Other people's babies

A couple of things have happened recently that made me feel I was taking another step to dadhood.

1. We went around to a friend of my wife's and without asking (or thinking), I picked up their son and gave him a cuddle. My wife looked at me strangely, I woke up like out of a daze and sheepishly retreated from dadhood to manhood and went off in search of a beer.

2. Last week an old work colleague brought their baby to the office and (again without thinking), I got up and went to have a look.

I even asked some knowledgeable questions about how she was sleeping and whether she had teeth yet. Ok, so they were not really knowleagable questions, but they were a huge advance on mumbling "congratulations" that made up my dealings with new mothers in the past.

I'm not sure what to draw from this, but I think I'm entering some new territory. A few months ago I'd rather have gone to the dentist than spend more than a second with someone else's baby.

Now, not only am I spending time with them, I don't mind them throwing up on me.

Well, perhaps that is a bit strong, I do mind it when they throw up on me.

But the general thought holds true.

It may have taken me 35 years, but I've discovered other people's baby's can be interesting.

Sophie's normal, bouncy service is resumed

A few days ago my daughter was in hospital with a temperature that was way too high. She was in a real state, and had her parents panicked and the doctors puzzled

Now, three days later, she's back to her bouncy self.

It's like nothing happened.

Except that her parents can remember.

As far as she's concerned, it might as well never have happened. But I keep looking at her sideways, when we think she's not noticing us. I'm trying to see if she lets her guard down, to see if this revitalised Sophie is real, or if she's hiding her pain and putting on an act to spare us.

I should have more faith in her, it's no act - if there's one thing babies are, it's honest. I should know by now that she has no problem waking my wife and I up in the middle of the night, or screaming in the middle of a quiet part of a TV show. And if she has no problem with that, then when she's got something legitimate to play on, there would be absolutely no holding back.

Perhaps I should stop judging her through my standards.

Or maybe it's not judging, but me trying to get rid of the guilt I feel because it really was a hassle when she got sick. Don't get me wrong, the sickness was all about her pain, which was horrible, but it meant a lot of extra work for my wife and I as well.

My wife and I are still feeling the strain, and while it's great that she's well again and while I would take her place to save her from any sickness that comes up, there's a small part of me that thinks she should still be showing some effect of it. It's not fair that she can carry on as normal after giving us such a fright.

But maybe I'm learning a bit more about being a parent. Maybe being a parent is learning that inone of this is about me at all. My daughter is seven months old, what is she going to do - say thank you? Maybe the way to look at it is that this is unconditional love. She has the right to expect this of me because this is what parents do. Maybe when I realise some of this, I become a parent?

In a way it's refreshing. I spend so much of my working life trying to say the right thing, to pick the best moment to ask a question. She just goes right ahead with what she wants to do or express. I can't can blame her - it's effective. Not so sure it would work in the real world though, unconditional love is not so common in the workplace!

So this week our life can resume. It's back to spooning in solid food and trying to get her to bed on time. But that's not a bad thing - for the moment, to my tired eyes, the normal routine has never felt so fresh.

Hospitals are no place for babies

It's been seven months of prettty easy sailing so far, I guess it had to happen sooner or later. On Monday night I was leaving work and got the dreaded call to hurry home, my wife was concerned about Sophie.

Sophie is never ill, there's the odd bump when she suddenly forgets how to sit, or is too ambitious with the crawling, but never anything serious.

Until now.

I knew something was wrong when I came home and instead of the frantic wiggling and giggling I get each night when I open the door, there was a listless glance, then she turned away. That was about the worst feeling ever. I'm expecting something like that when she's a teenager, but there should be a lot of time yet when she thinks Dad is just the greatest.

The new, listless Sophie was a really strange experience. Over the past seven months, we've really got to know her and she's developed a real, chirpy personality. Always talking, dribbling and trying to move about. To come home to a daughter who is like a zombie, just staring and moving slowly was to come home to someone I didn't know.

When she was born we read through the baby books and decided to buy a digital thermometer. Right now, we kind of wished we hadn't, because it was reading over 38 degrees celcius. With the thermo strips there's a bit of leeway (if I squint I can make the reading go up or down), but with a digital thermometer, the numbers were staring me in the face. Looking at the book again, it said 39 degrees meant an ambulance, so 38 is pretty bad.

We called up the hospital and they said to come on in. We got there, did our initial check and sat down to wait.

And waited.

And waited.

An hour isn't a long time when you're doing something fun, but when there's a sick baby to look after, time starts to drag. We started to do silly things like measure her temperature every five minutes. it got to 39, then back to 38.6, then back up to 39.1, then back down again.

The paediactician finally came to look at Sophie. After peering in the ears, checking the eyes and resisting Sophie's attempts to spit out the tongue depresser, she told us didn't know what was wrong.

Next up were the blood samples. As if poor Sophie wasn't unhappy enough, they put a needle in her foot and took out what seemed like half her blood supply. They then wrapped up her foot, keeping the needle in, just in case they needed more samples.

An hour or two later the samples came back fine, they still din't know what was wrong. So we sat down to wait again. I'm an active person and have never thought that doing nothing was the best thing to do, but all our hoping and wishing must have worked.

Her temperature started to come back down.

4am in the morning, we've done nothing, and her temperature started to come back down.

So that's it. A pretty lame story compared to what some parents have gone through, and, knowing Sophie, she's going to put us through a lot worse yet. But for the moment, that is bad enough, and a definite remnder that life with a baby is not all smiles and cooing, and that even the regular crying ain't so bad when I compare it to the night I spent with her at the hospital.

Her Sole Intention is Learning To Crawl

I came home last night to find we'd hit another milestone, Sophie had worked out how to crawl.

Well, not exactly how to crawl, but she had an idea about how a baby might be able to move across a rug. Like a jigsaw puzzle, she has all the parts and it's only a mattter of time before she puts them together in the right order.

One arm forward.
Then the other arm.
Or was it the leg?
No, pretty sure it was the arm.
Or both arms?
Oh dear, that doesn't feel right.
Splat.
etc.

It's so hard to watch, she knows all the individual parts of crawling, but just can't link them together. And (being a man) all I want to do is to solve her problem, to explain how it all goes together, to take over completely and do it for her. But that's not going to help - I know this because I tried.

I tried demonstrating by crawling across the lawn. I tried sitting down and talking her through the process. I tried encouragement. I moved her arms and legs for her. Then my wife tried to make me realise there can be few things more pitiful than the attempts of a man of 35 trying to teach a six month old baby how to crawl.

