OcUK Dadsnet thread

[Jim99]

They're entirely selfish @Voltar hence the guilt. General stress and anxiety, holidays (non term time ones), cinema trips, gigs/festivals, theme parks, kit in and around the house, watching/playing anything not kid friendly, keeping CDs, films/games under lock and key (horror stuff etc.) even self care, all selfish and materialistic.

My biggest worry is it could ruin our relationship, it's unlikely but 23 years is a long time to live doing nearly anything you want when you want to.

I have very little self respect and I'm a naturally negative thinker, I know all of the above makes me sound like a total **** but I'm generally far from it.

I'm very careful in what I'd say to someone who isn't sure whether to have kids - it's a totally personal choice etc, but considering you're already on this journey I'll happily say the below.

Yes, there are plenty of downsides. And when you look at them in isolation, it sounds like total madness - why would you make those sacrifices etc.

But in my (and other friends') experience, there's something about having a kid that totally changes your perspective on it - it just seems very natural to make those sacrifices, and so they don't feel anything like the sacrifice they do when you're doing cold, matter of fact analysis before you've actually got a child.

I totally agree that it's daunting, but you really can't anticipate how those things will feel in a year's time.

 

[alchal]

I'll confess I've not read through the existing 287 pages of this thread.

Very very early days but, late yesterday I found out my wife is very likely pregnant.

To say I'm full of FUD, panic and general gloom about our 'lives' together (23 years so far) being over is an understatement - I'm even ashamed of typing that

...then there's everything that can go wrong along the way too. Petrified.

A lot can go wrong, yes


But take it from someone who was never bothered about kids right up until birth.


You will bloody love it, yes it's hard, yes your life style will change but hopefully all being well you are in for a treat .

Hang in fella.

 

[ChrisD.]

@DHR open a Junior SIPP, make your child a millionaire come retirement.

Good luck!

 

[Vidar]

Things are actually pretty decent here at the moment. While not perfect my eldest daughters more regular therapy is starting to bare fruit. She's finally, actually started bloody talking about her feelings etc which is absolutely massive for us as a family!

It's a lot easier, and my stress levels are already lower. Hopefully things continue to improve.

 

[Voltar]

They're entirely selfish @Voltar hence the guilt. General stress and anxiety, holidays (non term time ones), cinema trips, gigs/festivals, theme parks, kit in and around the house, watching/playing anything not kid friendly, keeping CDs, films/games under lock and key (horror stuff etc.) even self care, all selfish and materialistic.

My biggest worry is it could ruin our relationship, it's unlikely but 23 years is a long time to live doing nearly anything you want when you want to.

I have very little self respect and I'm a naturally negative thinker, I know all of the above makes me sound like a total **** but I'm generally far from it.

The nerves and anxiety are natural and nothing takes those away. Just strap in for the ride and rise to the occasion. You’ll surprise yourself.
You’ll also find a way to do almost if not all those things too..

 

[Gepetto]

They're entirely selfish @Voltar hence the guilt. General stress and anxiety, holidays (non term time ones), cinema trips, gigs/festivals, theme parks, kit in and around the house, watching/playing anything not kid friendly, keeping CDs, films/games under lock and key (horror stuff etc.) even self care, all selfish and materialistic.

My biggest worry is it could ruin our relationship, it's unlikely but 23 years is a long time to live doing nearly anything you want when you want to.

I have very little self respect and I'm a naturally negative thinker, I know all of the above makes me sound like a total **** but I'm generally far from it.

I wouldn't call your sentiments selfish @DHR as I can understand perfectly. You do need to talk to your wife about your concerns, and I mean really communicate them. We had our son late in life and I'm definitely second fiddle to him. It does cause problems with my self esteem but he makes up for it.

You will not stop doing things together but you will need to carry unimaginable amounts of kit everywhere you go. That was the only adjustment we made and dragged him along to everything, determined not to change too much. I wouldn't recommend Festivals though! My wife and I took to going to the cinema separately which wasn't a major issue as we do have differing tastes and it is no longer a romantic outing at our age anyway. We now all go together.

