Becoming a Dad of Three: Anxiety, Work, and What Really Matters

On the morning of his third son’s induction, Robbie opens up about becoming a dad of three—the fears, the excitement, and the pressure of balancing work, marriage, and raising good humans in 2026. He shares how fatherhood has changed him from baby #1 to baby #3, what he’s worried about (sleep deprivation, time management, money, childcare, work expectations), and why his priorities have shifted from “company first” to “family first.”

This isn’t a how‑to newborn episode. It’s a raw look inside a husband and father’s head a few hours before heading to the hospital: vivid pre‑baby dreams, old anxiety and depression patterns he refuses to let define him, and the tension between being a good employee and being the dad his boys actually need. Robbie talks about being the primary on‑the‑ground parent, negotiating paternity leave, and what it means to work to live, not live to work as a millennial dad.

He also shares how adding baby #2 and now baby #3 has changed everything—from logistics (the “dad bag,” school runs, sports, daycare) to sibling dynamics, and how he and his wife are trying to protect their older boys from feeling like love is a finite resource they have to compete for. That leads into one of the core themes of the show: raising the “Kratty Boys” to be strong, kind, emotionally aware men who can defend others, stand up for what’s right, and still be allowed to be kids.

In this episode, Robbie dives into:

• The emotional reality of adding a third baby as an elder millennial dad
• How his view of work, loyalty, and success shifted after becoming a father
• Balancing work expectations with being the main on‑the‑ground parent
• Helping older siblings feel secure and loved when a new baby arrives
• Trying to raise good men in a world shouting about “toxic masculinity” on one side and “never show emotion” on the other

If you’re a dad (or future parent) wrestling with anxiety about more kids, work‑life balance, or what it means to raise boys well in this culture, this episode is for you.
At the end, Robbie invites you to share your own fears, hopes, and questions about becoming a parent or adding another child—so your stories can shape future episodes of The Unhinged Father Podcast.

Transcript

Robert (00:00)
I'm only a few hours away from the birth of my third son. Today is induction day and I've got some thoughts on becoming a dad, part three.

My name is Robbie and this is the Uninch Father podcast. And before we headed to the hospital, I wanted to sit down, hit record and go over some of the things that are going through my mind at this time and share them all with you.

So for those of you who don't know or haven't been following the podcast, I'm ⁓ an elder millennial dad.

I have two sons right now, a six year old and a three year old and we are about to have our third son and we're super excited, but there's a lot on. We've already got two kids. We're super busy. We moved, we sold the house. We've done a lot of shit in the past year and just add onto the mix having another kid. so there's a lot of things that I'm, I'm thinking about right now. A lot of fears, insecurities, hopes, goals. And as I talked about last

week in terms of just challenge accepted this year making differences that are actually gonna stick and becoming the man that I want to become being the father the husband that I want to be and just not waiting for things to happen to me making sure that I'm going out and getting things done making those changes being the man that God made me to be so today I like I said we are very close to having our third son kids are packed up

Just me and my wife right now. The dogs are being taken care of. We are going into the hospital for an induction just to ensure that my wife gets baby number three out healthy and that she's okay. Baby's okay. But there's a lot of things that have been going through my head. woke up early this morning. It's kind of like that insomnia you get. One thing I will mention, I don't know if any other dads have felt this before or have gotten this going on. I don't know if it's a hormonal change or something like

like that but I've been having such vivid dreams

for the last like two weeks and I'm not sure if it's just like me realizing that the baby's going to be coming subconsciously if I've got some sort of hormonal change. have no clue haven't looked it up haven't researched it. All I know is that I'm waking up in the middle of night with these vivid dreams very detailed very intense dreams as well like waking up in a sweat. So that's just a little side note. I don't know if any other dads have gone through that before if that happened to them as well if so.

let me know. I'd love to know if I'm just a fucking weirdo who has that happen to me. But speaking of these intense dreams that sometimes bring up feelings of fear or insecurities.

