according to research Jesse's been reading
• Telling friends without kids that the relationship will change, but won't end, sets healthier expectations
• Community and local parent networks (including a "semi active" dad group) become a real resource
• Sleep deprivation is often less about the sleep loss itself and more about the judgment attached to it
• Protecting couple time during pregnancy builds the foundation for the family that's coming

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00:00 Cold open
00:29 Meet Jesse Ganes
01:17 Six weeks from the due date
02:10 What feels real right now
03:04 Talking about screen time early
05:16 Two becomes three
06:08 What pregnancy changed physically
09:49 Trusting your body through pregnancy
11:06 Hormones and a happy pregnancy
13:45 Getting his head around the change
15:01 Talking to friends without kids
17:42 Parenting in Brooklyn
19:20 Finding the dad group
20:38 The "Dad Brain" book
22:41 Re-parenting yourself
26:13 Learning not to lose it over messes
28:15 Surviving on no sleep
30:23 What's new this generation
32:00 Filtering baby gear from noise
33:31 Advice for a couple just starting out
36:26 Closing thoughts

Creators and Guests

Host

Tony Cooper

Tony Cooper is the founder of Playing the Game of Business, a business coach, father, and podcast host.

What is The Dad Manual?

The Dad Manual is a fatherhood podcast hosted by Tony Cooper, featuring honest conversations with dads about the real, unfiltered journey of parenthood. This parenting podcast for dads explores everything from the excitement of being a first time dad to navigating the teenage years. As one of the best podcasts for expecting dads and experienced fathers alike, we dive deep into what it actually means to be a modern dad—the struggles, the growth, the mistakes, and the moments that change you forever. Whether you're looking for a new dad podcast or seasoned parenting wisdom, this family podcast delivers the honest guidance you won't find in books.

Tony Cooper 00:00
I know you want to grab the thing from the shelf up there, but you probably shouldn't be standing on a chair right now. The WhatsApp group that we're in, there is a semi active dad group within there. Semi active. That sounds about right. Once you get on a plane with a crying baby, you will never have a problem by any other baby ever, because you're like, oh, God, I'm just so glad it's not mine.
Tony Cooper 00:29
Hi, I'm Tony Cooper, and this is the Dad Manual podcast. And I'm here today with somebody who I've had a great relationship with for a lot of years. And now you're about to become a dad. So will you introduce yourself, please?
Jesse Ganes 00:43
Hi, this is Jesse Ganes. I'm about to be a great dad. Thinking a lot about what that means as we get close to my wife's due date.
Tony Cooper 00:54
Well, thanks for being here, Jesse. I appreciate it. And so how close are we?
Jesse Ganes 00:55
We are about six weeks out.
Tony Cooper 01:01
Okay, so we're recording about six weeks out. By the time I release it, it'll probably be pretty close to your due date. So for all intents and purposes, you're definitely on the precipice of becoming a father. And I'm really thrilled for us to just talk about this moment in time of you. You got married last year, is that right?
Jesse Ganes 01:17
We got married in '23, so a couple years ago.
Tony Cooper 01:23
Geez. Okay. And we've been together for 10 years.
Jesse Ganes 01:26
Yes. We've been building towards this for a while.
Tony Cooper 01:29
Yeah. Yeah. So here you are, definitely the third trimester and about ready to embark upon a whole new experience. So where are you now? Like, what's it all seem like at this moment?
Jesse Ganes 01:39
It feels like the calm before the storm a little bit. We are getting our apartment ready. We are getting our minds ready, looking to books and resources, friends to help tell us what to expect. And we're getting to the place where we're beginning to think about the future. What's it going to be like in a month? What's it going to be like in three months? What's it going to be like in a year?
Tony Cooper 02:10
Yeah, and it's beginning to become real in a very tangible way. What is it going to be like, is a great question. So is it abstract? Are you guys starting to really get clear about that and have ideas for yourself? What are the conversations you're having about it?
