Nine Months To Prepare Is Never Enough Time
20
November 2016
Theme:
Playing Dad
It has nearly been two months since my last post when I recounted mine and Hana’s personal experience in trying for and announcing we were expecting our first child together. I completely underestimated how much my life would change as a result of becoming a parent. Our baby has become the centre of our universe. The plan to blog about my experiences as a dad were to keep close friends and family up to date on our progress. With free time now a luxury, it is proving challenging to get on top the blogging.
The big announcement that we were expecting our first child was made at the five-month mark. With no preparations up to that point in fear of tempting fate, we had the four remaining months of the pregnancy term to get our shit in order…or so I thought.
This brings me to the first misleading point in this blog title, and something I am sure many other expectant dads are unaware of. The pregnancy term is actually 40 weeks, with anything beyond 37 weeks considered full term. Simple maths and you will be able to work out its roughly ten months of pregnancy, and not nine. And this is not taking into account that only 4% of babies are born on their due date. In other words, you do not have nine months.
You are probably questioning what the other misleading points are in the title. There is only one more, but it is quite an important one. The word ‘prepare’. Treat it with caution. In fact, I would go as far as to say you can never fully prepare yourself for the arrival of a child. We buy books, cots, prams, car seats, baths, changing mats, toys, nappies, clothes, more clothes and so on. The only thing we do not have is the baby, and this is the most unpredictable element in the whole equation. We become one of those idiots with all the gear and no idea. Every new parent does it.
There is a desire to go out and buy buy buy for your babies arrival, but with an estimated 2,200 babies born daily in the UK, it is highly likely you are only a few degrees of separation from someone with close baby contact. If your network of friends and family is anything like ours, those individuals are extremely charitable. You will receive more free clothing and baby related paraphernalia than you could imagine. There is no need to buy buy buy. We were only too happy to take advantage of this. In fact, I would estimate Isla has worn gifted clothing 90% of the time in the first three months of her life. She has grown so quickly that a lot of it has only been worn once or twice.
So, we had give-or-take six months to set-up. The first purchase for the baby was obviously something sensible. Like hell it was. The first item bought for the baby was a pair of Converse. A gift for Hana’s birthday in April. The next purchase was a gift from Hana. This was in May for my birthday. A book titled ‘Commando Dad’. This book would become my bible. Written by an ex-Commando, and dad of three, the book is a training manual for new recruits to fatherhood – I highly recommend this for any dads to be. You probably get the point by now. We did not make any serious progress until late June, two months before our babies due date. Whilst we had no problem in securing everything we needed, this approach limited our choice in some instances. For example, the pram was out of stock in our preferred colour. We also did not account for the fact that some items would take up to six weeks to arrive. Our selected pram, carry cot and car seat arrived only a week before Isla’s arrival.
“It is important to note that every human being is different. What may work for one person, may not work for another. There is no one size fits all solution. You have to find your own way in parenting.”
I am keen to hear from all those reading my blog, so I invite you to leave comments or make contact.
Photograph by Nicholas Moon
Another activity we jumped into was ‘nesting’, the process of preparing the home for your babies arrival. Hana and I moved into our flat in October 2014. In the first year, I attempted to prove my worthiness to Hana by getting down and dirty with the DIY. I had a new flashy tool box, full of new flashy tools, and all gathering not so flashy dust. The news that a baby was on the way, was the boot up the arse that I needed. My primary focus was on creating a nursery fit for purpose. As with the rest of our plans, this was also not fully completed until after Isla’s arrival. This was of less significance given Isla would be sleeping our room for the first six months.
It is probably evident by now that we underestimated a lot of our preparations up to this point. In a future post, I will make a point of clearly identifying some of the main items you will need in the first few months of your babies life. However, it is important to note that every human being is different. What may work for one person, may not work for another. There is no one size fits all solution. You have to find your own way in parenting. This is probably one of the wisest pieces of advice we have received to date.
So to conclude, whilst maternity leave is 52 weeks, one year. Paternity leave is less generous at just two weeks, and usually starting from the day of your babies birth. Unless you are from Sweden, where paternity leave is a couple of months. ‘Nine Months To Prepare For The Babies Arrival’ although great for the purposes of SEO, is not very applicable to this blog post and reality. You can never fully be prepare for the babies arrival. In my next post I will describe the events leading up to our babies arrival.
Hurry up with the list of ‘main items you will need’. 37 weeks has passed…
A fascinating read Nick and although our babies Bianca and Adam are now 37 and 34 respectively and our three grandchildren 7, 4 and 2 so many of the issues you have raised still ring true.
I look forward to the next instalment.
Cheers,
Brian.