Any other expectant Dads?

[GIYess]

The first time the midwife makes you change them or bath them you think, "Arrgh! how will I ever do anything with this wee baby without hurting it." Its not too long before you get the hang of it and you realise they are quite robust little people.

[Huntsman]

Shakermaker said:

Now at 5 weeks to go until due day. 35 days, so if nothing else goes to plan, I will be a Dad in 49 days if we get 2 weeks past due date and my wife has to be induced. Though I don't expect that will be the case.

The first of our NCT friends had their daughter arrive on Monday, 3 weeks early!

Wife is definitely feeling it more every day - all evening last night she was feeling uncomfortable and with a few bouts of brackston hicks contractions. This prompted her to get me to make sure that we had a bag of stuff packed and ready to go just in case. The main thing that I took away from this was... how small the clothes for a baby are.

Whcih means that there exists, currently growing inside my wife, a tiny person who is able to fit into clothes which are smaller than my socks. Not even my thick big welly socks, but my regular every day socks, size 9-12.

How the f*** am I meant to take care of something that small? Our cats were bigger than that when we adopted them!

Our little man was born 9 weeks early at 3lbs 11 ozs. So small my 45 year old eyesight couldn't even see his finger nails. Came home at 5lbs. You be fine.

He's now 2 and size 2-3 clothes only just fit.

[Rebew]

Shakermaker said:

Now at 5 weeks to go until due day. 35 days, so if nothing else goes to plan, I will be a Dad in 49 days if we get 2 weeks past due date and my wife has to be induced. Though I don't expect that will be the case.

The first of our NCT friends had their daughter arrive on Monday, 3 weeks early!

Wife is definitely feeling it more every day - all evening last night she was feeling uncomfortable and with a few bouts of brackston hicks contractions. This prompted her to get me to make sure that we had a bag of stuff packed and ready to go just in case. The main thing that I took away from this was... how small the clothes for a baby are.

Whcih means that there exists, currently growing inside my wife, a tiny person who is able to fit into clothes which are smaller than my socks. Not even my thick big welly socks, but my regular every day socks, size 9-12.

How the f*** am I meant to take care of something that small? Our cats were bigger than that when we adopted them!

I had exactly the same thoughts, we are 6 weeks in now and the answer is that you just do. It has amazed me how naturally it all comes to you, I went from having never changed a nappy to being able to change one in the dark without waking up SWMBO. You will be more tired than you have ever been before and their cry will cut through you like a knife, but as soon as they smile at you or squeeze your finger you will be ready to do it all again. It's the most worthwhile thing you will ever do so enjoy it.

And make sure you look after mum, she will have done a hell of a lot over the last 9 months and the birth certainly isn't a walk in the park, even a relatively straight forward one like we had. Do all the nappies whilst you can, my partner didn't do a single one until I went back to work and I am glad that I had a job to do that was only mine, it's easy to start feeling left out so make sure that you keep something that is just your job.

Good luck with the midwives and health visitors, they can get very preachy once the baby is here and WILL make your partner feel like st if breastfeeding isn't going well, out little boy lost 8% in the first few days and the temptation to throttle the midwife when she tells your partner off for getting it wrong is strong!

Oh, and don't listen to any advice, we are all just making it up as we go along!

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

We had a beautiful daughter arrive yesterday! She arrived a week early and caught my wife a little by surprise as her waters broke while she was sat at her desk, but all is well and our little bundle of fun is just heart meltingly wonderful. The first time she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of mine was magical, just the best thing ever to happen to me.

Those of you still waiting have a real treat in store

Just make sure you're prepared well in advance!

[mangos]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

We had a beautiful daughter arrive yesterday! She arrived a week early and caught my wife a little by surprise as her waters broke while she was sat at her desk, but all is well and our little bundle of fun is just heart meltingly wonderful. The first time she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of mine was magical, just the best thing ever to happen to me.

Those of you still waiting have a real treat in store

Just make sure you're prepared well in advance!

Amazing stuff - Congratulations!

[mangos]

Ours will be 6 months next week. It’s scary how fast that’s flown by.

We were just looking back at pictures of the teeny tiny (10lb whopper) baby and how he’s turned into a tall 95th percentile 6 month old.
The laughs and giggles are worth their weight in gold.

