Then Comes Baby

Book excerpt: Greg and Lisa Popcak—popular Catholic authors, radio hosts, and marriage and family experts—present this unique guide to caring for one’s baby, self, marriage, and spiritual life in the first three years of parenthood. In Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Three Years of Parenthood, Greg and Lisa Popcak lend readers the benefit of their twenty-five years’ experience in parenting and marriage and family counseling to help them navigate the earliest years of parenthood. They recommend rituals, routines, and tips on how to manage feeding, fatigue, and finances and how also to prioritize marital bonding and faith life, suggesting that setting the pattern early will pay dividends later. The Popcaks coach Catholic couples as they become first-time parents as they adjust to their new identities and help them face the inevitable challenges of parenthood with ideas for bonding with babies and getting sufficient sleep and nutrition—all while seeing these everyday experiences through the lens of Catholic teaching on the purpose of family life.