I'm going through that right now as well and I've been going through it for for a little while as I mentioned before on this podcast I have struggled with anxiety and depression in the past and I mean it's something when I say in the past I mean that I'm laying on the ground

curled up in a fetal position, crippled by anxiety or depression. I'm not not able to get out of bed, not able to take care of my kids. So those things are still things that I struggle with, things that I have to address and things that I have to work through. But I'm not currently afflicted with a I don't know, ⁓ a clinical diagnosis of any of those things. It's just the normal life, the normal fears, the normal anxieties and depression to come along with being a human being. And so I don't necessarily want to

draw too much attention to them, but just.

Or give them too much power over me and like have them define who I am. It's just more of like a hey, these are here. I'm acknowledging them and they are going to impact my life and just ensuring that I'm doing what I need to do to make sure that they don't take over again that they don't come in and completely railroad what I need to get done. I also don't want to just give him enough power to where I let them define who I am. I'm not the type of person will come up like hey, my name is Robbie. I'm a.

ADHD anxiety depressed person like that's not what I want to lead with. I want to lead with the stuff that is good about me. Those are things that I struggle with. Those are things that are a part of me, but they're not who I am. Anyways, that's another side.

side conversation have maybe something to go into in the future. But for right now, the normal fears and anxieties are coming through. We've already got two. a lot of this stuff is less. I'm actually less anxious about a lot of the stuff that new parents are anxious about, being able to work through getting the kids asleep, knowing when to feed them, changing diapers.

A lot of the like logistical stuff that you don't really know what the fuck you're doing when you have your first kid. Me and my wife have been doing this now for six years. We've had two kids. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty damn good at doing a lot of these things. So I'm not as concerned about that. It's almost like the insecurities and the fears I have now are a lot of them are of the of the unknown, right? I am a little bit afraid of not getting sleep. We've already haven't been sleeping awesome because our three year old has gone through a little bit of a sleep regression.

But now we're going to have this newborn in the house. And I'm praying. I'm like, just please let him be a good sleeper. Our second born was not the best sleeper. But we'll address it when we get there. A couple weeks of no sleep is going to be something that we can persevere through. I'm just not necessarily looking forward to it.

And then, yeah, just the fears more so around like time management, getting kids to school, getting kids to practices. Our older kids are getting older. They're in wrestling or soccer, or they have like other extracurriculars that they want to do. They're in regular school. They don't stay in school or daycare until 5 30 PM anymore. They're coming home at 2 30.

These are all things that I've got to work through. And in our family, my wife is the one who works far away, and I work closer to home. And so trying to balance all of this child care with my job, doing my job, meeting expectations, and ensuring that I'm

hitting the marks in all areas of my life, which I know is impossible. You can't really hit all the marks, but just trying to be the best that I can be and ensuring that I'm not dropping these balls. Those are things that I'm worried about.

it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this or how long you've been a dad or how many kids you've got. I feel like there's always just like an underlying fear of, you know, is the baby going to be OK? Are they going to be healthy? is the birth going to go well? Like, is my wife going to be OK? Is the baby going to be OK?

are my other kids going to be OK right now, right? We're not going to be there to watch them. And I'm not someone who trusts other people with my children lightly. I might be very overprotective when it comes to this, but I'm the type of dad who's like, hey, everyone can come. If they want to come to our house, play, stuff like that, that's great. But I need to know someone very well before I trust them with my children.

And like I said, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but just still having that concern, that protective nature in me that wants to ensure that my children are good. So yeah, I'm a little worried about my own kids. They're all my own kids. My two kids that are already here, how they're going to be doing while we're at the hospital giving birth to the third. And I won't be giving birth. I am unable to do that. I know it's 2025. But I mean, my wife will be giving birth and pretty much carrying.

most of the load for all of us carrying all of the load for our family and essentially given given us a third little blessing in a life that's coming in hopefully later today.