Jesse Ganes 02:23
We're talking about things that are more concrete. Like, what's it going to be like in the first few weeks? How do we want our families to be involved or not in the first few weeks? The tactical side of it, we're also thinking about, well, what's he going to be like? And how can we mold this person that we don't yet know into a well-rounded individual who can think critically, who can be creative and kind of operate independently in this world? Now that's obviously getting ahead of ourselves a little bit.
Tony Cooper 03:04
Yeah. So I'm just curious, how early in your mind does all that begin?
Jesse Ganes 03:04
Well, I think it begins pretty early. And some of the things that we've been talking about, like being on our phones or screen time, like these things that we can go into it saying, well, we don't really want to be on our phones around our son, because whether it be research or articles or just kind of the, like, the experiences we had as millennials growing up, these things didn't exist. And from what we understand, the more we can limit things like access to screens, the more children are able to think creatively or operate by themselves. And I think that can snowball into some of these larger things that we're thinking about over time, creativity and whatnot. So I think it begins early. There's some research that supports that, but I think when we're there in the moment with a crying baby who could be soothed by a screen, we might feel a little bit differently.
Tony Cooper 04:03
So, yeah, you're talking about both the screens in front of you and Emma's faces as well as the screen in front of your kid's face.
Jesse Ganes 04:11
Correct. And we have friends who have had different approaches, like screens in front of kids' face only while traveling, or only in the car or only on an airplane. We've seen the other extreme when we're dining at a restaurant and we see a family of four with two kids plugged into their iPads like a pacifier. We know we don't want that.
Tony Cooper 04:31
Right.
Jesse Ganes 04:32
But I think these questions speak to just a want to make sure we set him up for success and set ourselves down a path of discovery together as a group of three. We'll have to figure out how to expand our family. And it's been the two of us for such a long time. We know that integrating a new little one into that is going to be interesting, not only for our own relationship with each other, but for our relationship collectively.
Tony Cooper 05:16
Yeah, I definitely remember when our first was born. And just being at the place where you're at, we're like, we are still two of us, but the third one is right there. We can see where it is, it's just not here yet. And so it's a two becomes three in a moment, which is kind of interesting. So looking back over the pregnancy now, so you have had now the experience of a pregnancy getting pretty close to full term. What have your takeaways been? What have been your experiences, and what surprised you, or what went worse or better than you thought it might?
Jesse Ganes 05:38
I think the unknown of how hormonal changes, physical changes, would impact my wife but also impact me was something that, I don't know, I was pleasantly surprised by how we adapted. There were moments where, over the course of the last several months, it became clear that we couldn't do the things together that we liked doing in the same way.
Tony Cooper 06:08
Like what?
Jesse Ganes 06:08
We love to hike. We love to go on hikes. And earlier in the pregnancy, we were able to travel and do a pretty strenuous hike. And then just a couple weeks ago, we realized we were going to New Hampshire for a little babymoon, and we wanted to do a hike, but neither of us really knew, okay, what about a hike is too much at this moment? And as we've crossed those kind of markers of physical change together, I've found myself kind of reeling in my partner a bit to say, okay, are you sure we should be doing that right now?
Tony Cooper 06:44
I know normally we would do that, no problem, but it's a different consideration as we get further along. And what you're saying, like, Emma's willing to go further and extend herself further than you're comfortable with?
Jesse Ganes 07:00
Okay, well, yeah, I think it's a function of just being one way for your whole life, not wanting to feel limited by this. But in reality, there's a physical dimension to it that makes being a pregnant person in this world challenging. And I'm here to remind her of that sometimes, like giving her the chance to go, like, look, you don't have to do everything. You don't have to prove anything, or almost like you've forgotten, like a reminder.
Tony Cooper 07:14
What's it?
Jesse Ganes 07:15
Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think in the case of the things that are in our control, like, do we go on the hike or not, reminding her and kind of asking the question in a way that is not finger pointing, like, we can't do this because of the situation we find ourselves in, but rather, are you going to feel comfortable if we're not able to complete this or if we're not able to do it in the way that you want to do it?
Tony Cooper 07:48
Letting go of expectations and attachment to outcomes and things like that.
