Let’s take a short pause on the dynamics of the Dude Zone for a moment and click back out to the larger Welcome To Fatherhood gameplan. The catch phrase of WTF is indeed Better Connected, Better Prepared, and we’ve only covered the better prepared side of things so far in this Dude Zone to Dad Zone series. So let’s shift over to the better connected with Mama side and clarify a few things there while we have our lists out.

 To quickly review, last week’s post covered the process of carving out your priority list of Core Items, Social Connections, and Self Care from the greater Dude Zone terrain. We then took the all-important step of roughly quantifying the current (or recent) TME commitments you usually make to them each month. The last step was to then put some suggestions down on paper of how those TME commitments could be changed down into 2 lower steps – Down Shift as the 1st step down, and then Bare Minimum as the last.

 The resulting chart is part of your ultimate map from the Dude Zone to the Dad Zone. Specifically, it gives you some key reference points to draw from as your challenges mount when it comes to finding balance between your emerging Sacred Individuality (the “real you”) and your growing Family Responsibilities (the “role you”). Again, and I want to be crystal clear here, Dad Zone Thriving is 100% about finding ways for BOTH aspects of “you” to be doing well, and not at all a battle between them.

 However, as we covered last week, you should find plenty of areas where your “Us Time” with Mama overlaps your various Core Items, Social Connections, and Self Care items. For example, things like this on my personal list were “Dining Out,” “Yoga,” and “Spending time in Nature.” Last week I asked you to write these kinds of items from your list twice in your chart, once “with Mama” written next to them, and once without.

Now we are going to make a new chart called “Us Time,” or even “Relationship” if you prefer, so grab all your “with Mama” items from your Dude Zone chart and bring them over to start this new one.

 Looking at this new chart of items that are important to you & Mama together, please add in any and everything else that you and Mama enjoy doing. You should have some extra Core Items, Social Connections, and Self Care activities, especially if you reconsider Self Care here as more about the broader category of Relationship Care. Add as many as possible here, no need to just highlight a few.

 The next step would be to fill in ONLY the 1st column of TME commitments, but be sure to clearly reflect back on the TME commitments you invested here BEFORE you found out you were expecting and use those numbers. It might be hard to remember the details, but just a rough guess is good enough for our purposes here.

 At this point you chart should have plenty of things listed in each of the 3 categories of Core Items, Social Connections, and Relationship Care as well as some rough estimates of your previous Before Pregnancy monthly TME investments into each of them.

 Next, we are going to do the same thing here with columns 2 & 3 as we did with your Dude Zone chart, but instead change their respective titles from “Down Shift” and “Bare Minimum” over to “Pregnant” and “New Baby.” Now slowly work your way down column 2 and see which items have either completely changed already or you imagine will be changing as the pregnancy progresses. Remember, a Mama at 34 weeks is a very different person than one at 20 weeks, so be mindful that changes should be expected. But stay in column 2 only here, no need to look over to column 3 as of yet!

 For example, if under Social Connection you have Weekly Pub Night getting some good pre-pregnancy investments of your TME, that has probably changed significantly if Mama stopped drinking once she found out she was pregnant. A different example would be if you have “Hiking in Nature” on the Core Activity list. You’re probably still fairly active with that aspect of Us Time, but that will most likely be decreasing considerably as you get further into the 3rd Trimester.

 Here comes the fun part. Go over to that 3rd column marked New Baby and just right “Zero” all the way down. Wait, what?!?! Yep. That’s right, just Zeros all the way down. It may come as a shock to you, but Mamas with a new Baby have absolutely Zero interest in Pub Night and Zero interest in Hiking in Nature. Not for ever, but certainly for the first few weeks/months after Baby arrives.

 And guess what? These changes will ABSOLUTELY impact your relationship! But fear not, my Dude, that’s what I’m here to help you prepare for, and to get ahead of it all by finding ways to better connect with Mama NOW that will make it easier to better connect even further when Baby gets here too.

Ok, last part of this activity is to look back at this list, rub your eyes a bit, and then look at it again. See if you can think of some twists on or lighter versions of those more important things on that list that you might be able to bring with you into new Baby land? Or even better, what are some NEW things you might be able to start doing NOW that will be super easy to bring with you into new Baby land? 

Don’t worry, the goal isn’t to figure them all out now, but rather to be mindful of the increasing need to start to figure them out together soon. And just like with your Dude Zone chart, creating it is only the first step. The more important thing to keep in mind is that this chart will be a handy reference and guide to revisit from time to time as your relationship continues to change at each step of the way. We’ll pick up next week with some good tips and examples of what that ongoing engagement with these charts looks like as you enter the 3rd trimester with Baby’s arrival getting imminent.