The 2 MOST IMPORTANT things that will get you through a new baby

Having my first kid broke me.

The first 6 weeks of having my little boy come into our lives was one of the most stressful, tiring and anxiety-provoking periods of my life (and my wife agrees).

There are a few reasons for this.

1.       My wife and I did not have any exposure to babies beforehand

My wife and I both had friends with young kids. We would hang out with them and their kids from time to time.

And although being exposed to someone else’s kid might give you a slight glimpse into having a child, it definitely does not prepare you for the reality of being the one responsible for raising and looking after it.

It was like being the uncle, where you hold them, play with them, but once they start crying or being annoying you just hand them back to their parents, you don’t have to deal with all the “extra” work associated with changing nappies, settling them down, feeding them etc.

You can’t just hand them off to someone once they start to become “inconvenient”.

2.       Not knowing what to do

My wife and I both read books about babies. Books about the first 12 weeks, about how to put them to sleep, about how to be good parents etc.

These books were great. I truly believe that if I did not read them, things would have been x10 worse.

I’ve often heard people say, “nothing you read will prepare you for the real thing” or “every baby is different”. And as much as that is true, reading and at least getting some understanding of what is to come has helped me immensely.

But as much as it helped to get some understanding of life with a baby, it definitely is a whole different ball game once they arrive.

There were plenty of times where we had no idea why he was crying, why he wouldn’t fall asleep and why he would not eat (to name a few).

But as I continue on this journey of raising my son, I have realized that this is just part of the journey. I am still learning more and more as I go (but the anxiety definitely subsided after a few months)

3.       Lack of time and energy

I love my sleep. I would always get about 8 hours of sleep each night. I used to love to nap during the day too (notice the past-tense here ha!). So one of the main things that scared me the most is how little sleep I was about to have.

And boy did that happen.

It was a tough few months for my wife and I having to wake up with the little one every few hours to feed him during the night, and the 4am wake-up were not fun either.

We both struggled, being sleep deprived which led to being more agitated, snapping at each other, and generally being sour people. But that’s what lack of sleep does.

These were a few key reasons things were so hard at the beginning. There were 2 things that helped us get through.

TEAMWORK and COMMUNICATION.

You MUST think about raising your child as a joint effort. You need each other to make it easier, to make is more bearable, to make it fun.

And you must take care of each other. When one of you has had a horrible sleep and a shitty day, you have to think that the other might have had the same, and you need to want to take care of the other person, to “suffer” for them.

I remember one day coming back from work to a crying baby after having a terrible sleep the last few days. I was exhausted, slammed with work and all I wanted to do was rest.

But then I thought about my wife, and knew she also had a shitty sleep. I thought about how she would’ve had to deal with a crying baby all day long, and how hard that would have been for her.

So instead of resting (I did have 5 minutes to myself) I jumped in to help her out. I took the baby and fed him while she had a warm shower and some food (during these times there’s nothing better than a warm shower and warm meal).

After she finished her shower and meal, we played the Uno reverse card and my wife then took over so I could also have a shower and some food.

And it’s exactly this type of thinking and teamwork that you must have in order to get through this period of time. You need to empathize with one another and want to make sure the other person is taken care of.

Talk to one another, share your feelings, but ultimately you need to be there for one another.

We couldn’t have gone through this without one another.