My Advice for First-Time Parents

A pest control guy just showed up at the door. He saw me holding our 4 month old. He said his wife is 16 weeks along. Of course, I thought I'd give him some advice having this all so fresh in my mind.

1. Plan that someone will always be sick---especially when you have multiple children.

2. Plan that no one will ever get any sleep---especially when you have multiple children.

3. Give your wife a break, especially the first six weeks. She loves you, she may just not want to be romantic.

4. Do everything you can do to help your wife, especially the first several months of having a new baby. She may say, "aw, it's ok," but either just go clean the house to the very best of your ability or take the baby for a couple hours and just try and disappear.

5. Plan that you'll never do anything you want to again---especially while you have multiple, young children at home.

6. Figure out how to go on dates. I recently posted on Facebook:

"I used to have to make time to work because the rest of my time was for play; now I need to schedule time to play or I will always work."

It's the same for dates. Your relationship will suffer if you don't make time to spend together. There are always so many other things to do that together time just won't magically happen. I never understood this until I had 3 or 4 kids, now with 5 I totally get what older married couples were saying.

Now, if you follow these expectations, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Trust me. It's all about the expectations.