Jesse Ganes 07:48
Exactly, exactly. That's kind of one dimension. I think the other dimension is, hey, look, I know you want to grab the thing from the shelf up there, but you probably shouldn't be standing on a chair right now. So just like, let me do it for you.
Tony Cooper 08:05
Right? Yeah. Because balance is off. It's definitely, it's a brand new body to be navigating around. So hard enough on the ground. You know, it's interesting as you're saying all that. So my wife grew up on a farm in western Kansas and her family moved out there and homesteaded like in the 1800s. So they're just farm people. And going into it, all the stories she ever heard were like, yeah, the women would just keep working, doing everything up until the moment they're about to have a baby. They'd be on the ground scrubbing, they'd be, you know, doing things, just there's no other hands. So they stayed completely active like that. And I was like, yeah, we don't do that.
Jesse Ganes 08:41
I think society kind of treats pregnant people in a way that is like, oh, you shouldn't be doing that. However, there's no reason why, if prior to the beginning of a pregnancy you're a physical person who is able-bodied, that you can't continue doing these things until the point comes where you can. And I think being okay with that shifting ability is something that I've had to reinforce with Emma, to just remind her, hey, you can slow down, it's okay. We can do these things a little bit differently or find a different way to accomplish the thing that we want to do in a way that allows us to do it safely.
Tony Cooper 09:26
You know, in childbirth, I think women have the opportunity to really learn to trust their body in a way that they never have. And what you're talking about is even the lead-up entering pregnancy, there's your body's giving you signals. Don't make all your decisions, appear your body's driving whether or not you should or shouldn't do something. And so, yeah, in our society, it might be harder for women to be able to accept that. So I hear what you're saying. It's just reinforcing, like, I'm here to support you, whatever you need. If you can do it, great. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to.
Jesse Ganes 09:57
Exactly. And it's not coming from a place of abilities or desires. It's coming more from a place of just knowing your limits and being able to check in with an ever-changing cocktail of hormones and kind of physical reality.
Tony Cooper 10:17
Right. That's been something that has been a theme, especially more recently as we've gotten further and further along. Yeah, people have those weighted vests, you know, that they wear for working out, 25 pounds or whatever. Just, I don't know how many extra pounds has now come on, but the baby's probably like nine, and then there's all the other fluids and everything else. But it's sort of like, yeah, if you wore that vest to go on a hike, that'd be great, extra exercise. But it's like you also wore it to go to bed and then get out of bed and get out of a chair. And it's such a different physical experience, which I don't, I mean, I could probably approximate it if they made those.
Jesse Ganes 10:47
They probably do.
Tony Cooper 10:48
Right, they probably make, you know, fake pregnancy things that we could all know what it's like, but it looks very uncomfortable. I mean, from a physical perspective, for sure.
Jesse Ganes 10:57
Yeah. Having a bowling ball on your organs can't be a pleasant thing.
Tony Cooper 11:02
Yeah. So that's all the physical stuff. What's been your experience with the hormonal changes?
Jesse Ganes 11:06
Yeah, I mean, as soon as the baby starts growing, hormones just start absolutely going to work and doing their job, and it changes the person. I think Emma's been fortunate to have a very kind of happy pregnancy. She didn't experience too much in the form of morning sickness. It seemed more kind of episodically, there would be things here and there, but generally she's been in a really great mental state. I think something about knowing that this is a decision we've been working towards for a while has propelled kind of the way she's feeling and kind of set us on this course towards getting to a place where we're realizing this dream.
Tony Cooper 11:51
Right.
Jesse Ganes 11:51
It's never for certain that this would happen. So finding ourselves in a place where she's healthy, the baby's healthy, there's a lot to be grateful for, even now, before he's made his grand arrival.
Tony Cooper 12:12
What have been some of the highlights for you in the pregnancy so far?
Jesse Ganes 12:14
Yeah, I think thinking about change as something that is inevitable and kind of step by step reflecting together on what's happening emotionally and what's happening physically. I don't know, it feels like it's been a very dynamic period of time and that's been exciting. It's been exciting to read together in books, like What to Expect When You're Expecting, what's going on in week X or week. And how that can create a connection with this person that's being fully formed, whether it be playing sounds or just talking. There's a lot of interesting things that happen in there at various stages of development. And I think discovering that together has been really exciting, and going through that for the first time together has been a trip. I'm sure if we were to have a second kid or a third kid, it'd be a slightly different take.