So, in spite of my efforts, for the moment we're safe. But the kiddie locks for the cupboards will be taken out of their packaging this weekend and anything mouth sized or "push overable" will be taken off the floor. Six months on, the realisation of what I've done is still finding new ways to hit me.

Feeding time at the London zoo

I think Sophie knew something was up as she was carried to her brand new, sparkling white Ikea highchair.

It was a suspicious look she gave me, but as she sat there banging her spoon I was optimistic that there might be a chance of her trading in Mum's breast for pureed carrot, sweet potato or parsnip. Not the smartest of trades, not one I would have made, but then she was only a baby, and who knows how they think. Maybe my wife and my combined 70 odd years of experience could outwit her six months of baby cunning.

It started well - the picking up, the strapping into the chair and giving her the spoon. But from there, things got a bit harder.

With a lot of experience under my belt I don't usually have a problem finding my mouth and swallowing whatever is deposited, but trying to explain the process is not that easy. The part about putting the spoon in the mouth was fine, My wife and I could mime it and Sophie got the idea pretty quick.

The problem came with what to do once it was in the mouth. Six months of life experience and she had the theory and practice of sucking pretty well sorted. With a breast, pusing the tongue up works perfectly to seal off the mouth and provide the suction. This doesn't work quite so well with a spoon - when you have a spoon in your mouth, pushing up the tongue propels food out of the mouth and down the chin.

mmm

And again

mmm

Fifteen minutes later and we had emptied the container of sweet potato. There was some on Sophie's chin, some on her bib, quite a bit on her highchair, a few small puddles on the floor, a sprinkling on Mum and Dad and possibly some inside Sophie.

Still, she at least she seemed to enjoy the process, and even better was the reward - a good session on mother's breast. I'm not convinced the appropriate reward for eating is more eating (look what it's done to me), but round two awaits us tomorrow.

Sleep Training (Part One)

With the six month mark having passed us by and our travel calendar (consisting of a six-month best of two weekends away in a row) now cleared, my wife and I made the decision to train young Sophie in the art of sleeping by herself.

Up until now, her sleeping cycle has consisted of being rocked and jiggled to sleep over 2-3 hours in about every room of the house as we worked on the principle that she liked moving around - after all, falling asleep in the pushchair was never a problem.

However, all the books said the best way was to put her in her cot and let her fight her way to sleep. The theory behind this is that they need to learn to fall asleep by themselves and the longer they take to learn the more parents have to put up with.

But boy can she scream.

And flip herself on her stomach.

And scream.

And flip over on her back again.

And scream.

And (it seems like magic) she can go to sleep.

There's a transition that only takes a few seconds between being one of the angriest young women on the planet, hating her cot and the uncaring parents who are just stood there watching her struggle and the change to blissing out, mouth open, arms outstretched, and gently snoring.

It's been two nights so far, averaging about two hours each time. We're betting everything on two hours being all she can manage as it's about our limit too.

Perhaps the worst part, though, is that living in London it's not just us who are suffering. I hope the neighbours have as high a tolerence as us right now, if not, we have a bottle of wine and a set of ear plugs for any neighbours who come knocking at the door.

Weekend in Sweden

Last weekend it was Yorkshire, this weekend we've come back from a plane trip to visit friends in Sweden - from not having left the house for the last couple of months, we've turned into social animals.

But it was a different type of social.

Last time we caught up with them, the talk was about old friends and drinking. This time, the conversation was kids, kids, kids. Our friends have a 12 month old, so we got to see first hand some of what is coming, and for the most part it was good, especially in Sweden, where the rights parents get are incredible.

Some of the things I am looking forward to:

• Sophie learning to walk
• eating solids
  

Some of the things I'm not looking forward to

• Sophie learning to walk
• eating solids
• personality continuing to emerge
  

I think each of these deserve a post of their own, but to state the obvious, the best and the worst are the same things.

While Sophie can cause a mess at 6 months, the damage a twelve month old can do is on a different scale all together. Not only can they move heavier objects and do it more quickly, they have the added danger of being mobile.

At the moment, Sophie is sitting happily and can roll over, but she hasn't go the hang of crawling. It's great to have her stay basically where she's put. Once walking is a posibillty, it only takes seconds for them to disappear, or empty a cupboard or basically destroy a room.

Eating is the same story. I smiled when I saw the plastic raincoat in the baby shop, "knowing" that while Sophie can dribble a lot, apart from the odd baby barf, she's never maanged to cover herself in food completely. With out friend's young son this weekend I saw it was possible - not only possible, but probable.

But gosh, he's got a real personality. He knows what he likes and is starting to resist any attempt to tell him what he should like. At the same time, he's a real copycat, whenever his Dad touches something on the stereo, he does too, whenever his Dad grabs a beer from the fridge, he tries to as well and even when his Dad picks something up, he does the same (unless it's a toy to tidy up by putting it back in the basket!).

All these things to come. Six months have gone by and our bundle of joy is now eight kilos of fast growing baby. I get the feeling tat whatever happens next is going to happen too fast and not fast enough ...

A Yorkshire Solution to Teething

We've just got back from three days in Yorkshire visiting my sister in law, three of the wettest summer (or winter) days I've had in a long time. Arriving in the station, it was about 30 seconds before I had someone call me "duck". I think the ducks were more in their element that us - they have waterproof feathers, we had to dig out the raincoats.

We felt sure the time was right to leave London, Wimbledon had been fairly dry and tradition said it was due for a drenching, but instead we seemed to take most of the weather north with us. The rain ruled out most of our ideas for walking through gardens and all the outdoor things we had planned so the search was on for other pursuits.

Ever since seeing it on the TV ad (for double glazing, I think) one of my goals was to visit the Tan Hill Inn - the highest pub in Britain. So with a lot of sweet talking and promises to get up and rock the baby, to change nappies on demand and all sorts of other things I'm hoping won't be remembered, we set out on a miserable day to drive through the moors to drink a pint on top of the world.

Yorkshire is an amazing place, there must be hundreds of small villages, all perfect pictures with stone houses and stone walls and flowers everywhere. It's like the locals in every village had put on some kind of special decoration for us tourists whizzing through on our cars.

It was our first time in a car for a long while, and Sophie loved it. There's something about cars and babies that just puts them right to sleep and all her toothing troubles were forgotten as we sped along. It was just a pity we did have to stop every now and again, becuase she had some sort of 6th sense that woke her up the second we stopped.

Not sure whether it was teething or being in a new place, she just doesn't like anything at the moment. But there was one other time she quietened down, and I should know by now that's she's becoming one of those children that when it's quiet, you have to worry.

