Nick Harper - Help! Im a Dad: All a new dad needs to know about the difficult first few months

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Michael OMara Books Limited
9 Lion Yard
Tremadoc Road
London SW4 7NQ

This electronic edition published in 2014

Copyright Nick Harper 2014

The right of Nick Harper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78243-224-1 in paperback print format
ISBN: 978-1-78243-238-8 in ebook format

Designed and typeset by K DESIGN, Winscombe, Somerset
Cover design by Ana Bjeanevi
Illustrations by David Woodroffe and from www.shutterstock.com

www.mombooks.com

Dedication

This book wouldnt have been written
without the help of

Mr A. Gudi and staff at the Fertility Centre,
Homerton University Hospital,
London.

The staff at SCBU,
Whipps Cross University Hospital,
London.

And most of all my wife
Sarah Harper,
the amazing mum of Louis and James.

Hello and welcome.
And of course, huge congratulations.

If you are reading these words, its because you are about to or indeed have become a dad for the first time. For that you should feel very proud. Mildly terrified too, but very proud.

As a new dad, your life is about to change in so many ways and almost all of them for the better. Your baby will suddenly bring new meaning, purpose and direction to your life. You will feel a very rare brand of love that your heart reserves only for your baby and suddenly, for the first time, the world and your place in it will all begin to make sense. Although probably not straight away.

At first you wont have a clue what youre supposed to be doing, because being a dad for the very first time is a confusing, complicated business with a very, very steep learning curve.

For example, you wont know how to make your baby stop crying, or what clothes a newborn baby should be wearing, or how, what and when to feed him or her. You wont know if fifty-three nappy changes in a single afternoon is more or less than normal, or where your baby should sleep, or when, or for how long. And unless youre a qualified doctor or midwife, you probably wont know if that throaty little cough you hear in the dead of night is the first strain of some life-threatening illness that needs urgent medical attention, or just a throaty little cough.

Initially, you wont know very much at all. But dont worry. Thats normal and youre not alone.

Apparently, 255 babies are born around the world every single minute 4.3 every second of every day. Most of those babies are born to parents who havent got a clue what theyre meant to be doing. Not because theyre bad parents, but because nobody really knows what theyre doing when they become a dad (or a mum) for the first time.

Some people might pretend they know. Some people might even make a career out of their supposed expertise, and some charlatans may even, ahem, write books on the subject, as if they somehow hold the secret to it all. But they dont. Because how could they?

Every newborn baby is unique and no single set of rules can ever cover every issue that will crop up in the first year. What works for one baby wont necessarily work for another and much of the first year will involve trial and error on your part, mixed in with a lot of guesswork. This is normal.

I remember how I felt when I first became a dad. Confused and terrified. But mainly confused. My wife and I had been handed our babies (plural, two, twins) and been told to go home and, like everyone else has done before us, just get on with it. The hospital staff were magnificent and more polite than that, but that was the gist of it we were taking up a bed another mother needed and they were busy, so it was time we left.

We did so very nervously, took an hour to drive the ten minutes home, travelling at snails pace and avoiding all the speed bumps, and finally reached our front door. And as we closed it with a terrifying click behind us, we realized that This Is How It Begins the responsibility from here on in is all ours. We looked at each other and asked the same question: So what are we supposed to do now? Neither of us really knew.

Wed been through numerous Preparing Parents For Baby courses in the weeks leading up to that day, each designed to teach us exactly what to do when our babies arrived. But none of them can really ready you for that moment when you are staring down at a tiny little baby whose life is entirely dependent on you and your partner. Its the strangest feeling of ecstatic terror you will ever encounter.

Not knowing what to do with a real baby, as opposed to the tatty plastic toy we passed around parent class, my wife and I decided that the best thing we could do was sit down and have a nice cup of tea and just see how things unfolded.

Its all you can do really, but this book has been written to try and help you make sense of a very confusing and often complicated situation, specifically from a new dads perspective. Its sole aim is to help new dads understand a bit more about whats going on and what lies ahead, and to take at least some of the guesswork out of the first few weeks and months.

Its also been written to cover only the first twelve months of your babys life, because by the time you reach Year Two youll have a far better idea of what youre supposed to be doing.

This book doesnt claim to have all the answers to all the questions you will have as your baby slowly grows, because that would undermine what I wrote before about babies being unique individuals. It simply aims to offer as much useful advice as possible on the challenges youll face, and by doing so, help you feel just slightly less lost and a little bit less confused.

If you are as clueless as I was when I first started out then you have a long road to travel and a lot to learn, so we should probably crack on. But why not put the kettle on first, weve got time for that.

WARNING!

As mentioned above, this is a book written by a dad, not by a doctor, nurse, midwife or health visitor. All the advice is as accurate as stringent research and tireless fact checking allows, but if in doubt about any element at any time, consult a qualified expert at the earliest opportunity. Raising a baby is a very serious business and his or her safety should never be put at risk in any way.