Tony Cooper 13:12
Yeah, absolutely. The gestation period, the nine months, I'm sure there's a lot of physical and biological reasons, but at least when I was going through it, I was like, I kind of needed that amount of time just to get my head wrapped around it. So what's it been like for you?
Jesse Ganes 13:36
Yeah, I think for the first three, four months it didn't really kind of register in the way that it did in the second or third trimester for me. Kind of as Emma's body has changed and as the baby has become more of a thing, it's just become much more real, how I need to get my shit together to figure out how I'm going to go about this life change. Right. What does it mean for my relationship to work? What does it mean for my relationship to my friends, specifically, like my friends with kids, I'm going to have to be more aligned to them than my friends without kids.
Tony Cooper 14:07
And what does it mean for my relationship with my family?
Jesse Ganes 14:09
I can tell you my parents are very excited to welcome their second grandchild. My brother and sister-in-law are very excited for their daughter to have a cousin. So thinking about how relationships are shifting, and as the pregnancy has gone on, I've been much more intentional about figuring out how to not only signal desire to the people I want to remain connected with, that, hey, things are going to be different, but I'm sure our relationship can find ways to evolve, and it will have to.
Tony Cooper 14:40
I want that. Do you want that? I'm sure you do. Oh, you're talking about like conversations with people who don't have kids, conversations with people that don't have kids, conversations with people who have kids, conversations with your family.
Jesse Ganes 14:52
Yeah, what are some of the conversations you've had? How have you laid it out?
Tony Cooper 14:58
Yeah, okay.
Jesse Ganes 15:01
With my friends without kids, I'm like, look, my life's going to be really different really soon. I don't know exactly how, I just know it's going to be very different. I'm not going to be as available, I'm not going to be able to do things last minute. It doesn't mean I don't want to maintain this relationship, maintain this friendship, but it's going to take work for us to figure out how to do that in a way that fits my new reality. I've had a handful of these conversations and they've all gone very well. I think for friends without kids, they obviously haven't thought about this stuff as much. They've probably seen it happen, like in varying degrees with other friends that have had kids, just becoming less available. I don't know how explicit they may or may not have had conversations like this in the past.
Tony Cooper 15:43
But I love that you're being explicit about it. What was your experience on the other side of it when your friends had kids and how did that change? And is that why you're preemptively going at this?
Jesse Ganes 15:56
I think in some instances, if I look across my friend group, many of my female friends have had kids. Very few of my male friends have become fathers yet. So I think these friendships that I've had that have kind of transcended a child coming into the world, with my female friends who have had kids, I've noticed it just became very apparent to me how their lives change, completely changed. And then with friends who have had kids, there's role models both on the good side and the bad side of what to do. How do I want to maintain relationships with other people based on how my friend has maintained relationship with me? And then there's kind of counter role models where I have examples of people in my life who have so fundamentally reoriented their lives around their children that they don't seem to have as much consciousness for their need for adult-to-adult companionship. And I think both Emma and I have been very clear with each other and open with each other that we want each other to still maintain individual friendships, we want to maintain individual identities, we want our son to come along with us on our lives just as much as we are kind of going on this journey in support of his life. So it's been something that we've seen through examples. It's easier said than done, but we are at least acknowledging that this is going to be different, and it's going to be different on many dimensions. And it's important to maintain some things independent from the newly minted unit of three that we will be.
Tony Cooper 17:42
Yeah, and I'll mention that you're doing this in New York City. You live in Brooklyn, so, you know, that's a whole other different way of being in a city with a kid. So what are your thoughts around that?
Jesse Ganes 17:57
Yeah, I think the neighborhood we live in, it's interesting. It's one of these kind of more hip, progressive Brooklyn neighborhoods that kind of exists on the fringe of being like fully kid-oriented and fully kind of young-adult, pre-kid oriented. So for us kind of being in this neighborhood, we feel like we're going to just unlock a new dimension of our relationship with the city by virtue of having a child. We used to joke that we didn't belong in our building because we didn't have a dog or a kid, so we kind of were completely outside of the social fabric of the community.
