Today is my 3rd day of being an official dad. It is such an overwhelming experience to see that we have made it this far and here we are with baby Nathan Patrick trying to juggle a lot of things and grind our instincts and life’s experience to face the huge challenge of parenting. Fundamentally at this stage, we just need to feed him, clean him and then make him sleep. I guess playtime is an integral part of the whole shebang but more of it will probably happen in the coming days.
The crying has also changed a lot. It is becoming a more unified sense of a screaming orchestra. It tells you a lot of what’s going on and could be better than a wetness indicator that really needs some improvement in the usability area.
It’s 4:49 am now and I still have managed to blog a bit but it was a challenging night. Wifey has to breastfeed every hour and looking at her sometimes, it seems to be not easy. And when there is feeding, the ineviable changing of nappies follows. I had to assist her and really streched my patience up to infinity ( so really my limit can’t be zero if you know your basic calculus ) because she just had a caesarean and is still recovering.
As per Masterchef’s masterclass format, top tips for a new dad:
- Patience is the key and preparation can only prepare your for the tip of the greater unknown
- Do not rush because you need your body for the long haul and not just in the first five days. Therefore, move lazy and not the usual macho I can lift it all style
- Listen! Crying can give you a lot of information. But for science people, do not form a model or an equation. This is heisenberg at its peak or probably a principle of its own
- Do a skin to skin because if he doesn’t stop crying after that, you need to change the nappy or feed him or probably he is a bit stressed and also some medical attention
- Give him 33.33 % of attention because the other 33.33 is solely for your wife and then give yourself the 33.33% back so everything will be at equilibrium
- Adapt to an extremely changing environment by being focused and willing to learn
- Embrace the situation because you are in this for the long haul man
- I know the experience will draw some ginormous happiness and you are going to jump for joy but do not loose yourself completely, do still your usual routine like facebook, twit as in this week in tech, digg and engadget. Your social network is a support mechanism especially if you live overseas or living away from immediate families.
- You can still play Gears of War or Portal later ^_^. Be contented with what’s on iphone like street fighter 4 or scrabble. If you have blackberry, probably turn in off (lol)
- Eat, sleep and take a bath. Do not put your perfume though for now or anything like that just to save some allergy hassle or skin irritation in the baby side
- Say I love you
I can still keep on going but I guess this is just what can be covered by my 2 cents of expression for now. Fatherhood is a journey and I can say that it is very rewarding.