Becoming a dad was both the best and scariest thing I’ve ever chosen to do. For my post this week, I’m going to talk about going from a Rob to a daddy.
From the get go, I want to make one thing clear: all babies are different and all parents are different. I don’t presume to know the circumstances of all parents, so I can’t speak for them. The following is based on my own personal experience and won’t necessarily apply to everyone. Anyway, let’s dive in…
The birth of my daughter, Nala, was an extremely surreal experience. The memories of it are simultaneously very clear, but also a bit of a blur. It’s really difficult to describe. Nala came into the world curious; as soon as she was handed to us, her eyes were open and she was looking around at everything she could. She couldn’t wait to see the world.
But wait she would. We had to stay in the hospital for three days before we could go home. There were two reasons for this:
- Ours was a high-risk pregnancy, and even though everything went as well as possible, they like to keep high-risk mums in a bit longer for observation.
- There was a ‘problem’ with getting Nala to feed.
Now, this feeding problem wasn’t a real problem. Let me explain. During pregnancy, we decided to breastfeed Nala. In those first couple of days in the hospital, Nala wasn’t quite latching on properly, so she wasn’t getting enough to eat. To mitigate this, the nurses gave us some formula milk to give to her from a little cup every now and again. On our shared ward, we saw families come in after us and leave before us. We wondered just what the hell was going on. When we enquired about it, we were told that all of the other mums were bottle feeding their babies. As such, they had proven that they could feed their babies and were allowed to be discharged. Upon finding this out, we told them that we were going to bottle feed Nala, they saw us successfully give her a couple of bottles and we were eventually discharged too. The most baffling part of all of this is that it can take babies up to 12 (twelve!) weeks to properly get breastfeeding. We only found this out a few weeks after we left the hospital. Nala got the hang of it at around 10 weeks’ old.
Quick sidebar: Whether you choose to breastfeed or bottle feed your baby, don’t let anyone shame you. There are pros and cons to both methods, but both are perfectly safe for babies (allergies etc. notwithstanding). Do what you feel comfortable with.
So anyway, we were discharged. “Great news”, I thought. But what was I thinking? This wasn’t great news at all! We didn’t know the first thing about raising a baby! I spent the entirety of the time packing up the car – and eventually carrying Nala down to the car in her car seat – thinking, “They’re surely not going to just let us walk out of this hospital with a baby.” I kept waiting for a nurse or someone to tap me on the shoulder and to say that there had been a mistake and that we’d have to stay after all. Alas, no. We were out of there. I spent the majority of the time in the hospital just hoping we could go home. It wasn’t until we were about to leave that I realised the safety net was being taken away. It was all of my wife and I’s shoulders now.
But before we could start our new home life, we had to get home. Let me tell you, the terror I felt on that journey was unlike anything I’d ever experienced behind the wheel before. Other motorists appeared to be zooming past at light speed, whilst I trudged along as carefully and as slowly as I could. By some miracle, we made it home unscathed.
At this point, I should acknowledge how fortunate my family is. Both my wife and I have fairly big extended families and a good network of friends. Plenty of people helped us out in the first few weeks (and beyond), whether that was practical help or advice. Not all new parents have this support network around them, so we’re definitely lucky in that regard. Though on the subject of advice, new parents should brace themselves for an absolute barrage of it coming their way. Most of it is helpful, some not so much. You’ll probably quite quickly find that nearly everybody has an opinion on all aspects of child rearing.
The other place you’ll get advice is online. You may want to look up whether your baby’s behaviour is normal (why won’t she stop crying?!). You may want to look up tips on night time routines (why won’t she sleep?!). You may want to look up dietary guidelines (is her poo supposed to be that colour?!). Whatever you’re looking up, proceed with caution; at the risk of sounding hypocritical, try to avoid advice from personal accounts. Use reputable sources, such as the NHS website, or somewhere like mumsnet.com. The internet is full of information, but not always reliable information, so you’ll have to use your judgement.
Anyway, to continue the story, we arrive home, new baby in tow. The day times weren’t too bad; that was when Nala liked to sleep. The night times were torture. Literally. You probably think I’m using the word “literally” to exaggerate. I’m not. If you were to look up methods of torture used in recent history, you would quite quickly come across:
- Sleep deprivation
- Sound torture
- Stress positions
Sleep deprivation is self explanatory – and something you expect – but until you’ve lived it, nothing can prepare you for it. There were times when I was thankful to get 20 minutes sleep, because sometimes it would only be five minutes. There were nights where we only got 2 or 3 hours sleep overall. It’s tough. You get so tired that you almost become delirious. It feels like it physically hurts. And if it was just for one night, that would be fine. But it’s not. It’s night, after night, after night, after night. For weeks. Maybe months. We got the odd night where Nala would sleep for maybe 3 or 4 hours at a time, but those nights were few and far between.
Lack of sleep perhaps wouldn’t have been so bad, if these were quiet periods. But they’re not. Sound torture. Have you ever been stuck on a plane with a screaming baby? Annoying right? Well, imagine that every night, sometimes for hours. If I had to deal with a screaming baby right now, fully rested, for 10 minutes, it would be tough. Dealing with a screaming baby in the middle of the night, with barely any sleep, for hours, when you don’t really know what you’re doing because you’ve only been a parent for a few weeks, is nigh-on impossible.
So what do you do? You try everything. You feed them, you burp them, you change their nappy. You do those things and you pray that one of them work. If not, the only thing you can really try is shushing whilst cuddling/rocking your baby. This brings me onto the third torture method: stress positions. Now, I’m not a particularly flexible person at the best of times, but unless you are a contortionist, you will find yourself in all manner of uncomfortable positions to try and coax your baby back to sleep. Your muscles and bones will be on fire, but you daren’t move, lest you disturb the baby.
If all of this is putting you off of having a baby, please re-read my introduction. Becoming a dad was the best thing I’ve ever done, in spite of how difficult the early weeks/months were at times. Being a parent is hard work, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives. It truly is the greatest job in the world. Just don’t expect much sleep.
Thanks for reading. I feel like I barely scratched the surface of what being a parent is actually like, so I daresay I’ll write another parenting post in the not too distant future. Back again next week. Take care.
A Rob Blog 
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