So yeah, those are some of the fears that I've got.

And some of the concerns, the anxieties that are creeping in, balancing work, balancing kids, ⁓ not getting any sleep while trying to do that. I also am going back from leave early because I'm splitting leave this time just out of necessity. I have to split my leave. And so I'm to be going back to work probably still within the thick of like sleep deprivation. And that's going to be be difficult as well, because I've already had conversations with people at work. And ⁓ I'll get into this a little bit.

bit

later but you know that just the there's that concern for you that everyone's kind of got like I'm sure on a personal level but on the business side of things it's kind of like well are you gonna be able to hit the ground running when you come back what are you gonna do to ensure that you're doing what we need you to do when you come back which I get it's a business and it's you know they need to make money corporations need to do well ⁓ so like I understand that but it's there's also like this

I don't know. Sometimes it feels in genuine when they feign like, we actually care about you. But in reality, it's like, OK, you're coming back. You're going to have a six week old. But you need to make sure that like you're in the office every day and that you're hitting all of these goals and making sure that you're doing what we need you to do. So I'll get into that a little bit later. What I wanted to also touch upon is I think just reflecting back on.

Changes from baby one to baby two to baby three and just how I've changed now I was a complete shithead when we had baby one I was not

I was not necessarily the best husband. wasn't necessarily in the best headspace when we had my first son and he really was just a kick in my ass that pushed me along with a few other events that happened during his his early childhood that pushed me to either step up to the plate or to fail as a dad as a husband. And I think that I was able to step up pretty well and it really changed who I am how I think about things.

what my priorities are and what I want out of life. I think I always wanted a lot of the things that I want now, but it just it really said like, okay, like you're not a kid anymore. you're not just looking out for yourself. You have a family. You need to think of things in a more family global type mentality.

And then going from baby one to baby two, one of the things that really changes that like, you know, we were a little cocky.

And when I say we, mean me, I was pretty cocky going into baby two. I'm like, I got this down. I take our son out other places. I'm way better than all those other fucking dads. They can't do shit like I can do. I can work, pack a baby by myself, take care of him for a week by myself if I need to. We're all good. And then we had baby number two and I was able to do a lot of that stuff. I was able to do like a lot of logistics, but it was just ramped up to to a higher level. And then we had changes in the household.

commutes for my wife and I really had to step up and juggling taking care of the baby making sure that I've got everything I've now got a three-year-old a newborn

And it just kind of changed everything. My backpack went from being like a straight backpack to I had to get like a huge one with all the diapers, wipes, snacks, change of clothes. Like now I've got the dad bag that's just dialed in. We can go anywhere. I can grab it. We're good to go. I'm going to have to alter it again now that we have the third coming. But I think it really that baby number two really took it to a different level in terms of like being a dad. And ⁓ it also tested me a lot more because I was more tired.

I was number one, I was older. Number two, was had more expectations of me at work. And number three, I now had the expectations of these two little life forms that both wanted attention that I loved equally but differently and trying to provide for both of them what they needed at the same time was difficult. And I think that that's where

The biggest change is going to come with this number three as well is that they're going to need a lot of care. That's what newborns are. We've been explaining to both of our kids is that newborns eat, poop, cry, sleep.

Sometimes play a little bit, but that's pretty much all they're going to be doing. And we've just been really trying to drive home with the kids that, we are going to be spending a lot of time with the baby. The baby's going to need a lot of our attention. And that doesn't mean that we love you any less. And trying to explain to them that like when you were newborns, we gave you the same love and attention.