Tony Cooper 18:36
Now it's not that extreme, it was a funny thing to say.
Jesse Ganes 18:39
But we feel like we're going to be able to benefit from the community in a completely different way. And we're already beginning to do that by tapping into some local parent groups and kind of networks, WhatsApp groups that are very, very accessible, and people are very open, talking about their experiences with all aspects of parenthood, whether it be finding childcare, figuring out what objects or diapers to buy, and even passing along kind of things that are lightly used and not needed anymore. It's been a really good resource, and I think there's much more of that to uncover, whether it be kind of in-person meetups with new parents or playgroups when we get there.
Tony Cooper 19:20
Yeah, I mean, and a lot of parent groups are really just mommy groups. And so I was like, is there anything in particular for you? Are you pursuing any community around dads?
Jesse Ganes 19:33
So the WhatsApp group that we're in for our local parents, there is a semi active dad group within there. Not nearly as active.
Tony Cooper 19:41
That sounds about right.
Jesse Ganes 19:42
Not nearly as active as the many, many, many subgroups for moms. But I think that divide reflects the reality of division of labor in our society amongst parents, unfortunately. And it's another thing that we're very open about. We want to figure out ways to have as egalitarian a relationship with each other with respect to the responsibilities of child rearing.
Tony Cooper 20:13
We've talked about that with each other a lot.
Jesse Ganes 20:14
I think how that then transitions to action is something that we're going to be very conscious of. And in books that we're reading and resources that we're finding, there seems to be a correlation between involvement of fathers in childcare to the child's development. So the book Dad Brain is amazing if you've come across it.
Tony Cooper 20:38
I'm really digging into some of the science, the brain science behind these claims. What are you getting out of that book? What are some of the takeaways?
Jesse Ganes 20:47
I'm getting out of it that my brain is changing in ways that I can't control, and that's okay. It's actually good for our son.
Tony Cooper 20:52
Like what? What's changing?
Jesse Ganes 20:54
The gray matter is decreasing. My brain is being rewired to respond to the cry of a baby or the laugh of a baby differently than I would have if I wasn't expecting.
Tony Cooper 21:09
Right? Yeah. Not annoyed, right?
Jesse Ganes 21:13
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Cooper 21:14
Yeah. I was on a plane last week and a baby was crying, and I was like, oh, wow, that's nice. I'll tell you, man, once you get on a plane with a crying baby, you will never have a problem about any other baby ever, because you're like, oh, God, I'm just so glad it's not mine. We were on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, and I happened to be in business class, and my daughter was just over a year, and so she was walking, and she had no interest in not walking. But airlines don't like you to walk a lot of time on the flight. So whenever she couldn't, she was screaming like bloody murder screaming, and I'm walking her back and up down the aisle. And I just felt so bad for all the people in business class because it was just ruining their flight. And at some point I'm like, maybe we should just jump off this airplane. This is the absolute worst. So every time I hear a baby screaming now, I'm just like, someone else's problem. I've got headphones, it's totally fine. And don't throw any shade their way, like, God, I mean, there's nothing you can do about it.
Tony Cooper 22:12
So, you know, having a kid is an opportunity to obviously not just step into being a parent, but also, as has been said, re-parent yourself. So oftentimes this is when your thoughts about your childhood come up, and how you were raised, and you're forming your ideas about the kind of parent you want to be. So curious what's coming up for you around all that.
Jesse Ganes 22:42
Yeah, I think about, I mentioned it earlier, creativity. My parents are both artists and teachers. I think back to my childhood, and I was encouraged to try lots of different things, that making a mess is okay, and that, like, this idea of learning through exposure, learning through trial and error, is something that was fundamental to my upbringing. So I think that is one thing that I really want to take forward. You don't have to love ice skating, but you should try it before you're too old. You don't have to love swimming or violin or whatever it might be, but you should try these things because you never know what you're going to like. And for me, my parents did a really good job of that. The other thing that I've been thinking about, we've had conversations with each other and with friends about this, but I was asked, like, if my parents were strict, because neither of us wants to be the strict parent. Emma doesn't want to be the strict parent, and I don't want to be the strict parent.
