By Ofelia Saenz, Staff Writer
Although becoming a new parent can be an exciting time, it can also be frightening, and because parenting classes tend to focus on Mom, Long Beach Memorial Miller Children’s Hospital has begun offering classes to help expectant dads deal with the fears of fatherhood as well as educating them on daddy basics.
Boot Camp for New Dads is a unique father-to-father community based workshop that inspires and equips men of different economic levels, ages and cultures to become confidently engaged with their infants, support their mates and personally navigate their transformation into dads, according to the nonprofit organization’s Web site at www.BootCamp ForNewDads.org.
The program has been offered at Memorial Hospital for a about a year and was modeled after the classes offered at Saddleback Memorial Hospital, according to Clinical Operations Manager Bonnie Henson. Henson is also the head of perinatal education.
Recent father Tim Majka took part in the boot camp last year before the birth of his daughter. He said, before taking the class he had never even held a newborn infant.
“The whole idea of having a baby was so foreign to me,” Majka said. “[The class] gave me a lot of confidence.”
Majka now volunteers as a boot camp teacher and brings his 10-and-a-half-month-old daughter with him.
Some topics covered include changes in mom, finances, handling baby, the birthing process and dealing with relatives.
Majka said the boot camp helps dads understand what they’re experiencing is normal.
“We’re all kind of in the same boat,” Majka said. “We all have the same fears,”
The all-guy environment (all instructors are male and no females more than two feet tall are allowed in the room during boot camp) facilitates a sort of locker-room atmosphere meant to make the men feel comfortable in communicating with each other.
“The fact that they show up [for the class] shows a lot,” he said. “That they’re in this class at all means they’re going to be fine.”
The next Boot Camp for New Dads Long Beach Memorial Miller Children’s Hospital is scheduled for Saturday, June 23, from 10 a.m. to noon. For more information, call (800) 636-6742 or visit www.memorialcare.org.