And now we have to do it for for your little brother. We have to do that. But just because we do that, does that mean that we love you any less or that you're less important to us? And the older one, he understands now and says, no, but they're still going to struggle with it. They're still going to be growing pains, especially for the three year old who doesn't understand as much. He's already kind of done what our oldest did, regressing a little bit, wanting to be held more. And I say regressing not like in a bad way, but just kind of like

going backwards in terms of not being as independent, wanting more, ⁓ wanting to cuddle more, wanting more hugs, being a little bit more whiny. And that's all completely normal. And just I think for me and my wife, the challenge is going to be providing that love and care to all three of our children and making time even when we are dead tired or

don't really feel like it to spend that individual time with both of our older kids and making sure that they still know even in this time of chaos, even in this time of not getting as much attention as they used to that mom and dad still love them. And that that goes into one of the core things that I think actually when you're raising kids is that love and affection. We talk about like this. ⁓

Conflict between the old school and new school touchy-feely hard-nosed discipline stuff like that. You'll get a lot of times People that

will say you're babying your kids or you're too you're giving them too much love and I will challenge that staunchly. I think that one of the things that causes the most tension between siblings is when love and affection from the parents becomes a finite resource when that is there's only a certain amount of love and care and affection to go around to all of the kids and then they start to compete and not like in your normal like let's go race to that rock and back or who's going to hit the baseball for

or any of the stuff that's like what I would call a normal healthy competition between siblings, right? It's more so like I'm competing for the love and affection of mom and dad. I need to be better than my siblings in order for my parents to love me, in order for me to be safe. And I think that that's going to be the thing that me and, like I said, my wife need to ensure that we are providing that infinite love and care to all three of our children.

regardless of we're able to do some of the other things with them constantly. So that way they don't feel like they need to compete with each other in order to win our love, in order to be worthy of our love. Because I don't want them to have that type of competition. I want them to be on a team together. I want them to compete with each other in a normal healthy way that little boys will do. But I want them to know they don't have to do anything to deserve

to be loved by mom and dad.

So yeah, that's a big one. That's what's gonna be changing, baby one, two, and three, or what I've kind of noticed, and those are some of the big things that I need to ensure that we're doing when we have number three come through.

And that's really going to come down to like the importance of prioritizing what what's important to us. What is necessary? What needs to be done? What do I what do I want in life? What do I want in life? What are my kids? What do my wife want in life? Like what do we want as a family and making sure that we're prioritizing that? And that's this is one thing that when I said I would talk back to come back to the work side of things I've really been noticing over the last couple of years since I've become a dad.

I used to be the guy who was like, work as a family and like everything for the cause and you know, bleed bleed for the company, do anything that you can for for the corporation. And my my thought process has kind of changed on this a little bit and I've had a harder time relating, especially with a lot of the men in my in my organization, a lot of the people that I work with.

because a lot of the men in it are the main breadwinners. And in my household, it's a little bit different. My salary, my work is important, but we made the decision for my wife to go to graduate school to get a really good job. We have to pay those off. She was very ambitious in her career, and we decided to do that. And so for that reason, and because she works far away, I'm the one who takes on the brunt of the day-to-day care of the children. So I try to do that on top of

You know the work that I'm supposed to do and in my organization A lot of the men are the main breadwinners and all they are responsible for and I could be. It's not everyone, but a lot of the people that I've talked to like they are the ones who are responsible for work and the wife is at home taking care of the kids doing everything that.

that needs to be done for them. And in our family, it's a little bit different. So when I have these conversations with them or like I say, like, I'm to be taking leave when my wife is having her baby, they don't say it directly because there's laws in place where they can't say stuff like that. But I get this vibe of like, what are you going to be doing? What do you need to be at home for? Like, what is the need for this? And I've been hearing stories lately of missing birthdays and just like committing to the organization. And my thoughts have changed.

from

just this I guess you would say my priorities of change where I used to envision like the the company as like a family type of unit now I look at it more so as

still having loyalty to the company and still doing my job and giving my best to that. Right. I don't think that any of that has changed, but it's not this undying loyalty. My family is who I have undying loyalty to. My kids are who I have undying loyalty to. I work for them. I go to work for them. I do the things that work for them. And it's not necessarily the organization, but it's like the people at the organization that I'm working for. The organization, the corporation is

It's that it's a corporation. It's not a person. It's not anything individual. It's just it's an entity and it's the people within the organization that I have the loyalty to that I want to do stuff for and so I think just like the priorities. This is one thing that I'm I'm struggling with as well as like. I know I need to work.

