I didn't really feel like getting out for a ride for 6 months afterwards..

and.. I try to give my other half a lie-in every morning..

i'll 2nd the sky+. Then when you are up at odd times nursing your child you will have something decent to watch.

100's of muslin cloths.

realise that you probably wont get on your bike much.

Best tip – don't listen to anyone telling you how your baby and your life are going to be. They'll be wrong.

That for example is not true at all for us.

Tips though – let's see.

— You will be able to get out riding if you approach it with sensitivity and make sure your Mrs is ok with what you want to do.

— We found that a good way to get the baby to sleep through was to stuff her with as much food as she'd take in the evening

— Breastfeeding can be very tough at first but has massive advantages that will last the rest of the year – you've always got food with you, no sterilising, no buying formula, no paraphernalia to cart about, you can't overfeed your baby and give him/her diabetes, better for your wife's body and best of all, it's real proper food for your baby not synthetic artificial rubbish.

— Take part responsibility for the baby. Being a good dad isn't playing football with your kid or carrying him/her sometimes, it's making decisions and doing some of the thinking.

— Nature nappies are better than huggies/pampers etc and eco friendly too, but not as widely available. Sainsbury's eco are not so good, they leak.

— Babies are people with their own character, behaviour and needs.

— Try and understand your baby – learn to figure out when he/she is hungry, tired, upset for some reason, in pain etc etc. Try and put yourself in your baby's position…

— Close baby carriers are great – found it much better than a pushchair when she was small.

— Don't go overboard – babies are resilient. Don't pamper him/her too much, just give him/her what he/she needs and let him/her explore the world on his/her own terms.

— Don't over-use gender ambigious pronouns

— Don't over-stimulate the baby. Toy companies will want to sell you stimulating beepy plastic crap that drives kids mental.. often exploring any 3D object is a great entertaining project – it doesn't have to be brightly coloured and sing crappy songs at you.

— Further to that last one, don't buy your kid too much crap. Only buy new stuff when he/she's bored of the old stuff, and then start rotating it – bringing old stuff back out again.

— I guess that last one goes for supposedly essential baby equippent too. Only buy what you really need, and then buy more stuff when you figure out if you need it or not. You can still go to town and shop when you have a kid 🙂

— Not sure if sterilising is really necessary. We BFed until 6mo then since she was crawling about sticking everything in her mouth we thought sterilising food utensils was a bit pointless.

Re breast feeding – it's worth a really hard try – there are loads of support networks and all. We needed a combination of sister-in-law's help, comedy northern bf expert lady from the hospital who reminded me very strongly of Les Dawson in drag, and a lot of my wife's courage, grit and determination. We were one of the more problematic cases because Meg had a small mouth and wouldn't open it wide.

[opinion]If you start doing stuff like expressing or supplementing with formula I think it's less likely to work well. Your baby and boobs need to be in synch, and if you start mucking about with machines and all it gets confused… Night feeding is hard, but learning how to feed in the lying down position is the best. For a while we could only do it this way in fact. I really think that giving her feeds ever two hours from about 6pm helped her sleep through the night, or only need one feed.[/opinion]

I'd say avoid Gina Ford like the plague:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/21/leaving-baby-to-cry-brain-development-damage

I don't want high levels of cortisol in my baby's body.. it means she's really upset and unhappy, and has loads of damaging effects – at least in grownups.

If she's upset, work out why and fix it.

Oh, and for us the hardest thing about weaning was trusting that she'd not choke on the food she was putting in her mouth. Make sure it's small bits of soft stuff and let her get on with it.

Take Douglas Adams advice :- Don't Panic!

One of the best bits of advice I was given was warm the cot before putting the baby in it, then they may not notice that they are not on you anymore.

Certainly load up the dvd/sky+ for the first couple of nights you may well be stuck in front of the tv while the misses catches some sleep & the baby may not settle.

Re breast feeding, your wife shouldn't have to try too hard, we're made for it, most feeding attempts work but women bow to social pressure. Get lots of breast pads and a pump after several weeks then you can freeze it. It's the best feeling in the world. It's so convenient and has instant settling effect on baby. They usually fall off after a feed fast asleep and that's when you can rest too. I've had 3, last one wouldn't have anything else for 16 months, that was extreme feeding. I am a realist though, anatomy, babies and mulitiple births can make it difficult.
Just go with it, it's fabulous.