I was sitting there enjoying my pint and watching the driving rain against the (new double glazed!) windows when I spied the above picture out of the corner of my eye. Cold is meant to make gums feel better, so I guess whether it comes from an official, specially designed toy that you put in the freezer or a bottle the landlord puts in the fridge, the principle is the same.

So it's a moral dilemma. On the plus side, it keeps her quiet, and it keeps Dad busy making sure there are enough cold empty bottles to keep her happy. On the negative side, there are some people who might take this the wrong way, and the government is coming up with more drinking restrictions and proclamations (though this might be more of a reason to go ahead with my new solution).

Yep, it's a tricky situation, I think I'll have another pint while I think about it ...

Back on the Blog

I've just looked at the last blog entry and it's been over a month since I last wrote something, so it's time to get back on the horse.

I'm starting to realise again that life goes on regardless and that I need to take some time out occasionally to note some of the funny things that are constantly happening as my daughter grows up.

At the time, they're "just one of those things" but over the months (and maybe even the years if my typing finger stands up to it) I'm going to try and make them build up to something special.

Meeting the Grandmother

One of the greatest moments of my life was introducing my daughter to my parents (she's their first grandchild and they've waited over 30 years). They've heard her on the phone and seen her on the webcam, but nothing compares to meeting in the flesh.

Even over the few weeks we spent back with them she changed a lot - growing from someone who could fit in our overhead luggage compartment, to someone who, well, who would still fit, only not so well.

Unfortunately I think my mother had seen so many photos and so much video of Sophie that she thought they knew each other. I gues this is the sort of thing that happens to TV and celebrity stalkers, this example was just a bit closer to home - no one expects the grandmother stalker!

Mum's first reaction on seeing Sophie was to rip her out of my arms (not even pretending I was the one she wanted to see) and turning away as she did it.

Of course this meant that Sophie couldn't see her Mum and Dad. This got a predictable (howling) reaction and so my poor Mum was stranded with a crying baby in a crowded airport lounge. Not exactly the meeting she had imagined.

But things soon warmed up between them, and in a couple of days they were the best of friends. With Mum it was the first time we'd had a babysitter and it quickly became adictive.

• Crying baby in the morning? Pass her over to her grandmother.
• Baby who wants to play at 6am? Over to her grandmother.
• Baby who should be taken out for some fresh air? Over to her grandmother.

Very quickly there was basically one answer to every question we had about Sophie - Very quickly grandmother became our crack.

Finding What's Really Important

I was wondering tonight exactly how it is that a five month old girl can get two 30+ adults to dance around the kitchen in the hope of a smile.

I just have to repeat that because I don't really think I believe what I'm writing. I've trudged home after a 12 hour day at work, ready for the welcome embrace of the couch. Then I see my daughter and go from feeling like collapsing to getting the urge to dance around the kitchen for a smile.

Now dancing is not our forte, and so we have to be fairly desparate to start something like that, especially in a kitchen the size of ours, especially when there's no music on and we're trying to avoid the squeaky floor boards to keep on the good side of our neighbour below.

Dancing is meant to be fun, and I only realise how seriously I'm taking it when Sophie doesn't smile. The feeling of disapointment actually hurts (though when I add a bit of singing to go along with the dancing the smile comes - even if it looks more like one of pity than genuine enjoyment on her part).

Thinking about this makes me realise again that the value I get from Sophie is greater than anything I get from work. All the busy running around of the day is what success is supposed to be like, but while 12 hours of that might bring in something for the company, for me it doesn't bring the same satisfaction of 30 second dance for a smile.

I guess that's because Sophie isn't work, she's what I'm working for.

Lost and Found

Yesterday brought another reminder of Sophie's Christening.

I finally got around to taking my suit to the drycleaners* and was doing a final pocket check, when I found the booties that went with her Christening outfit.

Yep, those same booties that I swore I put in in the car, the same booties that I desparately tried to find someone else to blame for losing and the same booties that I spent at least an hour looking for, cursing under my breath all the while.

I'm pretty sure this is the coolest thing I've ever found left in my pockets. It definitely ranks above hankies (clean or dirty), above bibs (usually dirty) and above cash too (at least the amounts I'm likely to find in my pockets).

In terms of the feeling that came with finding them it rates above everything.

Not sure also what this says about her Dad trying to teach her stuff when his memory is going already. At this rate I'll have forgotten everything before I get to pass it on.

At least I'll be in good company though and can (quietly) blame forgetting the bonnet on my wife. In my (quiet) opinion, the gown is so long that no one would have seen the booties anyway, but the bonnet - on second thoughts mentioning the bonnet is only going to cause trouble!

So tomorrow it's off to the post office to send the booties 11,000 miles back to Christchurch to await the next Christening and their next wearer, and by sending them, I'm taking full responsibility for smuggling them out of the country. Best to have them in a safe place, and who knows, in another few years there just might be another call for booties and a bonnet ...

* Yes, she's just as keen to leave her mark on Dad's best suit as she is any of my older clothes. Yes, it has taken me three weeks to get around to unpacking. And no, I'm not looking forward to handing the suit over to the drycleaners after all that time in the suitcase.

Sophie's Christening

The main reason we went back to New Zealand was to introduce Sophie to the Grandparents, especially mine because she's their first grandchild.

But while we were there we also wanted to get her Christened and to do it in the church we got married in (which is the same one connected to the primary school my wife went to - not sure exactly how weird that is!).

There was a lot of tradition around the Christening, Sophie wore the gown that's gone through about 4 generations now - different coloured ribbons for boys and girls of course - and it's a neat feeling to bring someone in to a tradition like that.

I've had traditions before, but most of them are of the rugby club or university initiation type you don't really talk about in polite company. This was something really special and even though we're not regular churchgoers, it felt like bringing her into a wider family and connecting with something larger. A bit like getting married, just affirming someone in front of a group of other people extends it from the purely personal and is like taking on more responsibility.

More precisely, I think it's a process of making her more real. I think about her all the time, and on the train home each night I can't wait to see her, but sometimes, on the rare morning that I wake up naturally (and not to the sound of crying at 5:30am), it takes a moment before remember I'm a Dad as well as the person I've always been.

Now there's more to me than just me. We have this wonderful daughter, but she's still so small and while she is developing her personality and has carved out a permanent place in our hearts, there is a very big world out there and so many things she needs to go through to become a person.

Now we can look back at the Christening videos and photos and have something else to show her, another rite of passage that we took her through. I think that's what parents do, make a list of everything a child should go through and try to take them through it in the right order and to try to help them make sense of it all. Hopefully her Christening will be at least a small part of that.