I'm not one of those people who's like, just don't need to work. I want people to take care of me. I need to work. I need to do well so that way I can provide for my kids and ensure that our family has a comfortable life. We can do what we want to do. Work to live. Work to live is where I'm at. But at the same time, if those priorities conflict,

And I know that I won't be able to do everything perfect for my children, but I want to do as much as I can to ensure that they have a great childhood that I'm setting them up for success in the future and to ensure that I'm raising good men that will continue to be good men when they're older and can enter the workforce, enter society and continue to, you know, propagate these values, propagate being a good person, have kids of their own, make them be

good people like that's ultimately at the end of the day that's the goal of the human race or at least that's what I think it is is to make society better as we go forward ensure the survival of the human race so.

I may have gotten off on a couple different tangents there, but that's just something that I've struggled with in terms of like prioritizing what's important to me and what's important to my family and the things that I need to get done and working to live, not living to work. And yeah, just that constant struggle. I'm sure there's other parents out there who feel this struggle, who feel like they don't necessarily, especially if you work in an organization where not everyone has kids, a lot of the people are younger. They don't have the same priorities as you. Just that feeling.

of being at odds sometimes with the needs of work and the needs of family.

And on that last part that I touched about, and this will probably be the end of the episode here, I'm starting to lose my voice and really got actually getting ready to go to the hospital soon, ⁓ is just that when I was talking about raising men, and I've got three boys, so obviously I'm raising men, not women, but raising them to be good human beings and to be good quote unquote men, to.

be the type of people that will enter society and will contribute to it and will make it a better place. And I think that that is something that can be a little bit of a struggle. Raising men in this day and age can sometimes be a little bit of a struggle. And I don't say that in like the woe is me and like, oh, society is just going downhill. Get off my, get off my lawn, shake my cane at people. But there are these two sides that I really don't fall within either one of them completely. I've got

the one side that's all about it's toxic masculinity. Don't don't be don't be a man being a man is bad. Don't hold the door open for people. Don't don't have any of those old school chivalrous chivalrous don't be chivalrous. Don't do the things that were held up like when people say like this is what being a man was in the past.

None of those values are valuable anymore. That's all a dead dying breed. Men don't need to be powerful. Men don't need to be strong. Men don't need to be any of these things. You've got this whole side that just is essentially like, you know, shitting on all that. And then you've got the other side that's just like, yeah, my boys are, know, they punch each other and they'll beat up your kid and, you know, don't hug them. Don't let them have emotion. Don't let them talk about their emotions like.

mean, that side's fucked too. That's what caused a lot of people to have to like go into therapy in the first place, which we probably overcorrected for. you know, there's these two sides that I'm constantly hearing. And I don't know if it's in the real life or if it's just like social media, if they're just feeding this shit into the algorithm. And I'm hearing, both sides of it, but I don't fall.

in either one of those categories, right? I think we've talked about it before how I value old school mentality and new school mentality and blending both of them together to ensure that I'm giving my kids what they need and to just be the best dad, be the best husband, be the best person that I can be. And for me, I still hold on to this idea of raising strong children, raising strong boys who

I think I've talked about it in past episodes. My nickname was Kratty We call the boys, they're called the Kratty boys. And we keep on telling them like, Hey, Kratty boys.

