Smiles, baths and an uncertain week ahead

Tyler has finally started to find his voice. We have had a few proper laugh's, which are possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. You can see him trying to experiment with different noises, making noise whilst moving his mouth around and creating different shapes with it to get a different sound out.

The other day it sounded so much like he was singing to himself in his sleep, little murmurs every few seconds with each deep breathe.

Bath time is starting to be enjoyed. Splashing, smiling and giggling is always involved not just from Tyler, but from myself and Andrea as well.

We have had to make sure he stays warm though as he's had a bit of a cold, not surprising as I and Andrea have both had one. Its made him a little ratty and sneeze and cough a bit, but not nearly as bad as I thought he would be.

Next week we are both dreading as its immunisation time again! Andrea refuses to talk about it as she doesn't like thinking about it. I'm not looking forward to it myself as I know how much discomfort and how scared it made him last time.

I remember walking away thinking, because I was holding him, he is going to hate me now. I know I'm going to feel so guilty again and I'm hating the thought of having to hold him and watch him from having big smiles on his face, to screams and tears.

I was talking to friend of mine about it and she gave me some advice which I now have a conflict of feelings toward. She said, 20 minutes before the injections, give him calpol and it will help ease any pain or discomfort when they are done. Although in the same breath she told me that the midwife would tell us not to do this as they say it may dilute the stuff they inject him with, stopping it from working properly.

I would love to know if anyone else has an opinion on this or any other suggestions on what to do.

We did manage to enjoy our night out for my birthday, although Andrea did leave early, because she just felt really bad and missed him too much. I don't want to sound like I didn't miss him because I did, a lot, but I did stay out and enjoy my night.

So far we've found a larger feed at night doesn't always lead to a longer sleep at night, but a bath tends to settle him for longer. Slowly, but surely we are getting closer to a full nights sleep.

Thank you for joining me another week on my journey and I hope you are back with me next week, when I may possibly have more new on my project which I will be pushing out.

Great Sleep & Good Bonds

Last night I received a pleasant surprise. Tyler slept through for 9 and a half hours! Happy days, god knows why, but he did. Hopefully going to start trying to make this a regular occurrence. It may have something to do with seemingly stupidly thirsty the night before so we gave him a little more milk than he'd usually have.

Is this the answer to a longer night? A slightly larger feed before bed? I suppose we will have to put it to the test and see what happens. I will keep you posted on his progress.

Tonight is going to be an odd night, with it being my birthday on tuesday we are going to make a night of it tonight so I don't disrupt work in the week. This will be our first night out in about a year or so, time without Tyler being with us 24/7 is weird enough as it is. But to go out drinking, having a good time and trying not to worry about him for one reason or another is going to be difficult.

I'm hoping it will get easier as the night goes on much like valentines day. The daunting thing though is we won't be returning before midnight this time, luckily my mum has generously and happily offered to take care of him for the night so we can go out and try to enjoy ourselves.

I will write it now, mainly to remind myself, but it is Mothers Day on the 18th. It'll be the first time I have bought a mothers day gift for someone other than my mother and I'm stuck for ideas, I struggle enough trying to find something for my own mother.

I feel I'm finally settling into parenthood, being able to handle my stresses a lot better. This past couple weeks has generated a lot of stresses and issue's on the work side of my life. I've managed to channel these negative feelings and not let them come into my life with Tyler, so I feel like I'm finally finding my balance.

I still say to people now even after all this time, none of this feels real. I feel like its a prolonged babysitting session or something to that effect.

Saying this I think it is starting to set in, now that I'm starting to feel more and more connected to Tyler. I finally feel like he recognises me and that he likes it when I play with him and hold him, I finally feel like I have a proper bond. The other day I had a long day out working followed by a night out working, I didn't make it home till late at night. Tyler was still awake when I got back, when I walked in and sat down, he heard my voice and saw me and wouldn't take his eyes off me. I picked him up to give him a hug as I'd missed him and he just wouldn't stop smiling!

It gives you one of those feelings you can't understand until you experience it.

Thank You for reading, please do stay with me on my journey, comment and share. I hope you join me again next friday.

Reflection and Wonder

Not much has gone on over this past week or so. This has given me time to look back and reflect on how far we have already progressed in just under 10 weeks since Tyler made his appearance.

Spending time with my new-found nephew made me realise how big Tyler is now. My nephew was born 6lb 14 when he was born and Tyler was 5lb 5. Tyler felt huge compared to this newborn. It seems I still haven't fully adjusted and its only just occurred to me that still, after all this time, it still doesn't feel real. It doesn't feel like he's really ours. It almost feels like an extended baby sitting session.

When my son was a newborn he was just about hitting the half way point when lying down in the moses basket, now he's nearly scraping the top of it. It'll be very soon we will have to start moving him into his cot.

When he would fall asleep on my chest he would just about cover my chest. Now he is pushing his feet down on my legs trying to stand himself up, and doing quite a good job at it too. He's getting extremely good at hold his head up and looking around, he' so aware of his surroundings and what is going on.