My only advice is don’t spend loads on clothes, everyone warned me the same but it still took me by surprise.

You can put them to bed one night in their 3-6 month roomy baby grow and wake up in the morning and it’s tight!

Ours is already pushing the limits of 9-12 month clothes and is fast outgrowing his infant carrier (that I was told would last for 15 months at least!)

These babies cost a fortune and despite him having no idea what Christmas is all about, every single person I know including me is spoiling him rotten.

[Vaud]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

We had a beautiful daughter arrive yesterday! She arrived a week early and caught my wife a little by surprise as her waters broke while she was sat at her desk, but all is well and our little bundle of fun is just heart meltingly wonderful. The first time she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of mine was magical, just the best thing ever to happen to me.

Those of you still waiting have a real treat in store

Just make sure you're prepared well in advance!

Congrats!

[wiggy001]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

We had a beautiful daughter arrive yesterday! She arrived a week early and caught my wife a little by surprise as her waters broke while she was sat at her desk, but all is well and our little bundle of fun is just heart meltingly wonderful. The first time she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of mine was magical, just the best thing ever to happen to me.

Those of you still waiting have a real treat in store

Just make sure you're prepared well in advance!

Congrats. And very appropriate username!

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

Thanks, chaps.

[Cyder]

Well young apple juice junior arrived safe and well early on Wednesday morning. Poppy Grace.

After a slightly traumatic experience with the delivery of her older sister I couldn’t believe how smoothly it all went this time round.

I had forgotten just how hard the first few nights are though with being up multiple times for feed. This is made slightly harder by her older sister (almost 2 now) who wakes up at 6am demanding to watch Peppa bloody Pig.

Still fun and games, I have 2 weeks off, back to work for 4 days then another 2weeks off for Xmas.

[Shakermaker]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

We had a beautiful daughter arrive yesterday! She arrived a week early and caught my wife a little by surprise as her waters broke while she was sat at her desk, but all is well and our little bundle of fun is just heart meltingly wonderful. The first time she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of mine was magical, just the best thing ever to happen to me.

Those of you still waiting have a real treat in store

Just make sure you're prepared well in advance!

Many congratulations!

Less than 4 weeks to go until due date for us now.. which definitely means that I'll be a Dad at some point next month, possibly even this month if it happens early I guess. Exciting stuff. Nearly finished painting her bedroom so we can start to furnish it properly and get the house to a tidy state,

Wife had a baby shower thrown for her last weekend, she got more presents than she will at Christmas I am sure, very generous friends that we have. All kinds of things I would never have even thought were needed have been given to us.

[Blown2CV]

unlikely to happen early if it's the first

[phl]

Our first arrived last week. A little boy. It’s an incredible experience! Look forward to hearing from the other expectant dads

[Blown2CV]

i think a piece of advice for fellow Dads is to really be aware of and tuned into the things your Mrs is going through emotionally. I am not saying Dads don't go through stuff, and it can be very hard (see my previous posts) but it can be easy to assume your Mrs is getting along just fine just because she is coping and not in floods of tears 24/7. Some blokes may be more emotionally aware than others, but you don't want to be the one that gets complained about to all the girls to astonished reaction when they all get together.

So... Giving birth is one thing, but raising a baby is another entirely. She'll feel guilt any time she can't spend giving the child all her attention, or when she feels inferior to other Mums... they do say giving birth to a baby is giving birth to guilt. Also she may feel turmoil at the change all this brings about in her relationships with family and even close friends. There is a need for her to make lots of new friends quite quickly because the best support comes from those who are going through the same things at the same time; not from the established friendship groups. So, NCT classes can fulfil that, but making new friends can be stressful and she'll possibly be as likely to meet people she doesn't get on with (or that make her feel like st) as ones she does. It's a bit like school all over again.

Money can be another massive thing as it doesn't take long for maternity pay to dwindle to nothing for what seems like an eternity. This may not be rocket science, but that and huge additional one-off and regular costs can cause the biggest single hit to your comfy income you'll may ever have experienced. It can get confrontational... the whole process of becoming parents tends to set and reinforce traditional gender roles where your relationship may not have operated anything like that previously.