There's three of you now, but like, what does that mean to be a Kratty boy? And my, my eldest son, he's like, it means that you help people. It means that you are nice. It means that you take care of people. It means that you stand up for people. And I always say it's kind of like being a superhero, which maybe is like, a little narcissistic or a little bit prideful, but I don't mean it in the way of like, you're better than other people. I mean it in the way that like, as a Kratty boy, as, a, a boy in this family, and I've only got

boys and if I had a girl we'd probably come up with something to incorporate her as well but for our family as a Kratty boy you are held to a higher standard not because you're better than other people but because we are going to be the best that we can be we are going to be nice we are going to take care of others we are going to defend other people if they're being bullied or if they're being picked on in that I feel like that characterization it kind of touches on

Both sides, right? It's it's in the middle. It's you are a strong Kid, you're a strong boy. You can defend other people you can defend yourself You can stick up for what's right, but at the same time you don't have to like you're not a dick you're not going around fighting other people hitting other people or just coming down on them because

you disagree with them or you don't like what they're saying. There's a middle road for a lot of this. And I think I'm trying to navigate what that truly means. And so far I've gotten this, the Kratty Boys is kind of like the...

The thing we're going with right now, and I'm sure that my ideas and things will change as certain topics or issues come up, but it's really just how do I navigate going through and instilling this character, this value into my children and raise good men, raising good men in 2026. And they're not men yet. I'm also going to let them be kids. I struggle with sometimes treating that because I do hold them to a higher standard.

I sometimes fall into the trap of treating them older than they are and I need to be mindful of that. I need to ensure that I'm letting my kids be kids. Let them be kids. Let them have their childhood. But at the same time, start to instill these values and

these characteristics, just this idea and this mindset of being a good person. So that way they have this foundation laid. And when they come across different issues when they're older, they can make the decisions based on those values. Like they have some sort of controversial issues pop up in their life.

What are the things that they fall back on? Is it that I just listen to what other people say? Or is it I make my decision based on what I know I believe what I know is right? And do I come down on other people or fight people for that or anything like that? No, I'm not going to sit here and be a dick and try to impose my will on other people just for the fact the mere fact of imposing my will on them.

but I'm going to defend what I feel like is right. I can make the right decisions. And I'm hoping that that sets him up for success. I don't know. We'll see. More to come on that one. But.

That's really it. That's a lot of the stuff that's been going through my mind as we are here on the morning of induction.

Baby number three is inbound very shortly. I'm very excited to meet him. I know his brothers are very excited to meet him, but these were just some things that I wanted to touch upon. I wanted to get an episode out. It's been super busy. This is the first morning. I don't have kids crying or screaming all over me. And so I was able to just sit down, talk about this

Now that I've gotten it all out there, I want to hear from you. I want to know. I actually got some responses from the last podcast, and I've got some episodes that are to be coming out that are directly related to what was said in the podcast.

They had some ideas. They wanted me to talk about certain things, and I'm going to do that in the future. But I want to hear from you if you are currently a parent or if you're going to become a parent or even if you're just thinking that maybe someday I'm going to become a parent. I want you to DM me or email me or go on Instagram and send me a message. Whatever way, there's even a little button at the end of this episode in the description on Spotify and other platforms that say, like, send a message about the show.

I want you to let me know what some of your fears are, what some of your hopes are. ⁓

maybe what some of the anxieties are about anything that you have about either being a parent or becoming a parent or even just like I don't know if I want to become a parent and these are some of the concerns I have about becoming a parent. I would love to hear from you on that. Please send me a message. Let me know. I'd love to share some of those stories or some of those ideas on the podcast with other people and see if they can benefit from it. So that is going to do it for this week's episode. I really appreciate all of you being here.

I'm gonna be off going to have baby number three by the time you listen to this he will probably already be here

So please send out good vibes if you're religious, pray for us.

that we have a safe delivery, that my wife is OK, that the baby's OK. But I hope that all of you have a fantastic week. Hopefully you have enjoyed this episode. you have, if you feel like it was a good message or you had some good ideas in there, definitely share it with friends, family members that you think would enjoy either the show itself or would benefit from hearing that message. I really appreciate it. Other than that.

Have a good one. Have a great start to the new year, and I will see you all in a few weeks.