New Dads and adjusting to a new baby

When my wife set up the baby gift business 4little1s.com (www.4little1s.com) it got me thinking about being a dad and thought I would put pen to paper so to speak. Fatherhood can be a real fright, a new experience and ‘different’ if you haven’t really had to show feelings in a relationship before. Suddenly there is another person in the relationship; it’s suddenly gone from two to three, four, five etc etc….

The idea of the spontaneity for me was a big one to come to terms with, suddenly it was more complicated to just randomly book a cheap flight on the Friday for that night to Paris or Madrid for a weekend away for two. Not least of all, a small bag each was not enough anymore, you needed to think about nappies for a start, and they are bulky! Having good nights sleep (8 hours for me) was a thing of the past, lad’s nights out become fewer and suddenly your hearing becomes a lot more acute at night. A visit to the supermarket needed military precision in terms of timings between feeds and equipment needed. Change of clothes……. check, nappies…….check, bottle…….check,

Here are my tips based on my experience of fatherhood:

Spend time with your wife when she is pregnant. I don’t mean just watch TV together, proper time, listen, go for a meal and talk etc. From a blokes perspective you would not cope if you were pregnant, pain etc

Being there for the delivery was difficult to explain apart from I am so glad I was there, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world…I nearly fainted as I couldn’t believe it ! It’d difficult to explain as ‘absolutely totally amazing’ sounds so understated.

You might notice the house getting a bit ‘out of control’ in terms of housework, ironing, washing, hovering, dusting etc. You should do these things to help out, its not the Victorian Era anymore you know guys!

Change nappies, don’t let mum do it all the time. At first I was clueless, after a few I was an expert and could do it blindfolded. It doesn’t last forever and believe me it’s soon over and they are out of them. Bathe your baby its great fun and don’t be scared, it’s so natural after awhile. Read a bedtime story / fairy tale, it soothes them for bedtime and is educational as well

Your baby is a human being, talk to him / her ! Build the relationship and it doesn’t matter if saying ‘goochi coo’ feels silly, after awhile you just don’t care what other people think.

Be on hand for when baby is sick, get the medicine, go to the pharmacy, get the thermometer. I was in the Cub Scouts years ago and the motto still stands true ‘Be Prepared’

Hold onto keepsake items, photos, first curl, first tooth, first photo etc. The time goes very quickly and I talk from experience. At our website, www.4little1s.com we have a wide variety of baby keepsake boxes, baby photo albums, boxes to keep their first curl, tooth etc in.

4little1s.com