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

phl said:

Our first arrived last week. A little boy. It’s an incredible experience! Look forward to hearing from the other expectant dads

Congratulations! How are you getting on? We’re doing well except that my OH is struggling a bit with the lack of sleep and the fact that it’s only an hour or two at a time. Having visitors most days doesn’t help but it’s inevitable at the moment.

Our little girl is wonderful though.

[Vaud]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

We’re doing well except that my OH is struggling a bit with the lack of sleep and the fact that it’s only an hour or two at a time. Having visitors most days doesn’t help but it’s inevitable at the moment.

Visitors that bring food and wash up are welcome. Visitors that rock up and expect tea, cake, a chat, are not.

[Huntsman]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

Congratulations! How are you getting on? We’re doing well except that my OH is struggling a bit with the lack of sleep and the fact that it’s only an hour or two at a time. Having visitors most days doesn’t help but it’s inevitable at the moment.

Our little girl is wonderful though.

We bought little man home from hospital and didn't tell anyone for 4 days, gave us a chance to settle in.

[Shakermaker]

Still 2 and half weeks to go until due date... feels like so long ago that I started this thread, and still not made it to the end yet.

However, I now believe we are "ready" in as much a sense as we can be, and if the baby makes an appearance we have everything she will need - I built the cot and a changing table at the weekend, her room has been painted, my wife was very spoilt by her friends and family at her recent baby shower so we have lots of clothes, nappies, books, wet wipes, a changing bad, all that kind of stuff. My mum has kindly taken a huge bundle of baby clothes to wash and dry as she has all the time for that kind of stuff.

However, all got a bit complicated yesterday.
On Monday evening, my wife went along to her normal yoga class for pregnant women, an hour of relaxing and stretching etc which she enjoys. Came home and watched some TV with me on the sofa. An hour later - she can't get up. She's in agony, can't get her leg on one side to move without severe pain. My thought at the time was that she's strained it a bit too much from yoga, and we get her upstairs eventually, hot water bottle to soothe, off to sleep.
But no, yesterday morning it is even worse, she can't get out of bed at all, even worse pain that the night before and nothing I can do can help. No pain relieft available for pregnant women that I know of, so a call to NHS Direct and they decide it is something more serious and we get a couple of friendly paramedics out to help her.
Gas and air was then given - and this was good, because it is what they give most women in labour and it REALLY helped her with the instant pain relief she needed and if the pain was as bad as she was suggesting, the gas and air will be very useful come labour.

Paramedics decided she had the symptoms of sciatica, trapped nerves at the bottom of the spine/pelvis on one side and opted to take her in to the hospital for the doctor who could do a bit more.
I don't know what they did, but it worked. We were in and out of A&E in under an hour feeling considerably better - still a dull ache and occasional pain, but no more shooting pain every time she tried to move. I was reminded of the old adage of "knowing where to hit the hammer" and very happy with the services provided.

[Davie]

I'm 6 months in now with my little man.

Observations, my advice would be routine but remain flexible as whilst you may be intent on a military spec schedule, the little human will have other ideas.

Mine is now eating porridge / wall paper paste sort of stuff... health visitor said it'd take a wee or two for him to get used to it so it's unlikely he'd eat much initially and would probably refuse using a spoon. First attempt, high chair sorted, tarpaulin down, eye protection donned and he grabbed the spoon and shoved in in his gob... now he can't be fed fast enough and has had a go at banana, soup and some mushed up fruit. His poos are horrific.

He's also started to move more... moved himself from the middle of a double bed and fell off the side the other day much to the wife's horror. From there on we decided our actions thus far to stop such antics were futile and upped the game so he's now either on the floor of strapped in to something, the duct taped and padlocked. He still moves. Zero interest in crawling, wants to try and walk... we're screwed, totally screwed.

Also moved to his own room... he was fine. I wasn't. Took me a couple of weeks to get used to that. Wifey was happy but then she has him all day so is glad of the respite / peace / own space but as I work, I feel like I've barely seen him over the past 6 months so guess I just wanted to be near him all the time so being in another room was tough, really tough and I'm still struggling with that. Granted he's got more monitors and sensors than your average M5 but it's still a struggle... think part of me doesn't want him to grow up so fast and he is.

