3 - Self Care for Fathers


For the second night in a row, I've been up with one of my children at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00 holding back hair, washing bowls, rinsing, washing, and changing bedding, and sleeping on her bedroom floor in case she throws up again. These are the trenches of parenthood, and yet when our children need us so simply and urgently the hours of lost sleep face away, and there is something deeply satisfying about being needed. Seeing the peaceful face of a sick child finally able to sleep is all the reward a father could hope for. 

 And yet the inevitable questions come up for me about how I'm going to get through the day at work, or how long I can sustain this is if my girls don't feel better soon. What if this were more than a 24-hour stomach bug and I was called on to face, as so many parents bravely do, the challenges of a child's chronic or terminal disease?

 The term "self-care" seems to be a defining trend for millennial parents like me. I usually hear it used, though, applied to moms and referring to pedicures and girl's night out. While there is nothing wrong with those activities, and moms certainly deserve all the pampering they get, I think we might be missing the larger point of self-care and how to rejuvenate ourselves to be more present as parents.

What is self-care? As Dr. David S. Gruder explains, "self-care is far different from self-centeredness. It is also far more than merely good sleep, nutrition and exercise habits ... We cannot sustain our energy unless we are supporting our spiritual, our psychological, our physical and our energetic aspects of our whole being." Exactly what self-care looks like will be different for everyone, but in essence self-care is any activity that will help you:

  • Renew physical and emotional energy
  • Maintain an alert and resilient mind
  • Create a rejuvenating environment
  • Manage the logistics of life

Dr. Gruder also offers some great tips for self-care and explains that we care for ourselves on three levels. Inner self-care relates to personal adjustments we make to supervise our thinking and ensure that we are meeting basic physical needs for sleep and nutrition. Inner self-care helps avoid exhaustion, irritability, weight problems, chronic stress, addiction, and weakened immune system. He describes environmental self-care as creating home and work settings that rejuvenate and support well-being. That includes being deliberate about the people we spend time with, not just how we arrange the show pillows. Lastly, logistical self-care relates to streamline and completing the most important tasks in our key roles and husbands, fathers, and employees. 

 Care for Your Basic Physical Health

  • Get the quality sleep your body needs
  • Prepare and eat nutritious foods
  • Exercise regularly

Build in Relaxation

  • Find pleasure
  • Create something
  • Just play

Take Time to Think

  • Pray or meditate
  • Define what you value
  • Plan 

While certainly not exhaustive, this is a useful checklist for me to make sure I have recharged myself so that I have enough to give.  

 Image Credit: Kristen Vogt

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