Taking in the Thames

London is scorching right now. It's been a hot week, that for once lasted through into the weekend so it's out of the office and into summer mode.

With another day scheduled to get up to around 27 degrees it was a chance to get outside and take Sophie around our old haunts along the Thames in Rotherhithe.

It's a nice walk if you get the chance. Take the Jubilee line to Canada Water, walk around to Greenland Dock and follow the Thames back up to London Bridge station, or if you're feeling energetic (which we definitely weren't) go on to Waterloo or until you just can't walk any more.

To make the walking easier, there are also some great pubs like The Angel (where Captain Cook drank and with some fantastic views of Tower Bridge, well away from the stress of the tourists and the "look at me" clan further up the river) and The Mayflower (where the pilgrims set sail) - these pubs are only to be visited for historical purposes, of course, but after a couple of hours walking in the sun, I told myself I deserved a drink!

I think this was our first hot outing, and being a true red blooded male, I never had a doll, but I will quietly admit it's great fun getting Sophie all dressed up.

It never fails to surprise me all the things that need to be remembered, it's definitely not just a case of grab the baby and walk on out the door. Not sure if it's a girl thing? My wife has long and painful sounding preparations before we go out too, so now with two girls in the house maybe I deserve that drink even more ...

In her defence, my wife has inherited what seems like an endless supply of clothes and is always up for an excuse to get a new outfit together.

My own sense of things like what hat goes with what shirt needs a lot of work and I think I might be given up for a lost cause. Heck, sometimes I'm just happy to get the clothes on the right way around.

So faced with the choice of trying to make sense of my wife's stack of fashion magazines and fetching, wiping and carrying as directed, I think I'll stick to the latter. London right now is too hot to argue, I'll just do what I'm told.

Babies and the Modern Workplace

My imagination hasn't run so far as to think about bringing a baby into work, but I stumbled across an article from The Guardian (not my usual choice of red blooded male reading material) today that had a journalist go ahead and do just that, with predictable results.

Apparently the US has a lot of advocates for a child-friendly workplace, but if a newspaper like The Guardian can't make it work, there's no chance for it happening in London.

Some great descriptions of the attempt though, like

... checking emails, now that's proper work. Technically, you can do this with a baby on your knee, but there are flaws in this plan. Mine likes to thump the keyboard repeatedly, or until he has found "select all" plus delete, whichever is the sooner. Then he likes to stand up, and sit down again, and wriggle and grunt, and all this makes it really hard to think. When I'm at home, I have a whole battery of baby-pleasing techniques - I can sing songs and dance about, I have an elaborate mime that I can do with a monkey, which pleases him so much he almost always needs a snooze afterwards. But for some reason - call me crazy - I feel inhibited in an open-plan office, so it is a bit of a grey day, from his point of view.

Read the full thing here.

The one time Sophie came in to the office see my workmates we forgot to "prefeed" her. This meant that as soon as she got in the building she decided it was time to feed, and that means about a 10 second window before the crying starts.

Of course my desk was in the corner of the office that was furthest from any toilet we could use to feed her. The result - I got to show off my screaming baby to the whole office as head after head popped up to see what the heck was going on.

From proud father to chastened father in a very short time - my daughter is already starting to making a habit of that!

Back in London

If anyone is wondering why things have been super quiet on this blog, it's because I've just spent three weeks going cold turkey on computers while on holiday back in New Zealand.

This meant lots of travelling in planes (about 30 hours from check in to check in) and a lot of hours in carseats as well.

As a way of getting to know your baby, travel must be right up there at the peak. There's something about taking a baby in a confined aeroplane that brings all the eyes and ears of the world to parents with babies. I can hear their thoughts as we walked down the aisle to our seats, every set of eyes I met had one simple message, "please not next to me, please not next to me" as we looked for our seats.

In the end we were lucky enough to sit next to another couple with a baby a couple of weeks older than ours. They were both great, with sleeping in great proportion to crying.

We've come back to two main challenges, the first is that we spent the last three weeks taking full advantage of not having to bother about a routine. With a gaggle of grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts clamouring to change nappies and try their hands at quieting a crying babay, it's been easy to get lazy. The second issue is sleep, three weeks is about the right amount of time to adjust to a different time zone and now adjusted, it is of course time to adjust back again. New Zealand and London are 12 hours time difference, so we parents are literally about to change day into night - I just hope Sophie appreciates what we're doing for her!

Just Bouncing Along On a Swiss Ball

For some reason Sophie has no intention of letting anyone be comfortable while they are holding her, When I walk in the door, all I want to do is give my daughter a cuddle and sit down.

Not an unreasonable wish, you'd think, but she gives me a choice, sit down with and hear her cry or stand up and hear her coo. Somehow she can tell whether I'm standing or sitting - it must be some sort of sixth sense because I've got my wife to measure the angles and nothing changes. Short of having an altimeter there can be no way she can tell the difference whether I'm up or down, especially with her eyes closed. Heck, sometimes late at night I'm not even sure if I'm standing or sitting. Even so, with some spooky sort of baby ESP, she knows.

But the other night while cleaning out some cupboards I came across an old inflatable Swiss Ball (a relic from the time I read in a magazine about the virtues of throwing away my office chair and using one of these instead. At the time I had delusions of increasing my core stability and decreasing my waistline).

A blinding flash of inspiration had me dust it off the Swiss Ball and blow it up - maybe it would give her the rocking movement of standing and me the comfort of sitting. Maybe I could bring my 30 plus years of experience in negotiation to bear on my 11 week old daughter. Maybe we could cut a deal.

So I picked her up, got her happy, then slowly sat down.

And stopped.

Silence.

Ding ding. A rare round goes to Dad.

Our house is now a happy one again. Dad can come home from work and sit down. Daughter can get her evening cuddle. Oh, and Mum can watch my progress towards core stability and a healthy waistline.

Growing Up - Staring Eyes and Poking Tongues

It's amazing how things change every day, I thought it was all moving fast in the beginning, that transition from Sophie being inside my pregnant wife to out here in the real world was amazing enough. I thought that nothing could top it when Sophie came home from the hospital, but she just seems to change faster and faster, and every day brings something new.

Now when she's being carried in the Baby Bjorn I don't have to worry about her head bumping around, it goes exactly where she wants it (though I've learnt that the more uncomfortable it looks the happier she probably is). Unfortunately the days of having her tucked in facing me are very much over.