You simply adjust to accommodate the little bundle of joy and it will be stressful at times, exhausting at others and it will change your outlook. I could not have managed without my wife, hence my comment regarding talking to her. She may have several of the same concerns. We had no support network at all, being a long way from any relatives, and I did feel that, but I was a stay at home dad for a couple of years and took our lad to an activity every day. The other parents I met had exactly the same concerns as I did and that comforted me immensely. I'm also still friends with a few people I met at that time.

You sound very much like me, and now that I'm a long way through it, I've found what I felt at the time is not unusual. Far from it. If you ever need to please drop me a message.

 

[Spuderoony]

My girlfriend had her 12-week scan yesterday. It's exciting, but I need to start doing some reading. Preferably the sort of "these are the things I wish I'd known" sort lists anyone got any suggestions or summaries? I'm about to have a nosey through the rest of the thread, but it's, er, rather long!

 

[ChrisD.]

My girlfriend had her 12-week scan yesterday. It's exciting, but I need to start doing some reading. Preferably the sort of "these are the things I wish I'd known" sort lists anyone got any suggestions or summaries? I'm about to have a nosey through the rest of the thread, but it's, er, rather long!

Congrats. Sign up for an NCT course, some of the views could be seen as outdated however my wife and I had some fun at ours and we picked up a fair amount.

 

[fez]

Congrats. Sign up for an NCT course, some of the views could be seen as outdated however my wife and I had some fun at ours and we picked up a fair amount.

I wouldn't say we learned much as my partner already knew a lot and some of the stuff they tell you is ******** / they push a certain ideology in some cases. The big benefit is the friends / new mums you will meet at it. One of the best things you can do as new parent(s) is have an active support network to talk to and socialise with. Go to baby groups etc.

@DHR I think that having children is something that is very hard to rationalise if you consider it from a rational viewpoint because most of the changes and things you lose are very obvious and the things you gain are intangible until you have them. Not everyone should have children but good people who throw themselves into parenting will usually make great parents and get a huge amount of joy from them.

I have had to sack in many things I used to do and if I lost all the things I have lost and didn't have the boys to compensate for that, it would be ******* awful. I work evenings and sometimes a bit on the weekends. I am going from 8am until usually 9pm at night with work, running the house and taking care of kids. I don't do my hobbies anything like as much as I used to or would like to. And do you know what? I don't care. The boys are wonderful. Children (certainly when they are little) are some of the purest little bundles of joy in life. They smile without reservation. They smile when you come in the room. They laugh and giggle at the silliest things. They can go from world endingly sad to chuckling away within half a second and they are endlessly entertaining. When they learn something new it makes you so happy. When your actions make them happy you feel amazing.

 

[DHR]

Know I've not responded to you all, but thanks for the kind words all it's really insightful.

 

[Vidar]

My girlfriend had her 12-week scan yesterday. It's exciting, but I need to start doing some reading. Preferably the sort of "these are the things I wish I'd known" sort lists anyone got any suggestions or summaries? I'm about to have a nosey through the rest of the thread, but it's, er, rather long!

Congratulations mate!

Best bit of advice I can give you is make sure you're on the birth certificate. Trust me. The next best advice I can give is that while your child naturally should and will come first, do not neglect all of your wants and or needs. Other than that just try to be the best father you possibly can be, and when you inevitably do make mistakes as we all do, don't beat yourself up to much. Kids don't come with a manual.

 

[sx_turbo]

My girlfriend had her 12-week scan yesterday. It's exciting, but I need to start doing some reading. Preferably the sort of "these are the things I wish I'd known" sort lists anyone got any suggestions or summaries? I'm about to have a nosey through the rest of the thread, but it's, er, rather long!

Don't get suckered into the books too much, most of it will come natural.

I can't remember the name of the books, I'll try and find out, it basically there is a range of books that isn't preachy and just gives tips and advice for the different stages of the babies development.

I found a lot of books to be preachy and pushing a particular ideology.

The classes were a great help for the birth but as has been mentioned they can push a certain ideology which is (at least I thought) was for the benefit of the NHS and not necessarily for the mother and father.

