One of the greatest ambitions of the new parent is the desire to find some sense of normalcy once again. To regain some semblance of the kind of social activity you once had and we were no different. We started going out to eat with the baby, went shopping for groceries and all other kinds of things non-parents do without a second thought.
Little did we know that our LO (mommy blog shorthand for ‘little one’) is unable to filter out external stimulus like lights, sounds and sensations, as well as we can.
We started noticing a pattern where each time we went out (during the festive season, like only a rookie parent can) our little guy had trouble settling down to sleep that evening. He’d sleep very lightly and wake up agitated every 20 or so minutes. The almighty Google led us to the conclusion that he’d just taken in too much that day and was struggling to regulate his brain activity down.
Some of the key signs were:
He’d shut down whenever we were out. He wouldn’t babble or interact in any way
He’d become more clingy than usual, refusing to be put down
Falling asleep mid feed
The ear-piercing scream we hadn’t heard since his first few weeks
Once we cottoned onto this we started being more conscious of when in his wake-sleep cycle we went out with him (choosing to rather go after he wakes, not as he’s about to sleep). Carrying him in a sling instead of the pram for maximum assurance in unfamiliar environments and just limiting time spent outside the home.
In our culture, it’s ill-advised to take a baby out of the house or introduce them to new faces before they’ve hit the 3 month mark and in our efforts to be modern parents, we threw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. I’ll be paying a little more attention to my mother’s sage wisdom from now on, that’s for sure!
6 weeks into this gig, I get hit with my first diaper overflow. Now i don’t know if it has to do with the brand I chose or the way i fastened it but this guy was armpit deep in his own poop!
I had to take his vest off and fortunately I’d come across this Buzzfeed article a couple weeks ago on the true purpose of the ‘shoulder folds’ on baby clothes is. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikespohr/the-real-reason-there-are-envelope-folds-on-a-babys-onesies#.bpyKW3mka
I’ve been a practising dad for over two weeks now. Seeing as what I know about fatherhood spans the length of the average blog post, I thought it fitting to document it all.
One: This is the most challenging gig of my entire life
I’ve never found myself tasked with a job that I didn’t have at least some confidence in my ability to pull through. My first week was 80% doubt, 15% Google and 5% sheer panic
Two: at a point, I was genuinely afraid
It was our first night home, we didn’t have the option of pawning our baby off with the nurses to get a decent night’s rest. I heard him fussing for the umpteenth time in the small hours of the morning, opened one eye and saw him make the face he makes before bawling out. My pulse increased, my mouth went dry and I knew it was fear that was being pumped into my bloodstream with each thump of my heart
Three: Mother’s deserve every good thing that comes their way and then some
No, really.
Four: I know more about dealing with infants than my parents do
Apart from easy access to information, there are so many avenues available for self-improvement to those privileged enough to access them. From ante-natal classes to lactation consultants, there was very little practical advise that our parents could offer and that’s okay. There’ll always be room for the grandness of grandparents
Five: Cheerleading doesn’t stop at birth for a dad
A mother’s milk will only arrive on the 2nd/3rd day, give or take. Possibly, the baby could get a little fussy during those days and the mom will constantly hear (from all and sundry) that what she has to offer in the form of food, isn’t enough. If exclusive breastfeeding is your chosen route, it’ll take a lot of encouragement that she’s got more than food to offer and that what the baby is getting is quite sufficient (given that their stomach can only handle 5ml at a time anyway)
Six: The love you feel for your offspring is directly proportional to the amount of sleep they’ll allow you
Finally, you’ll both find your feelings of gushy, mushy love start to wane as the sleep depravation and other pressures kick in. Baring other markers of post-natal depression, this is perfectly normal. There was a point where I had to admit to my wife that I see our child as a set of obligations than the object of my affection, only for her to echo those same sentiments.
In these past two weeks, I’ve done things I’d resolved I’d never do (like use a pacifier, like drug him), I’ve resented my baby, cursed under my breath at his grandparents’ undermining of our parental ability and watched myself become someone new entirely; a dad.
Being less than two weeks away from meeting my newborn means my fantasies of parenthood start to take on a deeper level of introspection. I don’t ‘sports’ much so I tend to think of the family recipes I want to share with him, more than wearing matching soccer gear but lately, I’ve begun to delve more into the idea of the kind of impression I’ll make on his life. A lot of us can speak to the reality of having years of relationship-building with our fathers fizzle to nothingness over a key incident or series of incidents in our lives.
Where it’s revealed (whether in an instant or over time) that said relationships were built on a shaky foundation of misrepresentations and meaningless platitudes about fatherhood. Whether it’s coming to realise that your father doesn’t live the values he tried to instil in your life or that he contributed little else other than his presence, I believe there’s a reason why fathers get the rap they do. In my view, it’s usually because of the focus fathers have had on either leaving a material legacy or an attempt to fashion their children’s lives after their own and thereby, having a meaningful impact on their progeny.
We tend to forget that our fathers were taught about fatherhood in a very broken society and they, themselves were raised by broken men, in all likelihood. So unless I make the commitment to address my faults now and as I go, I’m bound to repeat my own father’s errors. Errors like refusing to appear vulnerable in front of my children, like portraying my word as infallible, like refusing them access to my reasons for making certain decisions, like withdrawing physical affection the minute they hit puberty.
They meant well, we know this. They meant to impress upon us what a ‘real man’ is like but unfortunately , the model they worked off of is faulty and if we don’t aim to re-look that and undo the damage they inherited, we’re bound to pass it along.
Haaahahahahaa! Maaan, the number of things I’ve had to Google (most of them under the hood of a car)! But I look forward to learning a few things along with my son, instead of hammering home the fact that I’ve long forgotten things he still has to learn.
CNN.COM/ Dispelling the myths about black fathers
By Aaron Paxton Arnold
“In America, the perception is that the black father doesn’t exist. Negative stereotypes of black men persist, and people on the right blame the victim in cases like those of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
But if we look at the ground level, black fathers are there all around us. On the streets and in hip-hop culture, “the Block” is celebrated and used to describe a neighborhood. Black men, young and old, take pride in their hood. If you come to my block you will see black fathers and husbands celebrating with their wives and spending quality time with their children…”
vaporwave
areudirty
kianamaiart
dededos
janainaart
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
dailybridgerton