Tony Cooper 23:44
And I was like, they weren't really strict, I just really didn't want to disappoint them. So, like, that dynamic of what would that have been like? What did disappointing your parent entail?
Jesse Ganes 23:58
I don't know. For me, it's more like how I make decisions should reflect where I've come from. I didn't want to do anything risky or do anything too bad, or, like, smear the family name, that sort of thing.
Tony Cooper 24:13
The family name.
Jesse Ganes 24:14
But as much as, like, wow, my dad would be really disappointed in me if I did the wrong thing here, or my mom would be really upset if I got detention for participating in this prank or something like that.
Tony Cooper 24:25
Right. Huh. And yet you said that they raised you that making a mess was okay, which, first of all, I don't, I didn't, I don't understand that at all. That's not my upbringing, I don't know what that would be like. But that seems to be, like, if they raise you to try, experiment, like, things don't always go well. You're talking about, like, there was a judgment call that I made that was bad, like, I should have known better, that sort of thing, as opposed to just like, oh, I made a mess.
Jesse Ganes 24:44
Yeah, definitely more like that. I mean, two artists always making stuff, whatever it be, clay, paint, ink, there were messes going on, and I was encouraged to co-create with them. And if I spilled something, I wouldn't get like a, oh my God, you spilled the paint on the floor. It would be like a, okay, let's clean it up, here's how you clean it up, you should clean up after yourself, that sort of kind of direction into teaching through positive reinforcement.
Tony Cooper 25:22
Yeah, yeah. But not, like, go ahead and paint on the walls.
Jesse Ganes 25:31
Yes and no. But, yeah, but mostly no. Like, you could paint on this wall, whatever you want on this wall.
Tony Cooper 25:34
That kind of thing. It's such a good parenting goal, which is when the kid does the kid stuff, to not lose your shit about it, to actually go, great, what a great opportunity for whatever I want to make it an opportunity for. But, yeah, I certainly wasn't raised in that environment, and when I was a young dad, I didn't act that way either, and it was a learned behavior. So I love, like, going into it, having that as an intention. Because, look, you're not going to always be in control of your emotions and your reactions, they'll come out because you're just, you know, sleep deprived, and it's chaotic, and you're going through stuff that you don't understand. You're making it up, so the environment can push you. But knowing what your intention is is great that you have that going into it.
Jesse Ganes 26:14
Yeah, I think, and there's other examples where from Emma's upbringing, she's bringing kind of similar learnings to the table.
Tony Cooper 26:29
Similar intention to the table.
Jesse Ganes 26:31
It's going to be really fun. I think it's very challenging, and you mentioned sleep deprivation, I think that's one thing that we are both a little bit nervous about. We do need our sleep.
Tony Cooper 26:40
Yeah. There does seem to be a rite of passage, getting through it. My dad, actually, this is back when he was, when I was young, he'd wear a San Diego Padres hat. It's not because he's a San Diego Padres fan, it stood for sleep deprivation for him.
Jesse Ganes 26:58
That's pretty funny.
Tony Cooper 27:00
Yeah, really funny. You know, they're little tiny beings, their biology operates on a much faster cycle than ours does. Like, oh yeah, my kid sleeps the night. I'm like, what's wrong with your kid? It's not supposed to, it's supposed to eat every three, four hours, that's a normal thing for its development. But no, there are just some kids that actually somehow don't do that or don't need that, I don't understand it. So when we filter it through the lens of, like, what works for an adult, yeah, it's very confronting. And then you kind of go like, no, we're all going to be on the train of what works for a kid, and that's going to be our life.
