Don't get it wet and never feed after midnight. Or something.
They're all different, forget the life you're living now totally for the first three months, you'll get it back in installments over the next twenty five years but with some enhancements.
Good luck and chill out.
Just pretend it is your second. You get all the stress and worry of rules or expectations out of the way on the first so you can be relaxed and enjoy it second time around by just taking it as it comes.
Keep the receipt - you might need it
Stupid people have been raising children since forever. Just feed them and dispose of the shit. You pretty quickly get used to smelling like vomit and baby shit. Worst thing is that you will be utterly exhausted for the first year or so and you will have a little monster that demands constant attention, so just getting enough sleep is first priority. You pretty much have to stop hanging out with your single friends and find friends who have kids. Your topics of conversation will change from whatever it is that single people talk about to baby shit, funny things babies do, baby sleep patterns, baby eating habits, etc.
Congratulations most of the above contains great advice however if you thought there are too many bike part standards wait till you try to fit a part to a pram or buggy that is not OEM even the simplest thing !! As with bikes beware of N+1 we ended up with N+2! It goes by in a flash so enjoy every minute we now have 2granddaughters they’re brilliant fun
+1 on the bogey sucker, so much fun
5.5yr old and a 2 year old here
As said before they are pretty tough things on the whole
We have never stopped getting outdoors and both have been out in all weathers, even when tiny.
Sleeping in tents and Campervans from a couple of months old and arguably, they seems mellower and more adaptable because of it.
Neither of us have been a fan of the buggy and both of ours hardly ever went in it. We always just used slings and baby carriers until they could go in a rucksack style carrier.
Less faff than buggies, easier to get around adventuring and good for your fitness, plus they love “hanging out“ on/with you
Good luck, it’s flipping ace!
Some babes are great some can be nightmare, just the luck of the draw. I had one of each. The first 3 - 6 months are both amazing but hellish, wish someone had prepared me for how hard the first few weeks actually are.
Most points covered before but a few random notes...
1) Your instincts are probably good enough to get you through, frightening at first but you soon get it, thank god for my wife!
2) All babies are different you just have to find what works for yours. For us it was a good routine.
3) I got the impression every **expert** needs to sell their books so they have to come up with somthing different - when we had sleep issues with our first we read too many books and just confused the shit out of everyone.
4) Amazon was on repeat in the weeks before our first arrived, my mum used to come in sigh and say "they would happily sleep in a draw you know", she was right. Don't buy too much crap. My younger son now wears his sisters clothes 🙂
5) NCT was great, its another luck of the draw thing with who you get but we made some great friends and still are, 4 years later and my wife had some amazing support at the start. The course/anti-natal part is rubbish though, free NHS one was alot better.
6) They ask you to make a birth plan, in other words what you would like to happen. Its not up to you, don't sweat it.
7) Learn your baby's crys, you can tell hungry, in pain, annoyed etc after a while.
8) If i did it again i'd not buy a video baby monitor - countless hours wasted staring at that stupid fuzzy little sceen. You don't have to rush in everytime he/she moves.
9) Don't let others tell you how you should be doing it. Sleep training worked for us but its not for eveyone.
10) Whatever gets said in the night is forgotten in the morning, that was our rule 🙂 Supprising how lack of sleep/high emotions can wear you down - look after yourselves!
11) Birth part is pretty sureal, still don't really get it, i mean we have iphones, people have been to space yet we have still not evolved away from having to push somthing out of a hole thats not really big enough for it to come out of. No real advice for that part - i've blanked it out!
12) looking back, you only really remember the amazing bits.
Good luck its 100% worth it!
Whatever manual you choose to go with remember they've sent you the instructions for the basic version, and you've got the one with the V1.02 and 1.04a enhancements, the additional features and the feedback module refinement.
None of which are documented, even to the point of actually telling you what features they are and what the refinement is.
You'll work it out. Eventually.
You'll either have a kid who sleeps well and is a delight or one who's an absolute pain in the a**e. If it's the first, do not tell anyone else who has a baby as they will hate you forever. If it's the latter, just try and get through as best you can. The word that usually sums up the first 6 months or so is relentless. You thought you knew how little sleep you could survive on and then you have a baby and realise it's about 1/4 of what you previously thought.
Buy a pair of camo shorts, they hide a multitude of sins
Take loads of photo’s and get them printed out, every moment is fleeting, before you know it they’re 14, farting, eating you out of house and home, stuck to PS4, Etc etc so enjoy them while you can and they’re adorable!
1. The baby operates you for the first year, just do what you're told.
2. Mum however definitely needs regular maintenance and care. Now is the true man-up point in your life where you put yourself a distant third.
3. Do not under any circumstances get an expensive buggy, you will look like a newb and they are a con.
4. Brew your child well and after 15 years they will jokingly punch you on the arm and the pain will remind you of the circle of life and your position in the last quarter of it.
3. Do not under any circumstances get an expensive buggy, you will look like a newb and they are a con.
Hmmm, we've bought an expensive buggy cheapily second hand on facebook marketplace (which seems to be a gold mine of baby shite). Perhaps we need a sticker to disguise our newb status.
I was told the first twenty or twenty five years are the worst; not been proven wrong so far.......
Commando Dad was our reference book too.
Given a Ewan Dream Sheep, it worked first time so didn't dare do anything else afterwards.
Mostly winged it, not too unsuccessfully so far.
Biggest mistake was thinking the first one is always late based on friends experiences. Bit over a month early and just 2 boxes of random baby stuff given to us the day before, house semi in bits getting stuff finished before due date. Think car seat was ordered online from maternity ward.
Always carry the baby if it snows, you can snowball others but they can't get you.
The best advice I was given was that it's always just a phase...
If you're struggling and don't think you can cope, then things will get better, they'll grow out of whatever it is that's drive you insane. However, if you ever think that you've got parenting nailed then the little bugger will change it up and you'll have to adapt all over again.
Oh, and they really don't stay small for very long. Enjoy it.