My son is now just over one week old. Entering fatherhood has been a real adjustment but I am surprised at just how much that initial adjustment has been far less difficult than I expected. I know there will be far more difficult days ahead and days that I am still not prepared for. But I do believe the moment I saw my newborn son an instinct kicked in which made the sense of being completely unprepared feel much less. Beforehand me and my wife had taken an antenatal course and I joined an expectant fathers workshop group. Despite both, I still felt unprepared for what would arrive as theory, in parenting and many other things, is often very different to the practicality.
I did not expect to be so paranoid
I never thought that the biggest worry for my newborn son would be the frequency, consistency and volume of his nappy contents – but it is! I have been an uncle several times before I became a father and from a distance I saw my siblings raising their children. Having your first child is always an anxious, nerve-wracking experience filled with worry. I thought because I knew these worries were very unlikely to occur that I would be far less likely to worry excessively when my own son was born. I was wrong. In only one week I have found myself worrying about; the frequency and consistency of my son’s nappy contents and whether he is sleeping, feeding and breathing okay. As confirmed by our midwife after our home visit, there are no problems in any of these areas. But being unusually paranoid in the early days is normal and to be expected for any new parent.
Doing an antenatal course was invaluable
It is said that nothing can prepare you for being a parent and I believe this is true. But I am so glad that me and my wife took antenatal classes before our son was born. They taught us small tips and tricks to looking after a newborn baby that would not be immediately obvious to us without having done the course. These skills have made being a new parent a far easier experience. An additional benefit of doing these classes was to meet other expectant parents who are fairly local to us.
Sleep deprivation
It is true what everyone says – having a baby means having far less sleep. Me and my wife are getting less sleep but we are figuring out ways to manage this and have figured out how to minimise the disruption to our nights. This means each of us taking shifts to have an afternoon nap while the other looks after baby, and getting our son into a pre-bed routine to align with our own bedtime; nappy changing, duller lights turned on, pre-bed feed and clothes change. We also have started using while noise to relax our son which helps him and us get a good night’s sleep. At the moment we are being woken up for feeds and/or nappy changes no more than twice a night.
Joining a dad group has been so helpful
As well as joining an antenatal course with my wife, I also joined an expectant dads’ course which I signed up for after discovering it while attending the The Baby Show in London this autumn. The course, run by Dadvengers, is setup in a workshop format with discussions in a small group around different subjects of being a father. The group has been a great support, both in the sessions and in the ongoing WhatsApp chat we are in. It has made me feel far more prepared for fatherhood than I would have been had I not taken the course and provided ongoing support in the challenges of being a new father.
When you tell people you and your partner are expecting a baby, many people offer their advice. The advice is well-meaning but tends to focus on how to deal with and overstates the negative – the lack of sleep, lack of free time, limited social life and all the disgusting details of nappy changing. Another regular nugget of valid advice I have heard is to cherish the baby phase because it goes by so very quickly. What people don’t always focus on is the positives of being a new parent and how rewarding it is. Already I’m loving the bonding time I’m getting with my newborn son and seeing him grow and change day-by-day, and all the laughs, smiles and happy tears me and my wife have had since our baby boy arrived.