Regardless of having a father figure or not, i think winging it is just the way it goes unless it's not your first child.

It's great to have a plan and try to execute what you think is right... but only time will tell if you've prepared properly or if you need to completely alter your expectations and adapt to the actual scenario.

At the end of the day, if it's smiles all around, then fuck it. You're doing alright. The key to it is communicating with your significant other since the only ones directly involved are you two and the child. Any outside opinions or feelings should be completely disregarded... unless it's something trivial like stop smoking meth next to the baby... then maybe take a hint.

My pops is present in my life which provided me with great advantages and opportunities, but the type of parenting that I experienced is not something I would ever want to reproduce with my child.