Whether you’ve played sports or watched on TV, you’ve heard a coach or a player preaching about teamwork. I’ve tried to use some of those teaching off of the playing field. Most recently while my wife and I have been raising our daughter.

Pregnancy is pretty one side when it comes to distribution of work. Your wife grows the baby, then pushes it out after hours sometimes days of daunting painful labor (so I’ve heard). Then a magnificent tiny human being pops out and you’re rushed with emotions.

Now, is the first time after 9 months where the workload of raising a kid starts to shift and balance out. As fathers we now have the opportunity to pitch in more than before (insert punny sport quote).

This is where you and your spouse will have to be a TEAM. The thing about teams is that everyone has to do their part if to be successful. And sometimes you or your teammate may have to do more in order to make up for the areas the other is falling behind on (I don’t want to use that phrase because a postpartum female isn’t falling behind).

Spend a few minutes on Google looking up the recovery process for a postpartum mother and I’m sure you’d be just as astonished as me. Perhaps you’d even ask yourself “how do women do it?” It can take months even years for your wife to fully recover from giving birth. And all while recovering she’ll be caring for a new born baby. She’ll be sleep deprived, and breast feeding so often it my feel like a second job.

This is where as a good teammate I found it most helpful to take on as much as humanly possible. Obviously, I am unable to breast feed but I was able to feed our baby from a bottle. I made it a priority to do the chores around the house. I assisted with getting our kid back to sleep as often as possible (without collapsing from sleep deprivation). I went food shopping, I cleaned, I helped with preparing meals. The list goes on. It was challenging. But I knew that was a phase in our lives where I needed to step up and carry more of the workload while my wife recovered from giving birth. That is the mark of a good team. Doing the hard work that makes the team successful when your teammate physically can’t do it themselves or they need a little break. Raising a kid takes a community. It is a team sport. Be a good teammate.

-Anonymous