Parentwonder.com has a list of 30 tips for new fathers, before, during and after delivery.
Of the range of items on the list, a few stand out to me.
 3.    The lovely foot rub: Fluid retention and swollen legs are par for the course in pregnancy.  A foot rub can be as valuable as a diamond necklace to a pregnant woman, especially if it’s done with love.  Similarly, a shoulder massage or even allowing her some time off her feet will be just as welcome.
My wife loves foot massage and always feels much better after I give her one. The problem is …read more

InsideMotherhood posted about an article she read on MSNBC about the 12 most germy places. It’s a quick study in epidemiology and where we pick up the germs that make us sick.
A few interesting entries were a wet load of laundry, women’s purses and playgrounds. It’s definitely quick read.

Parentwonder.com has compiled a detailed list of 36 free, downloadable e-books on a range of parenting topics. The list is a great resource for any parent and features links from a variety of sites around the web.
Broken out into a variety of subjects, the free PDFs fall into categories such as general parenting tips, teen parenting, breastfeeding, family finance, child education, single parents, food and nutrition and among others, being a dad!

Seeing as how many toys end up in kids mouths, it’s important to make sure that:
1. the toys are not from China
2. the toys are clean
While making sure that things are relatively clean is clearly important, what if the cleaning agent itself is harmful to a child? Over at GNMParents.com they’ve got a great post on cleaning kids toys naturally. In addition to these simple clean up steps, many people have the natural cleaning trifecta of lemon juice, vinegar and baking soda already in their homes.
If you’re worried about dust mites in things like stuffed animals, freeze them in …read more

I keep track of my unborn baby’s progress using a couple handy and free internet tools.
The most graphically entertaining is the Baby ticker from babystrology.com. By simply filling in your due date, name and number of babies you’re provided with the HTML required to make this magic happen. The image (right) is how your baby ticker appears, except with the live version he or she floats around in a little viscous fluid. I find it very interesting to watch him progress over time, as the icon matures appropriately with respect to fetal age.
The second tool I use is the “My …read more

Also spotted on BadDadRadio.com, the Lockdown Alert service notifies you of emergencies and disruptive events in your school district that might effect your child. These disruptive events include things that happen at the school (e.g. phoned in bomb threat) to situations in the vicinity (e.g. a shooting nearby).
Lockdown Alert works with almost any pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, special education or vocational public school in the United States. Simply choose the school for which you want to be alerted and enter your cell phone number or email address.
You do not need to supply any personal information. …read more

Bad Dad Radio has some information on getting alerts from the AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) System free to your wireless phone.
“…a state-wide alert is issued when an abducted child, age 17 years or younger, is reported to a local law enforcement agency. By quickly distributing information to the public, citizens may be able to report critical information to local law enforcement.”
I was not aware that this wireless service existed, but it sounds like a great method for helping to locate missing children seeing as how just about everyone in the world has a cell phone with them at …read more

The National Fatherhood Initiative has a listing of the top fatherhood facts. As I looked over the list I was immediately struck by how negative the list is. It focuses primarily on the side effects of bad fathers and broken homes rather than the positive influence of involved and caring dads. I’m just rather surprised that a group which is essentially a father’s advocacy group would put out a list that reads as though it was written by a jilted single mother.
That said, the last of the top ten was informative and worth mentioning:
Children with involved, loving fathers …read more

Part of being an expectant father is damage control, putting out the hormonally fueled fires that may crop up at any moment. Pregnancy is an emotional time for everyone, even if you aren’t the one with whom hormones aren’t wreaking havoc.
Seeing as how the father is not the one in the midst of the biochemical tantrum, he should help calm the pregnant mother when she is in melt down mode. As I’ve mentioned before, the mere sight of Oprah will cause a woman to burst into tears. For the most part those types of episodes are usually crocodile tears, but …read more

A little while back I mentioned how much I like Google Calendar for staying on top of my busy schedule. Now there’s another offering from the Internet juggernaut that I recommend for any of you who want to share digital pictures with friends and family. Picasa, Google’s photo management system, provides the best of the online and desktop worlds by integrating web functionality with desktop photo management software.
Picasa catalogs digital images on your machine and offers file management, editing and image effects like red-eye reduction to help you spruce up your snapshots. Once you’re done getting them all finished …read more