Have a birthing plan, but expect it to all go to pot when baby eventually comes. As a man expect to go hungry and thirsty during the birth, the hospital will not acknowledge your presence and you likely won't want to leave your wife's side when labour starts, (some births are quick, some are painfully slow, my wife was in labour for 16, hours was horrific and took its toll on both of us), so make sure you pack snacks and drink in your labour bag.

If you are going to a birthing unit you can use fragrances and have music etc, if your in a hospital all this goes out the window and it's not allowed. Music is at a low volume.

The hospital will also kick you out when visiting closes, unless your in the birthing suite, then they'll kick you out essentially as soon as baby is born. I was chucked out at 2am after being at the hospital since 8am, and wife had an induced labour which started the night before that. I personally don't think it was safe to kick me out at that time having no sleep or rest and then have an hour's drive after that. I was then expected to be back at the hospital for 8am the next day.

Don't get too hung up on breast feeding, by all means try it and give it a good go, but the most important thing is that you ,(parents) and the baby are fed and rested, the first couple of weeks is very tiring and a big shift in life, it's difficult enough without stressing your doing everything wrong.

My wife really tried to breast feed, and the first night at home was really difficult, my wife just wasn't producing enough milk (despite having massive udders herself ) and after roughly 4 hours, changing from breast to breast getting sore baby crying be abuse it's hungry, it's 11pm and we just want sleep, wife's getting stressed because she feels like she's failing and not following the rule book the midwives insist on, I decided enough was enough and to try formula (luckily I had the foresight to get some ready mix stuff incase it all went to pot with the breast feeding), within 10 minutes baby was ded and sound asleep, wife stopped stressing about being a failure and we got to sleep. We tried a few more days to breast feed but just wasn't working my boy was a hungry child so we ended up sticking to the formula. The midwife did try jumping on the wife about it but I shot her down instantly. Some midwives can be a bit self righteous.

 

[fez]

We tried a few more days to breast feed but just wasn't working my boy was a hungry child so we ended up sticking to the formula. The midwife did try jumping on the wife about it but I shot her down instantly. Some midwives can be a bit self righteous.

I think that breast is best honestly but like so much of parenting, its oversold. If you believe all the things you are told about babies development and how important X, Y and Z are we would have a bunch of dunces and a bunch of geniuses purely based on how they were brought up in the first 24 months of their lives.

There are plenty of benefits to breast feeding and its hard because babies are unbelievably useless. My partner had a horrible time of it for quite a while. They wouldn't latch properly. They would latch perfectly one day and have forgotten by the next. They would take in loads of air and both our boys were very hard to burp and got very grumpy if they were gassy. They wouldn't tandem feed so you would have one starving baby and the other who was sipping on his milk and generally enjoying his dinner and cuddle with his mum.

My favourite was always when you take the bottle/boob away from them to burp them when they are tiny and they act like its never coming back.

We might have fed some formula if it weren't for the first time we tried it, one of them lost their minds screaming about 10 minutes after and was stressing and straining horribly. Didn't want to repeat that.

Lots of tears are shed in the first months. I imagine that all mothers feel like a failure a lot when their child won't do X or they can't do Y. When it comes easily to some people but not to them. When you see all the idiots on social media and the mums groups pretending like its a peaceful, easy job.

Take advice from people but take it as advice rather than any actual truth or reality. People forget how miserable things were. They remember the good bits and forget the bad. They think that they're getting the results they want due to their actions rather than through luck. Both our boys were a nightmare to burp and a nightmare when they had wind. Like screaming, tensing every muscle in their bodies etc. Go on any video on youtube about bumping or winding your baby and there will be someone with a baby sitting there like a sack of spuds, not a care in the world as their parent gently does something to elicit a burp.

As for midwives, they are a mixed bag. One that we had in the hospital decided that she was going to "name our babies for us" while we decided on names for ourself. My mind was boggled. She had clearly been a nurse for years and had never been told or thought that new parents don't want some random person giving their babies names before they do. The same nurse then got involved when we were trying to put these tiny little beans into their car seats for the first time. She didn't have a clue what she was doing and by that point I wanted to murder her.