Got another pram... third one now. This time he sits facing us and it's much lighter so better for her to chuck in the car etc as the other "off road" one is built like a 1970's Volvo and weighs the same and the frame that his car sit used to fit on to is showing wear. I hasten to add, the total cost for all of said prams plus all the attachments, canopies, covers and so on was £60.00. One was free and the other two were from the local Bernardos and nigh on new. Likewise his cot was a tenner second hand and his changing table was a fiver, both were repainted by her ladyship.

On which note, we haven't bought him any clothes... people have been very kind and have passed on stuff which is great, he just barfs on it or craps himself anyways and he's growing at an alarming rate. If buying your stuff new is your thing then great, no issue with that but I'm actually astounded at how much can be saved by thinking outside the box and there's no shame in using the local charity shop, everything that he's outgrown gets handed back in or passed to a local children's charity because there's kids out there who have nothing, literally nothing so be kind, pass stuff on, share, reuse and not be too proud because the wee one doesn't care what his pram cost, it's society that does sadly.

We're also at the stage where she is thinking about going back to work soon and that's causing some tension... neither of us want to pay for full time care, more so when that's what the missus does so she's thinking of part time and we're kinda fortunate that it's a possibility for us. Again, cutting costs elsewhere opens up more opportunities for us and that's worth it's weight in gold. He goes to playgroup and swimming lessons... the latter should be taken with a degree of artistic license, lessons = floundering around in a pool for 30mins, drinking half of it and timing his nappy changes to coincide with a busy changing room. Did I mention they're horrific? Upside is said swimming lessons have lead me to meet some more new Dads and that's been brilliant too, none of this chest beating / little Timmy can drive already bks but just having some bloke time with people in the same boat is good, yes the wife is my go to for everything but sometimes we blokes need blokes and not the gung ho types either.

As for me... I struggled and I still do. I struggle with the guilt of leaving her day in, day out and I struggle to then finish "work mode" and jump in to "Dad mode" and also "Husband mode" and so I feel like she is akin to a greyhound, calmly and confidently striding ahead on a fixed path... very serene, very composed. I'm like an excitable Spaniel... here, there, maybe over there, chase this, dig that, run back, hide... never on the same track but trying to make up for it with enthusiasm and I think that wears thin for her. The more I try, the worse I make it so have been trying very very hard of late to just relax, don't try and envisage what will happen or what I'll do when I get in - wing it. I'm also trying not to look at her too much, trying not to let her mood dictate my mood.... trying not to be too worried about her and trying not to assume it's me that's to blame. Hard to understand what she does and feels day in, day out but that works both ways and with a baby, it's hard to have that time to be there for each other... I bring thee back to the 7pm bedtimes and his own room, hard as that is for me it gives us time to step back from being parents for a bit, be husband and wife and that's made a huge difference to us. Sometimes it feels like you're being swept along in the current which is fun, exciting and great but everybody needs some calm water to take stock at times and we've grown to learn just how critical that is.

Had a couple of nights of recently, grannies took care of him which was difficult too... the worries of leaving him and will they / he be ok but they were and having the chance to take off the porridge stained trousers and the chewed top and don the kilt and for her, the sparkly dress that she wore when I proposed and head out for a night together was unbelievable. What was more unbelievable was that back home, we have a little boy who is doing ok and given that a few years ago, I didn't believe any of that would be possible... that's equally unbelievable, wouldn't change it for the world.

So yes, it's been hard... really hard.... and I feel for all those who have harder a tougher time than me for one reason or another, I honestly don't know how some people cope with the bigger challenges that new life can bring so if that's you, I doff my cap... you have my utmost respect.

Enough waffling, need to get him a Christmas present... Scalextric looks good... of course he's old enough love, but if not... I am.

[will_]

Great post Davie, you have a very good way with words.

I'd suggest that they key advice to take from your post is to remain flexible, try to relax (with the baby, and each other), and wing it - they are not complex beasts, and everyone in the same position is struggling through (regardless of the image they try to portray to the outside world).

Some great advice on this thread. All I would add is that each day/week/month gets that bit easier, so hang on in there! I think that generally there is relatively poor support for new dads - it is understandable that the focus is on the mum, but having a baby is also an enormous change for blokes too.