Everyone knows the bond between a mother and her baby is intense, a bond of pure love and necessity. Many times new papas can feel left out of the bonding experience, creating tension in the relationship and leading to feelings of inadequacy. You can’t make breast milk on demand, but there are other ways you can be involved with your bundle of joy. Papa glow extends Beyond dirty diapers and late night feedings when mama is catching up on zzz.

Here are 7 ways you can feel more involved and increase your paternal satisfaction — and glow like mama does.

Skin to skin -  The baby is happiest when connecting skin-to-skin with mama or papa. His temperature, heart, and breathing rates will be more consistent, and his blood sugar more stable. It also allows the baby to get familiar with your scent and your heartbeat becomes a soothing beat for the little one. Spend time bonding, lounge around in your boxers and let the baby rest on your chest while you’re watching TV (just be sure it’s not the playoffs — you don’t want to startle the baby!).

Play games - Make silly faces, play peek-a-boo, sing songs, for your baby. Set aside regular time for baby, whether it’s after work or in the morning. Appoint a special time that’s just for you and the little one, so as the baby grows, this special bonding time becomes part of the daily routine.

Glow time - Glow time is an important concept that I introduce through my book, Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to Your Fabulous Abundant Pregnancy. It’s all about taking personal time to lavish yourself and shine! While mama is taking some alone time to shine and do what she loves, you can have glow time with your baby. This could be a bath time ritual where you shut off phones and dim the lights and enjoy a nice soak with your baby, or baby massage using a nice jojoba oil or calendula baby cream to rub your little one with soothing hands- relaxing the baby and preparing for bedtime so you and mama can have some glow time of your own. Or hit the streets a nice walk outside or a mild hike with the baby in a carrier, babies love the stimulation of being outside in the comfort of your arms.

Take charge - Mama may like things done a certain way and may even school you on how to handle certain tasks when it comes to baby like how to warm a bottle, change a diaper, comfort your baby, etc. But you will develop your own way of doing these things. Rather than let mama step in and “correct you” and show you repeatedly how to do it her way, just keep practicing and you will learn your own technique and shortcuts for newborn care. Communicating that you are fine with handling the baby and taking the initiative without having to be asked is always great too. It gives you more one-on-one time with the baby too.

Slay your checklists - Mama will have a list of things that need to get done and feel overwhelmed at the thought of trying to get through the list. Ask her to delegate some of those tasks to you so you can complete them. Men like to “fix” things and get things done, be productive, etc. When you are able to satisfy her needs and help reduce her stress load by checking off some of her to-do-list she will be thrilled- and when mama is happy everyone is happy. This also satisfies your desire to feel needed, believe me, she needs and wants you around, although she may be madly in love with a new man who’s 7 pounds 11 ounces and 20 inches long.

Keep it movin’ - Babies are used to movement because of moms’ hips moving when they were still in the womb. They feel soothed by movement and grow to have fun with it as well. Whether you’re doing baby bench presses with your infant, or daddy dance party getting your baby to giggle while you’re moving him around is great. Movement also helps increase the baby’s muscle tone, and trains the baby’s proprioceptors — his sense of self in relation to space.

Find papa posse - Find other cool papas who share a similar philosophy, have kids the same age or just provide a listening ear. You may just need to bond with other men who are going through what you are. Having a sense of community and knowing that you are not alone is key. Being a new father can be an isolating experience but certainly doesn’t have to be.

Whether you are a new papa or a veteran in the baby game, it’s always good to learn some new tips to sharpen your skills, build your confidence, and boost your bond with your baby.

Gross headline, I know, but it’s not what you think. This article has nothing to do with my personal bathroom habits. It actually has nothing to do with bathrooms at all, come to think of it. But it does have to do with, well, doo — and our level of familiarity with it that becomes so nonchalant after a few months of parenthood that it’s almost disturbing.

Prior to having a child, if I accidentally got poop on either of my hands in any way, my number one priority at that moment was to, not surprisingly, immediately wash the poop off. You carry this natural habit over with you into your first month or so of parenthood, but you soon realize that it’s simply not feasible. When an ill-fitting diaper meets a jam-packed baby colon, a perfect storm of poo ensues, and there’s almost no way to clean up the biohazard without getting down and dirty. If you stopped to wash off every time you got a smear or smattering of your kid’s present on your hand or arm, changing a diaper would take a half hour.

This isn’t to say that you’ll end up walking around all morning looking like a brown Jackson Pollock painting, it’s just to say that you probably only wash yourself off with soap and water well after your child has been changed, dressed and placed somewhere safe for the moment. Those are three things that you did with poop on you and you didn’t bat an eyelash.

