Taking childbirth classes helps prepare you and your partner for the birthing experience. You learn pain coping techniques that you’ll find useful when labor starts. You learn how to take proper care of the baby. And one of the best side-benefits to going to class is meeting new people and making new friends who will bond with you over the same thing: the birth of a child.
Before you start attending your classes, though, here are tips to help you and your partner get ready:
Attend Them Together
Dads who don’t have the time to read books or online information about pregnancy and giving birth should make the time and effort to attend these classes. Interactions between you and your partner during these classes will be invaluable and can help you both feel closer to each other.
Create the Birth Plan Together
Don’t try to come up with a birth plan all on your own, says Fit Pregnancy. It’s always better to do this together with your spouse or partner. This way, your partner will know that you appreciate his input as well. Since having a child often means couples spend less time together—with both being busy having to take care of a newborn in the house—bonding together throughout the pregnancy helps establish solid ties. When you’re both tired, sleep-deprived and exhausted from taking care of a baby, those bonds are going to make it easier for you both to deal with the stress, laugh it all off and find ways to make things better.
Time it Right
It’s ideal to take childbirth classes during the second trimester. However, if that’s not possible—if your husband is going to be deployed or reassigned overseas—then the next best thing is to get it during the first trimester instead of during your last month. That way, you’ll get to learn as much as you can instead of taking classes you might not even finish because your due date is already here.
