Becoming a parent is rough at firsr. Yet in all the initial chaos there is a protocol to get there and sub protocols nested to hell. / months in , here is my playbook ive built to help. All advise is illustrative but this was missainnfrom my insticcfion manual.
The rhythms start with the end of a halycon era. You go around taking advantage of the last child free days. You know something big is coming, but not quite everything.
From there, you go into labour suddenly and pure adrenaline.
We’ve thought that other parents don’t tell you the sheer brutality of it otherwise you’ll never do it. We joked with a friend who said shhh don’t tell the other girls otherwise they wont join us.
We already know the net sum of too much advice becomes zero.
Becoming a parent has reshaped every aspect of my life. This must’ve been how post-revolution French peasants felt getting the decree from Paris of a new 10-day week. The revolution, like my child, was welcome, but the new lifestyle wasn’t. The revolution had be desperately trying to cling to aspects of my old life. During my wife’s pregnancy, it was easy to take an extra day off to write at a cafe, or bike along the riverfront. This was under the pretext of enjoying the last free days, but it really was disguised denial.
This denial is common amongst revolutionaries as well. Those leading one revolution try to resist the next.
Martin Luther and Copernicus each forked the dominant protocols in their respective domains. Martin Luther revolted against the mighty Catholic church in his Ninety-five theses. Copernicus taught us the Earth revolved around the Sun in ‘On The Revolutions…’
Here are Martin Luther’s called Copernicus an “upstart” and a “fool” for trying to ""reverse the entire science of astronomy.” His society had layered on progressively absurd band-aids to keep believing in the geocentric universe. He tried in vain to hang onto them.
I am now a parent. There was a before and after, and the juxtaposition is teaching me things. Here’s what it’s currently teaching me 5 weeks in:
Words Can’t Prepare You
As news of your impending arrival cascades, people give you advice. They warn you of an instant decentralization of self, but it’s a hard concept to grasp as a pre-dad. I was raised to prioritize myself and my aims. To be agentic and primary. But one day I fell in love and replicated half my genes and am now secondary in an instant. Your purpose is to nurture new life and you are woefully unequipped.
All the advice is illustrative, not instructional.
Refer to the “second mountain” idea (David Brooks) — childbirth as first summit, early parenthood as the hidden peak.
Use the triathlon analogy: trained for one event, thrown into another mid-race. what order are triathlons done in?
Your old life will be shattered into pieces. From the beginning you are training for one battle, when another one is just as, if not moreso challenging. The 2nd mountain behind the first one (pregnancy and childbirth) - mention the book that uses this motif
In an era of prenatal classes, equal partnerships, delivery feels like something you can prepare for. However, the joint challenge of delivery followed by early parenthood feels like you spent all your time as a couple preparing for a marathon and then hopped right into a triathlon afterwards cold.
All the tropes and wisdom I got is true, but unsatisfactory. This included not sleeping, being in a bubble, live changing forever.
Parenthood isn’t just your life’s biggest project. It is relearning how to live. The old protocols of my life were built over decades to support my personal development. They have had to be disintegrated to allow for new ones to emerge, focussed on developing a new life.
Huberman made protocols famous - they are regimented instructions for basic living.
Introduce the “protocol” concept à la Huberman — disciplined systems to sustain life.
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Your old protocols: time-bound, goal-oriented, self-focused.
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New protocols: nested in care, unpredictability, two-hour loops.
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Breakdown:
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Self-focused protocols: sleep (when possible), shared duties, micro-habits, time management.
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Child-focused protocols: feed, change, comfort — like a divine loop every 2 hours.
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Use of tracking tools to bridge old self (data-driven) with new life (nurturing-driven).
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My new protocols includes self-focussed and child-focussed. In self-focussed I include my wife. They include sleep, prioritization, time management and networks
The child focussed ones include sleep, diapers, food, stacking.
Charting is helping keep track of these.
My life used to be heliocentric. A 24-hour stretch of a day was the main scaffolding for everything I did. I had a morning, a day and an end. I’ve switched from heliocentric to a much smaller loop. This one lasts about two hours. The structure: a wail from afar, a diaper to be changed, a mouth is fed, a warmth is felt and then 90 minutes to do with as you can. Nothing more, and often less. This restarts every two hours, no matter the position of the sun, stars or Venus. If I sleep, that sleep is within the confines of this cycle. This is my new day, and I get 12 of them within my old day.
My old habit tracker has been subsumed by a new one. No more personal trainer or journalling sessions. Now I am counting diapers, feedings and milk production. Old habits die hard and it’s still data so I’ve built spreadsheets, shared note docs and recurring tasks to stay on top of it. This I do with joy as it links old life with new.
These new days will slowly stretch over the years to overlap with the old orbits, but when they do, it’ll feel longer than it ever did before. Noe a new satellite with share our orbit.
- The remapping of the brain
- heliocentrism - daily cycles
- helplessness
- peace being gone
- a new first priority at all times
The Three Phases
The Warzone
No stress, pure stress.
Raw survival mode. Chaos, noise, no rhythm. Adrenaline and bewilderment.
The Spreadsheet Phase
keeping track of so many stats, and triple feedings being treated like a Nascar pit crew ethos - look into the ethos of actual pit crews
Introducing order: logging feeds, diapers, weight. Treating care like a systems engineer or F1 pit crew.
- (Optional: Pull a quote or ethic from pit crews to emphasize precision under pressure.)
The now what? phase -
learning she’s gaining weight again properly and that we can throw out the timer and the activity log. Back to Intuition, but in a reset life
Milestone: baby’s gaining weight; protocol easing.
- Return to intuition — the fog lifts slightly, space re-emerges.
6. Remapping the Brain
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Describe how time itself shifts — from 24-hour heliocentric to 2-hour microcycles.
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Personal identity reshaped: you, your partner, and now a third satellite in orbit.
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The rewiring of urgency, empathy, and attention.
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Peace is gone, but so is superficiality.
What Is The Throughline for yourself?
Amid demolition, certain foundation stones hold:
- Training habit stuck: re-engaging with your trainer.
- Micro-journaling persisted: your reflective muscle is intact.
- These remnants show what parts of your identity were deeply rooted vs surface-level.
The scaffolding - your old life was made up of a foundation and superstructures. The superstructures are levelled in the wake but the foundations remain. This shows if you were a serious person for long enough before, as the most important stuff to you should have stuck around and been imprinted.
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i had a trainer for 2 years before, now i’m back on with her for 30 minutes twice a week - i was compelled to do this while it was still a big time commitment and I was sleeping 2 hours a night. That’s because it was part of me.
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Journaling - i built a 2 minute journalling ritual that has remained part of me before and after
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What do I feel at the end of this week? It’s probably too soon to have a wide-lens summation on the new remapping of my brain. But at the very least, it does feel like a new life. The old life feels like it was a bit of a dream, or a gestalt, looking in the rear-view mirror. And this new life seems largely unfamiliar. The positive is that while it is unfamiliar, it is a new life full of possibility, wonder, and an open road with a new third companion. And I can’t wait to live it.
8. Closing Reflection: The New Life Begins
- Acknowledge that this is just the beginning — too early for sweeping conclusions.
- The “dream” of the old life fades as a new, uncertain, but magical world opens.
- End on a note of wonder and commitment — the revolution is ongoing, but this is now home.