Jordan Watson - How to Dad

No baby was harmed in the making of this book.

First published in 2016

Copyright Jordan Watson 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Allen & Unwin
Level 3, 228 Queen Street
Auckland 1010, New Zealand
Phone: (64 9) 377 3800

Email:
Web: www.allenandunwin.co.nz

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the National Library of New Zealand

ISBN 9781877505850 (pbk)
ISBN 9781952535611 (eBook)

Internal design by Kate Barraclough

Contents

DADvice: Dont miss the birth
of your baby

How to build a Xmas present
for your kid

How to teach kids about the birds
and the bees

DADvice: Sleep? Parents dont
sleep

How to get a baby to clean
the house

GDay, Im that How to DAD bloke.
I dont have a degree in parenting.
I dont even think that is a thing.

My name is Jordan Watson, Im married with two daughters and I make D.I.Y. parenting videos that for some reason have taken the Dad world by storm. My Facebook page has almost one million followers and the other day an old lady recognised me in the supermarket. People think I know a thing or two about being a Dad. Heres a secret. I dont. I make it up.

Thats basically it. Just pretend.

If your D.I.Y. parenting skills are a bit rusty then this guide should teach you a few new tricks. Or maybe it wont, but just for the purpose of me writing a book on parenting, lets pretend it does help. You can go to parties and pretend that this guide has rescued you from the struggles of parenting. Pretend its great. Pretend its the best thing you have ever read. Then when your mate buys one, you can both pretend to be the best D.I.Y. parents in the neighbourhood.

And I can carry on pretending to be good at this whole Dad thing.
This is the HOW TO DAD guide. By that How to DAD bloke.

HOW
TO HOLD
A BABY

Standard shoulder hold

Reverse standard shoulder hold

Need-to-pick-something-up chin shoulder hold

Baby Jesus

Double baby Jesus

Stinky nappy for me

Stinky nappy for you

Box of beers

Poor mans front-pack

The hide-ya-beer-belly

The rugby
ball hold

The other rugby ball hold

The show-off-to-other-dads superman

Finally, the show-off-to-other-kids fish

DADvice:

Dont miss
the birth of
your baby

I almost missed the birth of my second daughter. If I had been ten seconds later I would have missed it. When you become a parent you learn that a lot can happen in ten seconds.

They can fill a nappy in under two seconds, in five seconds they can run off with your iPhone and drop it in the toilet and in ten seconds theyve grabbed your car keys, dribbled on them, opened the garage and driven off down the road.

All of the above is forgivable. But imagine if I missed the birth of my daughter. Shes now 18 months old and I imagine that I would have been living in the dogbox for those 18 months.

On arrival at the birth centre the missus hops into the birthing pool (which is just an everyday spa pool with a fancy-sounding name). Going off how long it took our first daughter to enter the world, we both figured we still had a good few hours before the new baby would be born.

Things were still moving slowly, painfully slowly. My feet were sore, I had a sore back and I just wanted a hot pie. Oh yeah, the missus was a bit uncomfortable too.

Anyway, being 8 a.m., I left my wife in the fancy spa pool with the midwife and went for a wander to find the toilet. Im a guy with basic

instincts and we had rushed out of the house before I had my morning sit-on-the-throne therapy.

Found the throne, I was in no rush, we had hours to kill, played a bit of Angry Birds, caught up on the news then figured Id hogged the toilet long enough. Walking back to the fancy spa pool room, I wasnt in a hurry. I was looking at the professional baby portraits on the wall thinking who the hell would pay for that, just take a snap on your phone. Then I heard the long, lion-like groan from down the hall. Sheesh, that lady must be in pain. It was followed by a J, J, J, Jordan!

I sprinted down the hall, bust open the fancy spa pool room door and as I made it to the edge of the fancy spa pool HELLO! My second daughter greeted the world. Ten seconds later and I would have missed it. She was all those cute, shiny and new things that newborn babies are and all I was thinking was, Sh*t, lucky my phone crashed on level 17 of Angry Birds.

NOTE TO SELF: Dont ever risk missing the