Me? Poop’s never phased me. I lived in a fraternity house in college with plumbing that may or may not have worked for much of my time in residence. And I’ve never understood squeamishness when it came to changing dirty diapers. Yes, they don’t smell like a perfectly smoked bratwurst at a tailgate, but they’re not going to kill you.

In fact, nearly every day, before I go to work, the first three things I do involve number twos (and no, I’m still not referring to my own). I change my daughter (almost always wakes up with a fresh one), put her in the stroller to walk my Labrador (never fails to have something cooking for me to deposit on a neighbor’s lawn) and on some days, even though I loathe having a cat, I change the litter for my wife because I’m a tremendous husband. That means I handle feces from three different species each morning before the “single” version of me would have even gotten out of bed.

Does it bother me? I guess I’d rather not start my day picking up different deuces from different animals and putting them in different bags for disposal, but it’s part of my routine now. One day, when the cat’s gone (it’s pretty old, so soon) and the kid’s potty trained, it’ll be back to just me and my dog and his one single bag full of bowel movement. At that point, I won’t miss the trio of turds I start my days with now, but I’ll look back and know that I performed my doody duty with honor and distinction.

What has surprised you most about life as a new parent?

You’ve heard the terms: sympathy weight, fatherhood fifteen, paternity pounds, dad dough, child chunk (okay, I made that last one up). Whatever you call it, no cute little turn of phrase, play on words or awesome alliteration makes it more acceptable that most new dads pack on weight after they have kids. And you don’t need a psych degree to figure out why this happens.

Between the cravings you end up sharing during pregnancy (for my better half, it was Italian food, Swedish fish and ice cream), the stress, the lack of sleep and the lack of time to exercise after baby arrives, it’s no wonder some guys develop man boobs faster than their wives develop nursing boobs. The question is: As a dad, what are you going to do to stop this from happening to you? (And if you’re a woman reading this, what are you going to do to help your husband?)

For me, this wasn’t an easy question. As someone who has made a career out of writing for magazines like Men’s Fitness and Men’s Health, I’d always taken my workout time for granted. I lifted weights regularly, played basketball a few times a week, swam on a Master’s team, and more. I was probably naive to think that I’d be able to maintain even half of my activities after the arrival of my first daughter, but when it turned out that during the first month or so of being a dad, I was maintaining exactly zero of them, it was a shock to my system. Couple that with the fact that I had the sleeping hours of a first-year med student and I was eating fast food like I was back in college. I was in trouble.

I hit this point about three weeks after the birth of my daughter and that’s when I decided I needed to come up with a plan to somehow squeeze exercise into my new dad life. I needed to get my blood moving so I didn’t feel tired and weak all the time. In order to do this and have any success with it, my plan had to meet these criteria:

1)      It had to fit into my existing schedule.

2)      No equipment would be required.

3)      I would have to be able to get other things done simultaneously.

4)      I’d have to burn calories or build muscle and not burn any time.

5)      The exercises had to be simple and effective.

After examining my schedule, taking stock of my daily activities and poring over a bunch of the fitness articles (ones I’d written!), I developed a plan that worked for me, and that I think every guy can follow to stay in shape. It’s not P90X. It’s not the Insanity workout. It won’t rebuild your body. It is simply a common-sense fitness plan to help you bridge the gap between your “I’m in great shape and about to have a kid” days and your “my kid sleeps all night and I sort of have my life back” days. Ideally, this will help you avoid the “I haven’t worked out or slept in three months, I eat like crap and I’ve gained 15 pounds” days.

The exercises and workouts I came up with are practical and they work. For instance, when you burp your baby, don’t just sit on the couch, do some Burp Lunges across your family room. They’re slow, great for your lower body and core, and they might even help induce the belch you’ve been praying for the last 10 minutes. Or next time you have your child in your Baby Bjorn, do a set of 10-15 body squats as soon as you strap her in. Making these kinds of things habits will turn everyday activities into calorie burners and muscle builders.

I wrote about these ideas and literally dozens more (along with lots of advice) in a book called The Dadvantage: Stay in Shape on No Sleep, with No Time and No Equipment. The book debuted this week in the Top 10 of Amazon’s ‘Fatherhood’ section and it has been climbing every day. No hard sell here. Just thought it might help some other dads out there. If you want to give it a shot (it’s short, meant to be read in one or two sittings) check it out.

Good luck!