Much to my distress, suddenly Dad's chest is not the most fascinating thing around, the outside world is much more exciting, especially other people. Not great for a Dad's ego when he's ignored and complete strangers take her full attention. She just stares at them, and to make things worse, she's started getting a reflex action: the harder she stares, the more her tongue pokes out.

So we're walking around the Sainsbury's in Streatham with Sophie in the Baby Bjorn. Her eyes are wide open, she's grinning, and her tongue is hanging out.

My first thought is that this is London and you should never stare at anyone, but it's time for me to get an education because all she gets are smiles.

Babies, it seems, can get away with anything, even in London.

My Daughter's First Steps

Ok, so first steps is optimistic for a twelve-week old baby, but she can almost roll over!

Yesterday, Sophie was lying there on her playmat, wriggling around a bit more than usual, when she lifted up her head and one arm, pulling her shoulder about an inch off the ground, then fell back. Then she did it again, and again. We feel like spectators at our very own Olympics; she's giving it everything and we're there to cheer her on.

But like all good Dads there are a couple of things that worry me:

1. She has a habit of not liking what she gets, and she doesn't like being on her front, so I've got the feeling she might not like what she gets when she does learn to roll over.
   
2. I quite like the fact that when we put her down somewhere she stays put. This is the start of her getting independent (maybe a velcro grow suit so we could stick her in place would help?)
   

So Sophie has registered another first, getting a shoulder off the ground might not rate highly, it's not going to make the news, and a year ago I would have been embarrased to write about it, but right now everything she does makes her parents proud, and we don't care who knows it.

Why I Love Daylight Savings (the Spring Addition)

Ah, daylight savings, spring forward, fall back and all that. My wife and I have been trying to get our daughter Sophie into a routine for a few weeks now and then along comes the government and changes things on us.

It's a nice feeling to be able to blame the government for some of my parenting difficulties. Yep, blame the government, that has a nice ring to it. I'm going to have to look for more ways they make my life hard. I wonder how difficult that's going to be . . .

But while I wasn't looking forward to daylight savings (pardon the pun), it did bring me one small, rare and petty victory over my daughter. Every morning when Sophie wakes up, my second thought is "I can't wait to see my daughter". Unfortunately (and this is something I'm working on as part of my quest to become the perfect Dad), my first thought is, "what I wouldn't give for another hour's sleep".

And guess what.

This morning, when I looked at the clock, another hour of sleep is exactly what I had got. So for the first time ever I'm grateful to daylight savings for giving me an almost normal sleep. It looks like Sophie has been preparing for daylight savings since the day she was born (all of 12 weeks).

So maybe instead of blaming the government I should do something nice, maybe give them a donation. A tithe sounds about right, 10% of my wages. On second thoughts it was a great hour's sleep, so maybe I should show some real appreciation and double that, perhaps more than double it? And what do you know, a quick look at my payslip and someone's done it already. How thoughtful of them . . .

Filters (I Don't Hear No Crying)

The other night I had been holding my daughter Sophie for about half an hour while she was trying to get to sleep. I was watching TV, I can't remember what it was, but there was nothing great on. Then, suddenly, I realised she was crying again, and not just crying, screaming. Somehow I had filtered it out completely.

My first thought was, what a crying shame to waste my moment of Zen-like focus watching TV!

My second thought was that I have moments like this every day. My journey in from Streatham officially takes about 50 minutes door to door. Some days it crawls by and the train takes an age to get from station to station. Other days I'm at work before I realise it, and haven't even got annoyed by anyone taking up my personal space on the train.

My daughter (and all babies) have the same thing. If they have decided to sleep then it's impossible to wake them. I can pick Sophie up, change her nappy and put her down in another room with no problem. This makes them great when we want to take photos as it's the onnly time they stay still - being pushed in a hollowed out log (like in the picture above) takes equal place with being tucked up in a cot. When she has decided that she doesn't want to sleep though, there is a problem. The slightest noise can wake her (heck, even no noise can wake her).

I think life would be so much easier if I could filter our attention like this. It's like the old self help saying that while you can't control what happens to you (the baby in your arms is crying), you can control how you react to it (ignore it - oops, I think "ignore" might be the wrong word here!).

If babies could concentrate on sleeping when they're meant to be sleeping, it would make parents' l Of course this is never going to happen in the real world, so put the word out I'm working to invent an attention filter, or even better, I'm looking to buy one. And I promise I won't waste it watching TV!

Good Times, Bad Times

Having a daughter has brought some of the strongest feelings in my life, and as an INTJ, feelings are not something I usually pay much attention to.

In the days of my youth
I was told what it was to be a man,
Now I've reached the age
I've tried to do all those things the best I can

Led Zep lyrics are great in that they can be bent to fit any situation. There been no brown eyed man stealing my wife away (that I know of anyway) and it been a long long time since I had any dealings with a sixteen year old girl. But what I 've found is true as a Dad is that all the things I was told "in my youth" have stared to float back. I've posted before about how everyone has advice for new Dads, but I think it's the advice people give you before you are a Dad, before you're even thinking about becoming a Dad, that is the most important.

In those days of innocence, when meeting people and discovering girls is a new adventure, fathers are people who are there in the background for most, who come home at night and watch TV. I was lucky enough to have a great Dad, but silly enough not to know it, or rather to take it for granted. After all, didn't everyone's Dad take them to tennis, to rugby, help coach their teams? The simple answer is "no".

I went down to Streatham Common last Saturday and there was lots of football training, some coaches were out there giving it everything, encouraging the kids to run up the hill, to chase the ball and do the drills. But what struck me was that there weren't many parents there. I guess sport has become a sort of a babysitting service. These kids grow up thinking that it's normal for someone else to take care of them, that parents are not for learning from, that parents are what you have when something isn't so important.

So perhaps it's not something that's said aloud, and it's defintely not politically correct to talk about how someone else is raising their children, but letting someone else bring up your kids and get the best out of them is an option. But taking it is not what I think it is to be a man.

Last Night I Dreamed I Was Holding a Baby

I think the subtitle for this post shold be something like, "Does it count as having your turn if you only dreamed it?"

Last night was my turn in charge and so I got my daughter to sleep, collapsed into bed and went straight to sleep.

Unlike her state in the picture above, I dreamed that she was grizzly, so I was rocking her to calm her and send her back to sleep. She kept crying, so I started to rock harder, full of good intentions, but I just couldn't get her down. I was finally about to admit defeat and pass her over to my wife when my wife gave me a jab in the ribs. "Ouch", I said, "what was that for?" She explained that it was my turn to get up and look after our daughter, all the rocking I had been doing was in my sleep.

