Original data study
What does a new dad's checklist actually contain? We counted.
How this was built
Every task in our 22-entry week-by-week checklist library is tagged with one of 6 categories at authoring time. This page counts those tags directly from the library's source data; nothing here is a survey or someone else's study. It is a look at what our own checklist actually asks a new dad to do, and how that mix changes over the first year.
Verified against the current library.
What the data shows
Total tasks
120
Largest category
32
Appointments & paperwork
Tasks per newborn-week entry
6.8
weeks 0 to 12, average
Tasks per later-month entry
3.4
months 4 to 12, average
The newborn weeks carry noticeably more tasks per entry (6.8 on average) than the later months (3.4), which matches what the checklist is trying to reflect: the first twelve weeks are logistically dense in a way the rest of the first year is not. "Appointments & paperwork" is the single largest category across the whole library at 32 tasks, ahead of every other category.
Tasks by category
| Category | Tasks | Share of total | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appointments & paperwork | 32 | 26.7% | First Dad Guide checklist library, verified 2026-08-28 |
| Partner care | 29 | 24.2% | First Dad Guide checklist library, verified 2026-08-28 |
| Night-shift logistics | 16 | 13.3% | First Dad Guide checklist library, verified 2026-08-28 |
| Feeding support | 15 | 12.5% | First Dad Guide checklist library, verified 2026-08-28 |
| Visitor management | 15 | 12.5% | First Dad Guide checklist library, verified 2026-08-28 |
| Household & gear | 13 | 10.8% | First Dad Guide checklist library, verified 2026-08-28 |
Category mix by phase
| Category | Newborn weeks (0 to 12) | Months 4 to 12 |
|---|---|---|
| Night-shift logistics | 15 | 1 |
| Feeding support | 15 | 0 |
| Appointments & paperwork | 22 | 10 |
| Visitor management | 15 | 0 |
| Partner care | 20 | 9 |
| Household & gear | 2 | 11 |
Limitations
- This describes the contents of our own checklist library, not a survey of what dads actually do; it is a transparency page about our own editorial choices, not a population study.
- Category assignment is a single editorial judgment call per task; a different editor might occasionally split a task differently between two adjacent categories.
- This is not a ranking of which category matters most for any individual family; it only counts what our checklist covers.
Read the methodology behind our editorial process, or start with the week checklist tool.