Tony Cooper 27:37
And I'll tell you this, Jesse, it was crazy. I remember after our second, who was born 18 months after our first, the first six months of his life, we were not capable of stringing together more than like three hours of sleep at any moment, at any time. And it wasn't all him, it was a lot him, but it wasn't all him. When he actually had a good night, other things happened with the pets or his sister or stuff outside. But I just noticed, after six months I've had the most destructive sleep pattern ever in my life, and what I found was, I get up, I go to work, still running my business, things were actually going well in my life, I wasn't falling apart. I was like, how am I doing this? It never crossed my mind that I could operate on that little sleep and still be productive. Now, you and I both know, we talk about sleep and energy management, all that, it's critical, we need it. The better sleep you have, the better it is to manage your energy everywhere else. But what I really got clear about is, like, actually you can operate, you know, without that much sleep, as long as you don't have a big judgment around it, like that there's something wrong.
Jesse Ganes 28:53
I think that's going to be interesting for us to navigate. Also thinking about the first weeks and months, like, I've seen what my friends have done. Like the most extreme example, they had this really crazy schedule where, like, they were like ships passing in the night, leading kind of independent lives with their son to prioritize sleeping some amount of time. And luckily for them, that only lasted a period of time.
Tony Cooper 29:14
Everything's temporary, right? Phases.
Jesse Ganes 29:15
But it got us thinking, are we going to be those people kind of hyper-scheduling our sleep like that, or are we going to find a different way, knowing that every kid is different? I think we'll need to look for cues for him to lead us and tell us kind of what he needs. Some things you can plan, and some things you can't plan, and that's one that you can't really plan too early.
Tony Cooper 29:39
That's just true. Keep your options open. Yeah, I mean, our first, she would go to sleep really quickly and really easily, but also wake up easily too. Whereas my son, man, took forever to get him to go to sleep, but once he was asleep, he was out. You know, those are two very different problems, two very different situations. So, yeah, you're right, you'll deal with whatever comes your way. And, you know, like, that you two are a team about it, and you're on the same page about it, and you're in agreement, is definitely going to be very helpful because, yeah, you're going to be solving problems you didn't even know you needed to solve, or didn't even know existed. Just rest assured that billions of people have done this, and it all seems to work out okay for the most part, especially going into it.
Tony Cooper 30:23
So what are things that are new for you? So maybe not like how you were raised, raised, I don't want to do it like that, or, because every new generation of parenting has a new approach, so I was curious, what seems new for you that you're bringing into it?
Jesse Ganes 30:44
Well, there's all this technology that is being sold to me right now, whether it be a bassinet that rocks your child to sleep, or various surveillance devices that you can use to get some insight into how your child is developing. And I think, like, a lot of it is probably not needed, but I do ask myself, like, what if this stuff could help me? What if this stuff has helped my friends? I'm very skeptical of, like, all of the stuff that is out there being sold to parents that will promise more sleep or better development, or whatever it might be. And I think there's probably some good stuff there, but I'm overwhelmed at how to filter through it to find the things that are actually worthwhile versus just purely capitalizing on the minds of very malleable parents at a time of stress.
Tony Cooper 31:49
Yeah, I mean, it's a vulnerable population, because they don't know what they're doing and they don't want to mess up, and, you know, this promise, this helps me to be a better parent, or make my child a better child, it's an easy sell, truthfully, and probably 90% of it is not necessary.
Jesse Ganes 32:00
Yeah. So filtering through, what is the 10% that is, I think that that's something that I've spent a little bit of time on. If we can try some of the stuff without buying it, if we can.
Tony Cooper 32:11
Right, hand-me-downs. I mean, hand-me-downs are the way, Facebook Marketplace is amazing as well.
Jesse Ganes 32:11
Like, there's so much stuff out there. You ask, what is something that we're bringing new to the table, a new idea? I think the question of, how do we do this in a way that doesn't have us have to go out and buy so much stuff? Just the environmental impact of bringing a new human into the world, it's insane. Not to say that it's going to be zero, but are there ways we can lessen our carbon footprint as we cycle through stuff at an alarming rate? Yeah, that's something that we're both thinking about together. We did rule out cloth diapers, so we will not be doing that.
Tony Cooper 32:50
That would be very adventurous, for sure.
Jesse Ganes 32:52
My parents did that with me for a period of time, and they were the first people to say, don't do it.
