Author Archives: From Dad to worse

Euphoria. Relief. Worry. Tiredness.

A rotating theme of Fatherhood, rolling on a constant loop. How on Earth do people do this with one child, let alone those with twins?! Tommee Tip-me over the edge at 4am when it took me 15 minutes to realise the ‘perfect prep machine’ had been turned off at the wall. Another sleepless night with a baby who would. Not. Stop. CRYING! That saying of “what on Earth do I do with it” playing over and over; no matter how many times we fed him, burped him or cuddled him, he would not settle.

Then that euphoric moment lights up above my head like an incandescent light build, flicking and fuzzing away… Cars. No, not talking about cars (that did not work previously at all), but being IN the car. 4:30am driving down the A46 towards Lincoln, he finally fell asleep. Absolutely brilliant. We pulled over in to one of those lay-bys littered with rubbish, turning the engine off the Blue Mist (Mazda 3), and we all got some well earned rest. Never knew how comfortable a small 3 door hatchback could be, using one of the Tommee Tippee insulated bottle bags as a pillow, we easily got a solid 2 hours. The highlight of it all was we managed to sneak in a Maccies on the way home; literally a perfect start to the day.

All was forgotten when we returned home, although the house looked like Taz had paid us a visit. They say that woman can forget the pain experienced during labour, but for me, I forget the tiredness and anger I feel every night he keeps me awake by just seeing him happy in his next to me bed. Perfection.

One thing this experience did teach me is no matter what, there is always a solution to the crying. There is always SOMETHING they want, and you learn to know what that something is. So next time the cuddles and snuggles don’t console them, don’t struggle on; try and think about what made them happy before.

You’ve got this Dads, mother’s have their ‘intuition’, and we have our spontaneity – you can’t beat it.

Yes, these words actually came out of my mouth when my son was born 3 years ago. 3 days of blood, sweat and tears (along with a lot of other things you don’t see on TV), my wife finally gave birth to our boy. Nothing could ever of prepared me for the labour, nor the ‘aftermath’ of it (quite literally a blood bath/opening scene from Saving Private Ryan), but especially the feeling of pure helplessness and confusion, like the feeling you get turning up to an exam having done no revision. Apart from this time there was no waiting 6 weeks for my results, this was real time with no second chances; a big fat F was coming my way…

Apparently cars didn’t interest him too much, which, if I’m being honest, doesn’t interest me either. The crying was relentless. What does he want? He can’t surely be hungry already, or the fact that he’s just spent the last 7 hours being squeezed through a hole that last I checked was definitely too small for him to get through; either way I did not have a scooby what he wanted, which became a running theme for the next 12 months. It got to the point where Mum, who was still being stitched back together, took him and he immediately stopped crying. Bless him, at least now there was a bit of silence whilst he and mum cuddled together. They never tell you what YOU’RE supposed to do, being the dad. What can you do? Smelling like I hadn’t washed for about 6 years didn’t help the situation much either, the room we were in was about 30 degrees and looked like a bomb had hit it. These next few minutes and hours I felt like the biggest spare part, not knowing what to do or when to do it. Hopefully, this will resonate with many Dads out there who, like me, were really unprepared and naive to think it’ll be a breeze!

Getting home was a task in itself. The worst part wasn’t even paying the £20 car parking ticket, but was the fact that he was not the biggest fan of his car seat. After what seemed like hours and a half dozen cable-ties, he was in. Safe and sound, straight into the back of my Honda Civic, which, by the way is an awful car to put a baby in! I had promised the wife a Chinese when we got home, which was the first thing I hadn’t disappointed her on since he was born. Straight into the living room, plonked him down and tucked in. Heaven. Plate full of beautiful food, cruising with Jane Macdonald on the tele, this was going to be a great night. I hadn’t had so much of a piece of crispy chilli beef when it started… again. The mrs jumped up (suspiciously quickly considering she was still half inside out) and tried settling him down. Not a chance. That carried on for the best part of 2 hours. 2 cold plates of Chinese food and my sky box paused on 4 minutes, this was the start of a whole new meaning of “feeling knackered”.

You probably read this thinking “this guy is a clueless moron” which, in fairness, is a pretty accurate statement. The point is, from birth to his first birthday, not a day went by (and is still the case sometimes now), where I had a clue what to do. Why is he was crying or how can I best help his mum manage daily chores whilst managing a full time job!So welcome to my experience of being a Dad so far, how I learned from some pretty huge mistakes and how I plan to make things better for my next baby (due June 2021). If you’re a new dad who like me, struggles with the responsibility, late nights and general parenting; welcome!! I hope you can take something from my blog, and remember, you’re definitely not the first dad to feel absolutely clueless!