Due Dads

Most due dads, or fathers-to-be, will politely page through the pregnancy books their wives give them and throw them in a drawer. Dads like to learn on the job. For an alternate approach, you can check out Due Dads, The Man’s Survival Guide to Pregnancy. It’s a 75-minute DVD that provides a relatively painless way to get all the information you need to know. It covers everything about what goes on behind the scenes in a pregnancy, with a heavy dose of guy humor thrown in. Due Dads is alternatingly goofy and fact-filled, mostly because the stars, Clay Nichols and Brad Powell, from DadLabs.com take an Abbot and Costello approach to the story telling. The video starts with the first pregnancy test through the birth itself.

Due Dads takes you into the OB/GYN office for the first visit and provides enough information so you don’t feel totally like an alien being. As the Due Dads say, knowing a little bit about a lot of the pregnancy subjects you will encounter over the seven or eight months, will go a long way toward showing your wife that you’re involved, that you care, and that you’ll also make a great dad.

Nichols and Powell divide the video into trimesters so dads-to-be can break up the experience into three bite-size nuggets, each of which already holds a lot of information to be digested. They even throw in primers on and how to fix a meal, clean a bathroom and give a foot massage.

Not all due dads are going to appreciate the Due Dads advice to cut down on the drinking, help with the housework, and be more sensitive. As Nichols and Powell whine, “How can I keep any self-respect?” The video does have a strong message of trying to be an involved partner, starting with the pregnancy, since that sets the tone for how you’ll be as a dad. Part of being a man is making the necessary sacrifices to be a great dad, and that starts during the pregnancy itself.

Due Dads is a good primer for new dads to be or makes a funny, and useful, gift for clueless guys who don’t have time to read the books their wives keep giving them.