A quick debate revealed that my dreamwork did not count towards anything. Usually dreaming of someone is a good thing, but from some children, there is no escape.

What Was Sleep Again?

I never really appreciated what sleep was before I had my daughter. When it's just you and your wife, a bad night's sleep is when one of you has an extra glass of wine (or whiskey) and starts to snore. A sharp elbow to the ribs soon fixes the problem and peace resumes. I haven't tried tis with my daughter yet, but I'm assuming it wouldn't work!

Not that she snores (if only snoring was the problem, I'm sure little girls can't snore too loudly). No, it's the cries and the screams that get me. Hour after hour of holding her, gently rocking, slowing down, slowing down, then speeding up again when she stirs, slowing down, slowing down again . . .

There's a sort of a Zen aspect to it after a while, we both go into a rocking trance. That usually works after about 20 minutes, then the really dangerous part begins - getting her from vertical rocking to horizontal sleeping. Talk about more sensitive than a spirit level, she knows what that movement means, Dad is trying toget away and if therer's any part of her still conscious, then that part is going to fight with everything it's got not to be left alone.

So here I am at 11pm too tired to sleep and with work getting ever closer in the morning. What better time than to post to a blog? I guess I should be flattered, really. I have a daughter that loves me, or at least cares enough to scream when I try to leave her (hey, that's a lot more than my wife does). And when she does go to sleep, there's nothing better than watching her, completely relaxed in my arms or lying on my chest. They're so trusting and content, it's impossible not to feel a surge of love go out.

There's an irony there somewhere. I think she's fickle, one minute playing and laughing, then crying, then laughing and gurgling away, but on the other hand, just when I'm getting completely fed up with her and ready to put her in a room and close the door behind her, she'll catch my eye and smile, or shut her eyes and sleep so peacefully that no Dad could resist.

So fickle Dad and fickle daughter, we make a great team. I'm not sure what she'll be like when she's older, but I'm afraid she'll be ale to get away with murder. I should start thinking up some strategies to counter her daughterly wiles, maybe I should sleep on it . . .

Have Baby, Get Ladies

Many years ago, when I was young and single, I used to diligently read all the articles on "how to pick up women" that I could find. Hours of research didn't help much, all the advice was much too contrived and desparate, but one of the most common themes was getting a wingman.

When going out at night, by necessity, that wingman would be a friend, willing to fake interest in the girl's less attractive friend for long enough to get a phone number or to crash and burn completely. But there were some other wingman options for the daylight hours.

One of the most popular was getting a small animal. Puppies are great, no girl, the theory goes, can resist stopping to pat a puppy. Use the animal to draw them into conversation. By having a puppy you are automatically seen as sensitive and caring, willing to show your vulnerable side exactly the type of man that's most attractive to women.

These articles usually had a sidenote along the lines of even better than a puppy was a baby. Preferably not your own, just one you could borrow and take for a walk in the park for a couple of hours (after all, having your own baby so you could pull women was sort of defeating the point!).

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that babies are great, and they do work, at least to get attention. the first time I took my daughter out strapped in to my chest in the Baby Bourne, I got so many glances from women that it took me a long time to realise that it was not my fly that was open, but my daughter, attracting women like flies.

There's something about a man on his own carrying a baby that gets coos - I think my record is 7 in 60 seconds, not that I would be so shallow as to count them! It's typical, all that time and effort spent trying to attract women and when you don't need them, there is all the attention in the world just out there waiting. Right, I'm off to eBay, I'm sure there must be a niche for a baby rental scheme out there somewhere and it's about time the daughter started to pay her bills!

Won't Someone Shut that Baby Up? 5 Ways to Stop the Crying

There's only one thing worse than being on public transport when there's a baby crying, and that's when the crying baby belongs to you.
When my daughter decides to cry, there is absolutely nothing I can do to make her stop straight away, there's no "off button" or mute, and abandoning her on a brick path, or on the side of the road, while tempting on occcasions, is definitely not an option.

Also, if wishing a baby would be quiet worked, then I don't think there would be such a thing as a crying baby, except maybe as a curiosity in the odd exibition at the Tate. So for that reason, a baby crying in public shouldn't be any more stressful than one crying in private at home.

Of course knowing that and acting on it are two very different things. I've made a list of 5 common reasons for crying below, and written down it seems nice and easy to identify and deal with, and most important, to understand. Now I don't recommend printing these out and passing them to the people who give out disapproving looks and expect them to nod in as understanding way and accept you as the owner of a crying baby, but sometimes it helps get things in perspective.

1. Hungry - babies cry when they're hungry. This is usually pretty easy to identify, even for novice fathers like me. Our daughter gives it away when she starts headbutting and sucking things. The solution for this is easy, just give her a feed.
   
2. Full Nappy - babies don't like having a wet nappy, and it leads to horrible things like nappy rash. Having overcome some initial reservations about how to identify it, this Dad now knows that the easiest way is giving the offending area a quick sniff. Not always pleasant, but definitely effective. The solution for this one isn't too hard either - remove old nappy, dry the area and throw on a fresh one.
   
3. Hot or Cold - babies don't like being too hot or cold and let it be known by, you guessed it, crying. Being winter in London, we don't have too much experience with the too hot part, but definitely cold hands, feet, and especially noses. The solution for a cold baby? Again, this is not rocket science, give her heat (body heat is the most effective, but like all the best solutions for babies is definitely the most labour intensive).
4. Tired - for our daughter, sleep time is one of the hardest times. We can watch her eyes start to droop, then she likes to scream, then droop, then scream. The solution? Time and lots of jiggling. Our daughter has decided only the left shoulder will do. And Mum or Dad must be standing up. And usually one other requirement that can change daily.
   
5. No Real Reason - some days, it seems, are just better than others and our daughter lets us know which is which by the simple but very efective method of crying. The solution? Not much you can do about this one, just hold her close and rock, joggle, tickle, sing, be quiet, stand up, sit down, go for a walk (I would say go for a drive, but we don't have a car, and as per my notes above, public transport is not the best option for a crying baby!). The best thing is that it stops, but as any parent knows, time slows down when your baby is upset.
   

This is not the most comprehensive list, and the remedies aren't too exhaustive, but are a starting point. I think I just have to realise that my baby. like all babies, is going to cry and that accepting it and loving her is part of parenting.

Two final thoughts that migth help you make it through the next tantrum on public transport.

1. While the buses are carrying signs about not eating smelly food or playing loud music because it disturbs other passengers, at least they haven't outlawed crying babies.
   