And bollocks to dad – we get ignored all the time! 😉

Best steriliser? The one that is designed to work with your bottles. We use Tommy Tippee and have all the bits that work together (much easier to fit more into small spaces). And we use the microwave steam steriliser (used cold water at first to clean breast pump bits but we don't use it at all now).

STW is full of pathetic men with not enough common sense to choose a tyre on their own, why on earth would you ask them for advice on a new baby?

For some reason I looked at that pic and thought – he'll have the very same expression in 18yrs time in a Threshers Ball photograph. 😆

No-one tipping on the re-usable v disposable nappy debate then yet 😉

Agree with Molgrips (what is happening to me?) you get to know your own – one of ours (Izzi) will scream blue murder sometimes towards the end of bedtime feeds and it is to tell you she wants to go to bed.

The first time this happened I was holding this screaming ball writhing around in my hands so I said to my wife 'I'll just have to put her to bed – this isn't working'. As soon as I put her down she fell asleep – that was about 6 months ago and she does the same now – it is her way of saying 'right, I want to sleep now'. Evie (the other twin) has never done anything like that – she has a whole different set of quirks.

Sorry but yes 😉

Infacol

Lots of muslins in your airing cupboard (not to be confused with muslims)

A good camera, they change EVERY day

Sky+ or Virgin+

If you want to breastfeed but Mum is struggling, INSIST that the hospital/health visitors help her more, you woudlnt believe how many mothers fall over at this first hurdle and CONVINCE themselves they cant manage it or they're not producing milk etc etc. Newborns drink a spoponful of milk at a time, their bellies are tiny, and remember that both Mum and baby need to learn how to feed, it doesnt come naturally to either, they need to learn from scratch so will need help and gentle encouragement

You WILL still get time to ride your bike!

Good luck 😀

😯

just short of 11 months for our two – currently (approx) 15lbs and 16lbs. (Izzi WAS only 4lb 10oz as newborn though)

on the breast feeding thing. The OP has the right attitude, try it and stick with it but don't stress over it. My wife was determined first time and stuck with it for several weeks of cracked and bleeding nipples, and baby still didn't grasp the idea, . I can't imagine the stress my wife had, when every feed involved having a baby chewing on your already bruised and bleeding nips for hours on end. I know what mine was like just watching it. We had help from NCT, Midwives, La leche…. and nothing seemed to work. Our daughter didn't gain any substantial weight, cried continuously. I'm ashamed to say it but I hated her in those first few weeks.

Finally it was my mum, herself a retired NCT counsellor (but not a BF specialist) who demanded we give her a bottle of formula milk and it was like turning a light on. She went from strength to strength, we supplemented expressed milk and formula and replaced breastfeeding time with skin to skin contact time, and she's now a thriving 6 year old. She has no allergies, no asthma, she eats healthily and well, is a perfect height and weight…. everything that we 'risked' by not sticking with the breast is best has not come true.

DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOUR WIFE AND BABY.

(as a final comment – despite nerves about what was coming we'd already decided that we'd try breast with the second but wouldn't fret if it didn't happen. Maybe we were already better prepared and more relaxed but she went straight to the breast and stayed with it until her teeth started to come and bit the wife once too often)

Talking of NCT- ours never answered the phone. I had one returned call and "we are full/over-subscribed" 😐

I so hope so – last week Izzi discovered grass for the first time (the green variety 😉 ) and it was wonderful to see her with dirty fingernails 🙂

Seconded re pressure to breast feed…mrs is quite petite…gave birth to a 9lb starving lump, she was in surgery post birth and despite trying really hard for a couple of days couldn't cope with it…daughter had a bottle of SMA and it was a big relief..happy baby happy mum…some of her mates acted like we were abusing our nipper 😥 going on about her development…one of mrs childhood friends(most vociferous about breast feeding) said how much better her daughter would do because of it…our daughter who is 18months younger at 8 towers over this kid and has far better physical development…makes us chuckle everytime we see them together!..I know breast is best..in most circumstances but don't stress out mums at a very vulnerable time!

Breast is always best. Just got to do your best to sort it out. And it can almost always be sorted out.

And no-one's saying your kids will guaranteed be feeble mutants if you don't. Or that bf kids will be bigger/stronger etc than bottle kids. But a bf kid might be bigger/stronger/etc than the same kid if they'd been bottled.

But you know all that. It's just the non-science that annoys me a bit.