It is mid-morning on a Saturday, during Hour 2 of a three-hour-plus Daddy Boot Camp class at Princeton Health’s Community Wellness location in Princeton Junction, N.J.
The star attractions are 7-month-old Eleanor and 4-month-old Freddy, but they let their daddies — Jim Tramontano and Chris Van Volkenburg — direct the action.
Seventeen men, including 16 soon-to-be dads and one father whose wife delivered early a few days ago, sit cross-legged in two wide circles on the floor. Tramontano and Van Volkenburg visit one circle at a time, answering questions, sharing experiences, and, most importantly, making secure baby handoffs from one classmate to another.
The facilitator, Greg Barron, decked out in camouflage fatigues, floats between the two groups, pausing from time to time to work with the veteran dad to demonstrate a specific technique, such as how to support a newborn’s head and neck.
Barron, an EMT who works as a health educator for Princeton Health, says having veteran dads and their newborns (2 to 9 months old) in class is crucial because it gives the dads-to-be an opportunity for hands-on learning and exposes them to positive role models.
“We provide rookie dads-to-be with something they get nowhere else — an understanding of the job they need to do and the confidence to do it well,” Barron says. “The veteran dads share stories of how they navigated the first few months of parenthood, and the rookies see them and they realize, ‘Yeah, I can do this, too.’”
Community Wellness provides an extensive array of childbirth and parenthood preparation programs, including parenting skills training, prenatal breastfeeding classes, and specialized offerings such as Grandparenting 101 and a sibling class to help prepare older brothers and sisters for a new baby. Daddy Boot Camp is a bimonthly, men-only workshop that Princeton Health has provided for 12 years — the only course of its kind available in New Jersey.
Barron, who has achieved Master Coach certification for Daddy Boot Camp, hopes participants take away three crucial messages:
1. Getting (and Staying) Involved
Fathers should get involved well before the baby’s arrival, whether that means painting the baby nursery, installing the car seat and having it checked by an expert, or making extra meals to freeze for nights after the baby is born when both parents will be too tired to cook. After the baby is born, dad should remain as involved as possible in caring for his child — changing diapers, giving baths, making meals.
“Being engaged from pregnancy through the diaper years sets the foundation for a man to be an involved, active father for life,” Barron says.
2. Parenting as a Team
The coach and often the veteran dads will emphasize teamwork and supporting your partner. When the baby cries in the middle of the night, wanting to be fed, get up and help. Be the “baby taxi.”
Each parent will tend to hold, burp, and play with their babies differently, and that is a good thing, Barron advises. Babies learn from the parents’ different techniques and style.
3. Soothing a Crying Baby
Barron provides some tried-and-true tricks to soothe a crying baby, such as singing, reading aloud, baby massage, taking a car ride or placing the baby in a stroller.
Still, he says, there will be times when the baby will not stop crying and you cannot figure out why. That is when the “20/20 Rule” comes into play. Say you have checked every possible reason for discomfort and your efforts to soothe the baby have failed. After 20 minutes or so, as you feel yourself getting frustrated, walk away. Hand off the baby, or place him in his crib, and take a 20-minute break.
“It’s OK to be frustrated,” Barron says. “It’s what you do when you’re frustrated that matters.”
Van Volkenburg, who graduated from Daddy Boot Camp last fall, before Freddy was born, said that was one of the most important lessons he learned from the class. Another realization from his class was how valuable it is to have veteran dads and babies in the room.
“When I went as a participant, the dad could only be there for a short time, and I know I would have gotten more out of it if there had been more time with them,” Van Volkenburg says. “So now that Freddy is here, I wanted to volunteer to be a veteran dad and pay it forward to the other dads.”
Tramontano volunteered to be a veteran dad after his wife learned about Daddy Boot Camp when she attended Bright Beginnings, a free, weekly social and educational session for new parents and their babies provided by Community Wellness.
“My No. 1 lesson for the fathers-to-be: Relax. Try not to stress,” Tramontano says. “Babies can sense fear, and your stress rubs off on them. You won’t do everything perfectly, but the better your state of mind, the better you can support your partner and child.”