Parenting .. the joys and scares

Yes I am so happy my baby was just born …………………………………………………. Now what do I do?

Hi guys welcome to what I hope will be the first of many articles about parenting. I am Jason a 29 year old dad of a 3 year old (going on 16 it seems like at the moment) boy called Logan. You may be asking what makes me qualified to start preaching to people about parenting, well truth is nothing does make me qualified but what I will do is tell you some of the things that I have came across while being a dad.

Logan was my first kid and before this despite working in a school and being involved in various youth work projects over the years I had never had any dealings with a baby.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do or what to expect I was going into this totally blind. Logan had a real rough start to life his first 6 days were spent in hospital and we were told not that chances are he was not going to survive. Thankfully Logan pulled through the doctors still to this day have no idea what happened or how he just managed to all of a sudden be ok but he pulled through with no severe side effects.

When you take your child home it can be a daunting process I mean in truth there is no one right way to look after a baby there sure is a hell of a lot of wrong ways but no one way is certain to work for your kid. So I am not going to sit and type hey I did this and that and that is the only way to look after a baby as chances are your kid will be totally different.

My partner Michelle was one of these who read all the baby books that there was if it had a baby on the cover she would get it. I pointed out to her that these baby books may be great and give you some awesome tips but at the end of the day the baby had not read these books so how are they supposed to know that the book is right? I was more of the hands on approach and did not read a single thing I am one of these people who learn by doing and boy did I ever.

I adapted fairly quick to being a father as truth be told I had no choice it was decided that since Michelle was paid a higher wage at the school we both worked at I would be the one to stay at home. Yep the guy who had never spent more than 10 minutes alone with a babe was all of a sudden going to be the primary care giver. I wouldn’t say I was scared to be honest and I think that one of the reasons I was able to cope was because I am a fairly relaxed person.

If I had to give one obvious tip in this first article it would be to stay calm. Nice one captain obvious you are probably thinking but please trust me on this. Your baby will cry and cry a lot it is what part of what they do and trust me on this there is no stop crying button I looked all over Logan and could not find it anywhere. If you stay calm and just take 5 seconds to your self just to get your head straight both you and your baby will be a lot calmer.

If your face is bright red and steam coming out of your ears then you really cant expect your baby to calm down if you are not can you. Your baby will stress you out in a multitude of ways but never let it get to you like I said just a few seconds to get your self together will do you the world of good. We all get stressed from time to time when dealing with our kids and there is no shame in needing just a quick moment to your self.

I hope you enjoyed my first article my aim was just to give you a little taste of who I am and I hope you will be back next time for Jason’s parenting corner. Now if you excuse me I have to clean up the chocolate Logan somehow put on the back of the door.