He loves being sat up so he can look around by his own free will and can spot a TV in any room within seconds of being in it. He's definitely mine, he loves watching the tv and laptop or computer screens if anyone is on youtube.

His feeds are like clockwork, accept at night, he has started to push for 6-7 hours at night time which is brilliant for us, any extra sleep is a bonus. Although also like clockwork he is up without fail at 8am every morning, not that much of a problem, but becoming a morning person is quite a challenge when I have spent my life doing quite the opposite.

He is a very happy independent and smiley baby and I really couldn't be happier with him. My job now is to make sure he grows up carrying on to be happy, learning trust, respect, manners and honour. I can't help but feel like the world is against me on that full of greed, violence and hate, some nice people, but a lot of evils ones too.

I suppose now its my job to teach him, nurture him and protect him. Despite this being a daunting task considering what I've already mentioned, I am more than ready to take it on and do everything I can to bring up my son to be the best man he can be.

Thank you for continuing to join me, please do share and stay with me and together we can hopefully help a lot of scared and nervous men.

Needles & New Life

We've had a very eventful couple of weeks, I think its best to start with the bad and end on a high.

Firstly we had immunisations... This is never a good thing, two big needles in each leg. Now Andrea already knew she wouldn't handle it very well so had to turn away and get me to hold Tyler while he had them done. It is a very horrible experience and I feel sorry for the nurse who has to do this on a daily bases.

It goes against every instinct you have to watch someone harming your child. Andrea got teary and after explained how horrible she felt and continually felt like the pain he suffered was her fault. I tried to stay very realistic about it and understand that although it has hurt him for the moment, he is crying and very scared, we need to comfort him as they will be good for him in the long run.

I said to Andrea that I would rather see him in pain and be ratty for a day or two, rather than in a couple months maybe years, see him in a hospital bed seriously ill!

For the next couple days he did seem very scared, slightly uncomfortable and very jumpy. Gradually it has gone away and he is more smiley than ever, the whole situation has passed him by and were not even convinced he remembers it at all. The only down side to all this is in 4 weeks time he has to have 2 more injections, then 4 weeks after that another 3.

On the upside when the doctor was doing her checks and making sure he was okay we were very chuffed with what she told us, everything was fine and working as it should and Tyler was quote; "Perfect. He is a model baby". That for us felt really reassuring knowing everything was okay and we were doing everything right.

Also on top of all this yesterday I became an uncle for the second time! Babies everywhere at the moment! I will get to meet my new nephew for the first time tonight, I will be interested to see if my brother and his girlfriend endure any of the same or similar things we have over the past 8 weeks or so, also how they deal with thing different to us and the results it achieves.

Thank you for following my journey, please do comment, share and follow, help me to reach as many other dads, dads-to-be as possible to continue to help others with my experiences and hopefully soon much more!

I look forward to seeing you all next week. (Metaphorically of course)

The Week of Love

So the week of love has not long passed with the over commercialised valentines day at its peak, every couple we know planning things and going places and yet we stand here not knowing quite what to do or where to go.

Granted the week before we had some rough arguments which were starting to scrape the limits of our relationship. After taking time to calm down and talk civilised we agreed that maybe what we need was some time together, away from the house, maybe to an extent away from Tyler.

As we hadn't really been out other than when we've had to since Tyler was born and when Andrea was heavily pregnant, a sense of confusion and the feeling of being lost struck us. It almost seemed reminiscent of the first proper night out you have once you've hit 18, the feeling of I've got the whole wide world available at my feet... So where do I go?

After talking the idea over with my parents they agreed that it was the space away from every day life is probably what we needed and were more than willing to look after Tyler, to the point that when we mentioned the idea my mum pounced on him with joy and wouldn't put him down!

So valentines day was upon us and as we were getting ready to leave there was an uneasy feeling over the both of us, as this was the first time we'd both left Tyler to have some 'us' time. It felt kind of selfish, yet I was curious to see if and how our feelings would change once we were out... Andrea, not so much.

As soon as we left the house I know she started to feel regret and started to miss him a lot and that feeling stayed with her for a good hour or so. I also missed him, but wanted to give this 'us time' theory a chance. We had chosen to have a nice quiet few drinks, candle lit table and what seemed like a fishbowl full of cream, ice cream and chocolate cake!

We gradually settled in to the night and really started to enjoy it. It also gave us a chance to talk properly and really open up about some of our feelings about things in life. In all I'd say the 'us time' theory was a complete success! Since valentines day we've got on a hell of a lot better, we've been able to talk and help each other a lot more.

Tyler is starting to get more ratty as the days go by, were playing around with different ideas of why this is. He seems to have quite a bit of wind which he seems uncomfortable shifting, so one thought is that the colic is on its way back, so for this we have started giving him infacol again and the odd bit of gripe water on his dummy every now and then. The other we thing it may half be down to boredom, as he tends to be very smily, playful and less ratty when we are playing with him. Just with me working from home and Andrea trying to help around the house it's hard for us to constantly be playing with him.

If anyone else is or has had a similar experience I'd love to hear how you coped.