 

[hamesy]

My girlfriend had her 12-week scan yesterday. It's exciting, but I need to start doing some reading. Preferably the sort of "these are the things I wish I'd known" sort lists anyone got any suggestions or summaries? I'm about to have a nosey through the rest of the thread, but it's, er, rather long!

One bit of advice is get stuck in and get involved. Ask a lot of questions when you go to appointments and ask for help from friends and family if you need it.

Also, make sure you have time with your partner. Once a month my parents will have them both for the weekend. Saturdays we both go off and do our own things, but come the evening we go out for a drink, grab a take away on the way back home and watch a film. Those weekends allow us to recharge our batteries and just be ourselves.

 

[sx_turbo]

I think that breast is best honestly but like so much of parenting, its oversold. If you believe all the things you are told about babies development and how important X, Y and Z are we would have a bunch of dunces and a bunch of geniuses purely based on how they were brought up in the first 24 months of their lives.

There are plenty of benefits to breast feeding and its hard because babies are unbelievably useless. My partner had a horrible time of it for quite a while. They wouldn't latch properly. They would latch perfectly one day and have forgotten by the next. They would take in loads of air and both our boys were very hard to burp and got very grumpy if they were gassy. They wouldn't tandem feed so you would have one starving baby and the other who was sipping on his milk and generally enjoying his dinner and cuddle with his mum.

My favourite was always when you take the bottle/boob away from them to burp them when they are tiny and they act like its never coming back.

We might have fed some formula if it weren't for the first time we tried it, one of them lost their minds screaming about 10 minutes after and was stressing and straining horribly. Didn't want to repeat that.

Lots of tears are shed in the first months. I imagine that all mothers feel like a failure a lot when their child won't do X or they can't do Y. When it comes easily to some people but not to them. When you see all the idiots on social media and the mums groups pretending like its a peaceful, easy job.

Take advice from people but take it as advice rather than any actual truth or reality. People forget how miserable things were. They remember the good bits and forget the bad. They think that they're getting the results they want due to their actions rather than through luck. Both our boys were a nightmare to burp and a nightmare when they had wind. Like screaming, tensing every muscle in their bodies etc. Go on any video on youtube about bumping or winding your baby and there will be someone with a baby sitting there like a sack of spuds, not a care in the world as their parent gently does something to elicit a burp.

As for midwives, they are a mixed bag. One that we had in the hospital decided that she was going to "name our babies for us" while we decided on names for ourself. My mind was boggled. She had clearly been a nurse for years and had never been told or thought that new parents don't want some random person giving their babies names before they do. The same nurse then got involved when we were trying to put these tiny little beans into their car seats for the first time. She didn't have a clue what she was doing and by that point I wanted to murder her.

Yeah totally agree, take people advice just as advice, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, ultimately people end up forging their own path that works for them.

There should be very few hard and fast rules when comes to parenting.

 

[robj20]

Yeah totally agree, take people advice just as advice, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, ultimately people end up forging their own path that works for them.

There should be very few hard and fast rules when comes to parenting.

Couldn't agree more.
You'll figure out your own way.

 

[dl8860]

Great post @fez I echo a lot of that. Our 3rd was born last week, and we had nightmares with feeding for both of the first 2 and ended up on almost solely formula from quite early on. But they are good specimens now aged 3 and 5, I find it hardly credible that breast can really be that much better in terms of outcomes. One of our best friends exclusive breastfed all 3 of hers and they have seemed to generally fall ill about 3 times as often as ours.

Wife seems (early days yet mind) to have just about cracked breast feeding 3rd time round. We don't even really know why it's different this time round. I'm welcoming it mostly from the perspective of cost! I'll actually miss helping do feeds, and am already seeing that it has its downsides in terms of regularity and not being full for as long compared to formula. Though I won't miss the endless cleaning and sterilising of bottles. It should be much more widely circulated how difficult breastfeeding is, and to not be disheartened if you find it hard. Caused us no end of stress with both precious 2.