2. One of the perks of parenting is that you can always get your own back. Babies don't know what's happening, so can be put in the funniest outfit and positions and are powerless to stop it happening. These can make for great blackmail photos when they get older.
   

Watch Out for that Pushchair!

As a Dad (ok, so it's only been a few weeks!), I feel I can speak with authority on the subject of pushchairs and manners, namely that having a pushchair brings out bad manners in most people.

Everyone is in a hurry to get on the train or bus, though to be perfectly fair, anything that gets in their way (whether pushchairs or old ladies) is treated in the same manner - pushed or elbowed out of the way. No matter that I can get in place early and be lined up perfectly with the doors when they open, there's always someone who thinks they are more important and need to get on ahead of me.

Actually, to be honest, I'm not 100% sure of the etiquette about getting on public transport with a pushchair. I think it's probably best to get on first, because then I can get out of the way of oher passengers, putting the pushchair to the side of the carriage against the wall. If I'm last on, it inevitably ends up in the middle of the carriage and is in everyone's way even more. It's lose/lose when getting a pushchair on a train, and while not many people actually say anything, I can feel their looks burning into my back.

Still, when I'm on my way to work in the morning and force some space in the carriage, I do groan when I see someone with a pushchair. I know exactly how it feels, but that doesn't mean I have to like it when it's someone else trying to take MY space.

So please have some sympathy for a Mum or Dad who's trying to take their pushchair on public transport. It's not some thing we enjoy either, and if I could make my pushchair half the size, or even disappear then I definitely would. Just be thankful that the baby is asleep, or you'd be sharing your space with something that not only takes up room but makes a noise as well. Of course, more often that seems fair, you end up having both; but more on that another day.

Bonding with Baby

Families are all about bonding and mother and daughter have definitely bonded. But is there such a thing as too much bonding?

Spending so much time together is great for them, but it makes life hard when I come home and want some time with my daughter. She just can't stand to be without Mum, and after a few minutes starts looking around more and more frantically.

After the weekend, when I've had the chance to spend lots of time with her, things are fine again with us and she no longer looks for Mum. It worries me that they can be too close, there must be a line where they have a happy medium, but because we have no family over here and because I work during the day, there's no one else either of them can spend much time with.

It leads to jealousy on both sides, my wife says she doesn't like being in different rooms from her daughter for more than a few minutes, andwhile she claims it's ok that I can play with my daughter, she hates even the thought of anyone else touching her.

It works both ways, my wife said she was holding our daughter a few days ago when they caught sight of their reflection in the mirror, My wife carried her closer so my daughter could see herself better. Closer. Closer. Then our lovely, peaceful daughter pounced! She hit the mirror a couple of times in a rage (luckily there were no sharp objects around). How dare another baby take her place with Mum!

So now we have another rule added to our list, this one to keep baby facing away from the mirror. This is not something we can explain to her, no matter how patient we are. It's just a matter of time before she works out the truth, that she is the most loved baby ever and that no one is going to take her place. I think she knows this is the truth with Mum, as a London Dad, I just have to work out the best way to convince my daughter that Dad really wants to bond too.

Sleeping Babies and Dirty Shirts

Good news as she made a recovery from the immunisation jabs, and is a happy girl once again, and did a new record sleeping session of about six hours last night. In fact, I think she might have made it even longer, but my wife couldn't stand the suspense of waiting for our daughter to cry and woke her up about 4am. I said to her, "waking a sleeping baby, that's not very nice", the reply was mumbled, but along the lines of the boot being on the other foot for a change. Mother seems to have got very cocky now she's out of the dogbox - how quickly they both forget!

It was a real treat to feed my daughter her second ever bottle tonight. Like the first time, there was some confusion about how Dad suddenly had this new ability, but like the first time as well, she was able to put aside these thoughts and concentrate on the milk. It's an amazing feeling to feed her. I used to have pet lambs and calves when growing up back in New Zealand, and it was cool to feed them, but this is a completely new level. Just looking down into her eyes as she's sucking on the bottle makes my heart melt. I can't believe I am truly supposed to be looking after this girl, and when she looks up and smiles or coos it's the best reward I could ever have.

A few days ago I was thinking about how I'm becoming a slummy Dad and every now and then something happens to make me realise how much so. I've been walking around all night with baby vomit on my shirt and didn't even notice until my wife pointed it out. I just don't mind the mess any more, it's part of my daughter and I'm used to it, worst of all I'm expecting it - there's something wrong if she doesn't throw up after feeding. Oh, and before feeding, during feeding, in between feeding . . .

Changing nappies, on the other hand, has never been a problem for me, but I've always hated having sick on my shirt. I'm sure there's something very Freudian about that, but like a cigar can sometimes be just a cigar, a daughter's mess can sometimes jut be a mess, no matter which end it comes out!

Immunisation - The First Rite of Passage

Just put my daughter to bed after a long day. She is now the not so proud owner of two immunisation jabs, apparently proof against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and the worst thing she has ever been through.

My wife decided to breastfeed while she got the jabs, it worked for the first one, she took it with just a whimper, but nothing was going to distract her from the second one, so Mum was in the bad books all day.

When I got home from work I've never had a daughter as glad to see me. She hadn't slept since the immunisation jabs, but about 5 minutes after I held her she was fast asleep, opening an eye occasionally to make sure Mum wasn't getting too close.

Of course, hunger won out in the end and the ban on Mum came to a finish. She's still getting suspicious looks though, and it's going to take a while to rebuild that trust.

It's a shame these things hurt so much, we thought alot about it before booking her in as there's so much in the media about links with autism and other problems. She certainly came down with a fever and spent an unhappy afternoon, but it's nothing compared to what could happen if she wasn't protected. We keep telling our daughter, "Welcome to the real world" (we didn't have the nerve to try, "This hurts us more than it hurts me", though to be honest, I think it did).

Here's hoping she'll be right again in the morning. I've got a game of paper, rock, sicissors to win against my wife to see who will take her in for the next round, a second rite of passage - it could be the most important game of my life!

Family Overseas (Tyranny of Distance)

Being a new Dad with a family overseas is both great (because of the distance) and terrible (because of the distance).

Great because my wife and I get to do things almost completely our own way and amke all our mistakes with no pressure - there's no Mum or Mum-in-Law standing over us saying "don't do it like that". On the other hand we don't have ready-made baby-sitters (!) and, because we don't speak absolutely every day, it also magnifies everything that happens. This means a joke we make about bottle feeding or giving a dummy, or an email with a funny photo can get completely misconstrued.