My little project is moving in leaps and bounds and the closer we get to Fathers Day (June 17th) the more that will be revealed.

Thank you for joining me again this week and continuing my journey with me. I hope you join me again next week.

Fatty Baby!

Tyler had his 6 developmental check a few days ago. Not quite sure what this entailed we went along even if we were slightly late. It was fairly straight forward and simple, they checked his strength and how well he held his head, which Tyler has done stupidly well from birth, then it was just questions how well mother was coping, how often baby was feeding, etc, etc. Again no questions aimed at dad, so for me was another fly on the wall moment.

I understand that its one hell of an experience for mother and baby to go through and that they do need to be checked to make sure every thing's okay, but I also believe that there should be something for the dads too. Being at the birth and the sudden change of lifestyle to a baby being around, no matter how much you've prepared yourself, it has a deep effect on the mental stability of the dad. Well it did with me, maybe not all people, but I'm sure there are others that feel the same. I know I've said in earlier blogs the mixture of emotions, feelings, thoughts and doubts that flooded my mind, but I am yet to see anyone in a professional position to acknowledge that it may have a phycological effect on a man and yet to find anything to help combat or help these feelings and fears.

I digress. Back to the clinic. The moment we were mainly waiting for had now come where there were going to weigh Tyler. Slightly excited we were trying to peer over to the digital display to see how much he weighed before she told us.

Now baring in mind a month and a half ago Tyler was born 5lb 5oz. He now weighs 8lb 13oz! Little fatty has been at the bottle like no ones business! He is on the right tracks and its all looking very positive for him.

Once the colic had gone we continued to give him the infacol for a little while longer just to be sure. A few days later I started to realise that infacol is made to help release the trapped wind that colic creates, but now the colic had gone, releasing the wind was seemingly making Tyler uncomfortable and at some points almost looked like he was in pain by straining too much. It was at this point I decided to stop the infacol, although it was a godsend at first it was now becoming as much of a problem as it was the solution.

Since then he's been a lot happier, most of the uncomfortableness has gone, the poo's are returning to normal as they were more runny before (an event I try to stay well clear from).

All in all everything is looking positive right now, my little project is also now moving in leaps and bounds and I've set myself some goals and dates with everything I'm planning and I will hopefully be able to let you all know in the very near future and I'm hoping you we all help me spread the word and get all this out to help as many scared, worried or concerned fathers and father-to-be's in any city, any region and any country.

If I can help one other dad to feel better about things and have the reassurance I wanted and often still do want, then all this and everything I am planning has been worth it.

Thank you for reading and I hope you continue this journey with me next week.

Sleep and Real Smiles!

I've now read a few of these blogs back now and started to realise that the general feeling of them is negative, filled with drama and obstacles, well... I suppose that's what you should expect from life itself not just having a child, but still I wanted to bring something positive to the table this time round.

I was trying to find something positive that I could say enough about to be able to write this blog, there was many little things here and there, but nothing of massive significance that I could write a few paragraphs about which I haven't already mentioned in other blogs.

This was all up until yesterday. The first smiles were rolled out in force and they haven't stopped since. At first it was cute, but we played it off as just wind as he tends to have a lot which can be quite hilarious at the right times. Accept this time round there was no wind, just smiles, a few playful noises and what seemed for the first time a visually emotional baby.

We've not stopped trying to make Tyler smile since and he loves it! On the outside its sweet, fun and gives a good feeling, but emotionally as a dad it goes a lot deeper than that. It almost feels like were getting recognition for the good things we do, where as before we'd question ourselves at whether we were doing the right things and if the way we were going about it all was right.

Seeing him smile (as cheesy as it sounds) brings a warmth inside I just can't quite explain. I believe its one of those moments you have to experience for yourself to fully understand what I mean. The joy of knowing that what you're doing or saying is making that little being smile, no longer just on the inside, but for the world to see as well, it can get a little overwhelming at points.

Not only have the smiles been out in numbers, but he seems a much more playful baby, I'm not sure whether this is more of an illusion created by the smiles and we just perceive it as more playful or whether he genuinely is just more playful.

Now the colic is finally fully out of his system days and more importantly nights have become a lot easier! We've managed to make it to 4 hours between feeds now, which still doesn't sound like much, but after all these night of patchy sleep it's amazing how much the extra hour at a time helps.

Not only is he sleeping now longer in the night, but he's also becoming less hassle, he seems less interested in screaming the house down during a midnight change of the nappy, he settles a lot better in the moses basket, where-as before getting him to settle whilst lying flat in the moses basket was one of the hardest things to do and for many nights would take us hours!

All-in-all it has been a very positive week or so, with Tyler and with the progression of taking this blog to new heights!

The whole process so far of trying to juggle work, social and family life has been difficult... Very difficult at points, it has been exhausting, it has been extremely emotional and forever draining, but every single second has been worth it, especially to now see that smile on his little chubby face, makes all of it, the screaming, the fighting, the arguing, the lack of sleep, the late nights, all of it worth it. I can proudly say, hand on heart, I would not change any of this for the world.

Thank you for reading and I hope you join me next week.