Tony Cooper 33:02
I mean, it's true. I mean, if we were in the 1800s, like where my in-laws were set up, I mean, there was very little and it all worked out mostly fine. So as you think back now, on having almost made it through an entire pregnancy, what would you wish you would have known? Or what have you learned, or what wisdom would you impart to someone who's just finding out, like, oh, we just found out we were pregnant and just starting this pregnancy journey. What advice would you offer?
Jesse Ganes 33:31
Yeah, I would say, look for ways that you can use this to become closer as a couple. Savor the moments that you'll have with your beloved before your mind shifts to the, okay, there's going to be another person here. How do you use that time to strengthen your own desires, your relationship with each other, before the attention completely shifts?
Tony Cooper 34:01
Because we've definitely gone past that point, the attention has shifted. What were some of the things that you and Emma did to do that?
Jesse Ganes 34:04
I think we had a lot of conversations about us, because again, we've been together for 10 years at this point. Thinking back to earlier in our relationship, how far we've come, how we've done and accomplished difficult things together, this is just one more thing, kind of reaffirming the decision to do life together and becoming parents, just being like another step in that journey. It's not a very specific answer, but finding time to focus on each other, I think that will be something we continue to do, but just kind of using this nine-plus-month transition period to parenthood first to kind of get our foundation right.
Tony Cooper 34:46
Definitely something to take away from this. Yeah, and that relating that you do during pregnancy is like, it's still just you, it's still just Emma, but that there's this new possibility that's there, and there's this ticking clock of, like, what your life will be. So it does make that time really precious, and I really appreciate what you're saying, which is like, go out of your way to make time to celebrate that, dig into that, and also, like, take account for who you've been. Because, as you know, your life will never be the same after you have a kid, and it's not saying in any sort of way that's like, oh no, your life's over, it's like brand new life is about to begin, one that you will love the shit out of. And the levels of concerns of things that you had prior to having kids just changes, it's different, and you start to really love something the way you've never loved something in your life, and that just shifts your priorities. It's pretty awesome.
Jesse Ganes 35:32
Yeah, I didn't, we're like taking the things that are the hundred things that are most important to us and completely, like, flipping that list around and rewriting it, probably like day by day. And I don't know, I think we were very conscious of that as coming along with this decision that we made. I'm not sure everybody is super conscious of that, and I probably wasn't even as conscious of that at the beginning of this, because only through asking these questions, pulling on these threads, new questions emerge, new realizations emerge. And now I'm like really close to the wire and, like, holding my single friends up for these, like, difficult conversations about our relationship. I wouldn't have thought I would have done that at the beginning.
Tony Cooper 36:26
Yeah, no, that's great. And they all become, you know, fantastic babysitters when you need.
Jesse Ganes 36:34
Exactly, which is great.
Tony Cooper 36:34
Which is great, especially those are like, thinking about it, you know, it's a good little practice. Well, I'm super excited, I can't wait to celebrate you guys and see pictures of this brand new Ganes in the world. It's going to be amazing. Jesse, thank you for being here and sharing all your thoughts about this. I really appreciate you.
Jesse Ganes 36:47
Yeah, thanks for having me. And I will continue to listen in to other episodes for inspiration.
Tony Cooper 37:01
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well then, we'll check in again after maybe another six months and see how things are going as a new dad.
Jesse Ganes 37:11
Awesome, sounds good.
Tony Cooper 37:12
Okay, until next time.
Jesse Ganes 37:12
Yep, thanks.
Tony Cooper 37:14
I just want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Dad Manual podcast, and for supporting dads to become the best version of themselves as they strive to bring healing and inspiration to their families. I'm looking to grow a community of fathers who are ready to change the world, but I need your help. It's super valuable to the podcast when you like an episode, when you leave us a rating and subscribe to our YouTube channel, when you follow us on Instagram, at The Dad Manual Podcast, and maybe even the most important, when you share the podcast with the dad you love. Also, you can impact what we talk about here. If you've got questions or topics you want me to explore, email them to me at [e-mail]. I would love to answer your question on our next episode. And until next time, I'm Tony Cooper, and this is the Dad Manual podcast.