I'm now being extra careful with the photos, I've learnt to use The GIMP, a free image editor, which lest you paste in fake backgrounds and make things look much more exciting and dangerous than they really are. While I don't think they believed the one with the shark about to bite, the ones with her sitting alone in the log didn't go down too well. Dad was about a yard away, I promise!

There's a great "Split Enz" song (Six Months in a Leaky Boat) that talks about the "tryanny of distance":

"Aotearoa, rugged individual,
Glisten like a pearl,
At the bottom of the world.
The tyranny of distance,
Didn't stop the cavalier,
So why should it stop me,
I'll conquer and stay free."

Not quite sure what that means, but for me it means that Aotearoa (the Maori word for New Zealand) is a long way away from London and of course London is a long way from New Zealand too. As much as we share photos and the hours we spend on the web cam, it's not the same as having family there. I can see Mum wince over the web cam if she thinks I'm holding my daughter the wrong way, she's wonderful and doesn't say anything, but I know.

Still, I think we're doing ok, and are going to make the trip back in a couple of months to show the results of all our parenting. Not entirely looking forward to the flight (over 30 hours), so will be looking for some advice on flying with a new child. It's going to be an interesting time and I think we'll spend the flight back here relieved, but also wiser because we've got a lot to learn and a lot of people willing to give advice. That old selective hearing might just come in handy once again!

Yummy Dad, Slummy Dad

One of the hardest thing about having a new daughter is that the time for the things I used to take for granted has disappeared. Whether it's sitting in front of TV, reading a book or looking something up on the internet, there's now always a certain someone else wanting attention. More importantly, she's someone I want to give all my attention to.

I used to have a real need to get out of the flat, with all the parks around here it doesn't take long to throw on the running shoes and get some fresh air. But now it's winter and it's dark and cold out there while my warm daughter is inside and she is definitely the more attractive option.

So I'm now more likely to throw on an old polar fleece than my running shoes when I walk in the door. Like wearing out the shoes used to be a runner's badge of honour, now it's my shirt that's covered in baby sick (yes it's also washed every couple of days!) that is my uniform.

So the intellectual, athletic, serious non-Dad is slowly changing into a fun time, slummy Dad. Maybe it's just a phase, but I can see the cardigan, pipe and slippers cliche drawing ever closer. I'm not sure what's more scary - that I can see it happening, or that it doesn't worry me.

New Dads - Everyone's Got Some Advice

One thing I've noticed is that everyone is full of advice for me as a new Dad. While this can be useful, I like the chance to make my own mistakes. Actually, while I like accidently doing the right thing (then I can call it natural talent), I hate making mistakes. Mistakes usally mean jiggling a crying baby at some crazy hour of the morning, or smearing on nappy rash cream and praying the redness goes away before Mum sees.

So I'm not a naturally talented Dad, but I am a tryer and I think I'm doing ok. I won't admit it, but it makes me feel great when my wife says I did well, or at least when she doens't roll her eyes. I try to do my share with our daughter, jiggling her and trying to get her to sleep. One thing I still can't do though is breastfeed (in one of our early attempts to bond I did have a "skin to skin" session with my daughter that lead to a painful yelp from me and a confused crying session from her - I've tended to keep a t-shirt on ever since!).

Not sure where this post is going now, but in spite of the above I am open to advice. It's great when people take the time and care enough to pass something on. So please, keep the advice coming - but remember, this not-so-perfect Dad has selective, not-so-perfect hearing!

First Smile and Wish Fulfilment

I'm not a great believer in wish fulfilment, I think that people have to work for what they get and that if something comes too easily then it's not always valued as much as it should be. That said, like most people I know, this should be applied to others more than to me - I'm the exception!

A few nights ago I was saying to my wife that it was about time we had some reward. I'm a technical person and like things to "plug and play". So much so that despite the books I'd read, when my new baby turned up I was expecting talking within a few days. Maybe not full conversations, but perhaps enough to talk about the weather (she is English after all!). Not only did I not get talking, I didn't get her eyes focused on me. This daughter of mine was definitely one toy that wasn't going to work straight out of the box.

But back to my reward, two nights after I said this I was changing her nappy and she was in a great mood. It was one of those father and daughter bonding moments when she was kicking and cooing and there it was - a smile. Naturally suspicious, I waited for the inevitable burp or bowel movement that had followed these face pullings in the past. And waited. And waited. Nothing.

So there it was, her first smile, and I feel I've earned it with hours of jiggling and rocking and walking up and down the room. It might be that smiles are free, but I've never worked so hard for one or felt so great when it came, than my daughter's first smile to her Dad.

Finding Childcare in London

I came home on Tuesday night to find my wife in tears, my first thought was that something was wrong with our daughter. "No, she's fine," she said, "but you need to watch this". I sat down and started watching the BBC Undercover programme about childcare and all the discussions we'd had about finding a nursery and her going back to work came rushing back. It's still available on the BBC iPlayer for a couple of days if you get the chance to watch it, or there's an on the BBC website.

Some horriffic stuff going on, as one of their reporters went undercover and spent time in an handful of nurseries. This first hand account was backed up by an Ofsted officer who said that Out of 700 nurseries she and colleagues had inspected, she had found only five that she would have let her own two children go to. Ofsted inspectors are under a lot of pressure to pass child care facilities unless something is just too bad to ignore. There is a real shortage of day care and the cracks are definitely showing.

I guess I was a bit naive and somehow thought there would be higher standards when looking after children, but it seems fake CVs about in child care as much as they do in other workplaces. It seems almost anyone can be seen as fit to look after a child when the childcare company is trying to turn a profit - as always lower skilled and younger the worker the less you have to pay and the less likely they are to go and cause trouble reporting to the authorities (who don't seem too interested anyway).

Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a rant, but childcare is the thing I'm most worried about. What options do parents living in London have when maternity leave comes to an end? There aren't many who can survive with only one parent in work, even if you just want to live a "normal life". Our daugther is so precious I sometimes wonder about leaving my wife in charge of her (hopefully she doesn't read this!). Seriously though, we're looking at some places at the moment and it's easier to cross places off the list than put them on it.

First Post

8 weeks and one day ago I became a new dad. My daughter is the most beautiful, most challenging and most demanding this I've ever been responsible for. On the one hand, it still hasn't hit me that I am in this for life, and on the other, it seems link she's been with me forever, not just 2008. Every time I look at her I can't help feeling I'm the luckiest dad in the world.

That said, I know I've got a lot to learn about being a new dad and I hope to share here some of what I go through. Hopefully others will find useful (though I'm not sure whether they will laugh at or learn from my mistakes!), or even better, offer some advice.