New father myself. Honestly, you can't prepare. You just have to be flexible and agile because every kid is different and what works for you might not work for

New father myself. Honestly, you can't prepare. You just have to be flexible and agile because every kid is different and what works for you might not work for other kids. Personally, I project managed and over-engineered the hell out of this parenting thing. Alway iterating. Always A/B testing. Always trying to improve my metrics. That's how I personally managed not to get overwhelmed. The other thing to consider is that people have been doing this for thousands of years. If a single teenage parent can do it, I think two 30 something adults with good high-paying jobs can manage. I seem to be having a much easier time than everyone else I know, so maybe this strategy is working. If you want concrete tips: - Learn to change a diaper like a pro. Practice this. It should take 30 seconds for pee diapers. Practice this left and right handed. - Learn to soothe a baby like a pro. Practice this. Try everything. You can learn this. It's not magic. - Wear a carrier so you can do hands-free parenting. In the first few months, the baby spends most of its time sleeping. With a carrier, you can still do things with two hands. - Retrain your sleeping schedule. Don't fight it. Adjust. You'll find you'll have more energy than before with less sleep. - Don't fear co-sleeping, but start crib training as soon as possible (we started at 2 months). Don't expect it to work overnight. Plan for at last 4 weeks of gradual sleep training. - First 3 months are pretty "easy" because the tasks are very straight forward and well-suited for engineering minded people. It gets tough when they can start walking, which happens around 12 months. Then it really gets tough when they start forming opinions around 24 months.