@sx_turbo about being booted out of hospital at 2am, was that during covid restrictions? Or maybe it's just different between trusts. But I was allowed 24hr access at our birth last week, and was very much not treated like a second class citizen as you describe.

 

[sx_turbo]

No was 4 years before COVID, maybe different trusts have different rules. I didn't mind too much, but did feel like they just treated dads as just in the way, I mean rightly so the focus should be on the mum definitely don't begrudge that, but a bit of compassion to the dad would have been nice.

Just thought of something else, I read/told/heard that skin contact with the baby helps with bonding, I done it and I do feel it helped. Might just be a placebo, but it's something to try, especially if you can't do the feeding due to breast feeding

 

[t2na]

No was 4 years before COVID, maybe different trusts have different rules. I didn't mind too much, but did feel like they just treated dads as just in the way, I mean rightly so the focus should be on the mum definitely don't begrudge that, but a bit of compassion to the dad would have been nice.

Just thought of something else, I read/told/heard that skin contact with the baby helps with bonding, I done it and I do feel it helped. Might just be a placebo, but it's something to try, especially if you can't do the feeding due to breast feeding

I was booted out a few hours after our daughter was born - and this was mid 2022 so 95% of covid restrictions had lifted at that point. We got to the hopsital for around 10.30/11am, our daughter was born at 7pm and then at 10pm I was then asked to head. It wasn't too bad - especially when you hear some of the restrictions during covid.

My sister had a baby in September 2020 and her husband wasn't allowed in at all until she was actually delivering, he had to sit in the car outside which just sounds awful.

Definitely agree with what others have said re: formula/bottle, I ultimately just think you should just do what works for you. Also don't be disheartened by trying different formulas, there are some really good options now. My wife breastfed to start but then swapped to full formula pretty early which was nice for me to be able to do feeds and share the night shifts a lot more easily.

Totally agree with @dl8860 about the sterilizing and cleaning bottles, I really do not miss that anymore. I felt like I was washing up 24/7.

Skin on skin is great, my daughter **** down my arm when she was less than an hour old and it didn't make me love her any less.

 

[hamesy]

Have a birthing plan, but expect it to all go to pot when baby eventually comes. As a man expect to go hungry and thirsty during the birth, the hospital will not acknowledge your presence and you likely won't want to leave your wife's side when labour starts, (some births are quick, some are painfully slow, my wife was in labour for 16, hours was horrific and took its toll on both of us), so make sure you pack snacks and drink in your labour bag.

If you are going to a birthing unit you can use fragrances and have music etc, if your in a hospital all this goes out the window and it's not allowed. Music is at a low volume.

The hospital will also kick you out when visiting closes, unless your in the birthing suite, then they'll kick you out essentially as soon as baby is born. I was chucked out at 2am after being at the hospital since 8am, and wife had an induced labour which started the night before that. I personally don't think it was safe to kick me out at that time having no sleep or rest and then have an hour's drive after that. I was then expected to be back at the hospital for 8am the next day.

We had completely the opposite when we had ours two years ago.

The induction ward was pretty chilled when it come to visiting hours (12pm-9pm iirc) and when it come to leave they didn't mind you staying a little longer as long as you were quiet.

My partner was took down to the delivery suites at around 11pm on day two and I was called back. Unfortunately the midwife who checked to see how dilated she was, messed it up, so by the time I got to the hospital, they wanted to send her back up to the induction ward. My partner broke down in tears and they gave her a suite to stay in for the night and allowed me to stay the night, with the plan to break her waters the following morning.

Midwives come in the following morning, asked if I wanted any breakfast and a drink, and told us the plan of action for the day. Told me if I wanted to nip to Greggs to get any lunch, do so. Throughout the day, they got me involved and asking if I needed anything. Once she was born at 10:30pm, they allowed me to stay for as long as I wanted. I ended up going at around 3am.

The only thing I didn't like was those hospital chairs. Trying to sleep on those is impossible and by the time I got back home after the birth, I hadn't slept for around 44 hours.