A baby's first month- a first-time dad's view

As a first-time parents this is what we have experienced in our first month:

1) the first three weeks are really hard work.... don't let anyone lead to you believe anything else. For one you don't really know what are you doing and your baby will cry and there is no way you can work out what it is wrong with them. Sleepless nights are a given - we were up every couple of hours to start with and it was exhausting. I'm sure every baby is different, but our experience was that if you could feed them enough - then that really helps in getting them to sleep for a decent length of time that you can have a break. This might mean topping your baby up with a bottle to start with - expressed breast milk in a bottle was a massive help to us in getting Jack to have enough milk. So tip one is to buy an express milking machine to make sure that your baby gets enough breast milk in those first few weeks.

2) Infacol: we have found this really helpful in getting Jack to bring up wind. We have been using it from day one on recommendation from some friends and it seems to have worked really well in helping him burp.

3) A good tip for easy nappy changing that I read was to unfold the clean nappy under your baby so that you can remove the dirty nappy and the clean one is already in place. This helps to speed up the process, which is pretty important if your baby hates having their nappy changed as ours did. And remember if its a boy point his winky down and it'll save you lots of wet baby suits and cot sheets.

4) Try to get them to go to sleep in their cot - and not in your arms when you want them to go to sleep. This can be hard to start with - Jack always preffered sleeping in our arms than the cot. But you have to get them in the habit otherwise they won't sleep without being cuddled.

5) Buy a Baby Bjorn or a similar baby sling so you can you get your baby out in the fresh air. They are so easy to use and far quicker than getting the pram out all the time.

Taking the baby outside is great for his snuffle

Papa, Charlie and Jack
Originally uploaded by joel72.

It's been great this Christmas for a first-time dad with an urge to take digital pictures... but we have got some great images all stored on Flickr, so everyone can see them.

We weighed Jack today and he is now over 9lbs - he is growing pretty fast and he seems more robust than before.

What's also been great over the Christmas break has been to have the time to take Jack out for some walks in the fresh air. He still gets a bit blocked up, particularly in the evening, so getting him outside for some fresh air really seems to help unblock him a bit. Here we are going for a walk with Charlie and Jack in the Baby Bjorn - these are brilliant and well worth buying - and Charlie's dad, Dennis.

We now wish we had travelled to Norfolk with the Baby Bjorn and not lugged the pram back as well - it's so easy to use and really great for the little one as they just seem to snuggle up to your chest and sleep.

Charlie and Jack with his new toys

Charlie with Jack's new toys
Originally uploaded by joel72.

Jack got lots of new toys and baby suits and clothes on Xmas day.. we can't wait for him to grow into them all. He'll be more fashionable than his mum and dad when he does. It was a lovely day though and really made a first-time dad proud.

Jack Garner - on his first Christmas

Jack Garner - on his first Christmas
Originally uploaded by joel72.

Jack's first Christmas was at his Granny and Pops at their home in Norfolk at Godwick. We had a lovely time and he was as good as gold all day. I love this picture of him in his lovely my first Christmas suit - how sweet...

baby Einstein ... Jack in his for first time

baby Einstein ... Jack in his for first time
Originally uploaded by joel72.

There's always something to be concerned about as a first-time dad and if it's not Jack's nasty spots, it's his cold and stuffy nose, his fluctuating bowel movements. However, he has been recently weighed and is right on track having put on quite a fwe opnces to now weigh 8lb and 60z. This is good news and despite al our worries shows that he is doing really well and he looks happy in his baby Einstein... for the first time for him and the first-time dad. Not sure he looks convinced about the vibrating seat in this picture, but it is appropriately named as you need to be an Einstein to put it together.

Jack with his nasty spots

Jack with his nasty spots
Originally uploaded by joel72.

One thing that we have been worrying ourselves about recently have been these little spots that have suddenly sprung up on Jack's little face. At first the worst fear was that he may have menigitis, but he hasn't had a fever and the spots go clear when pressed. But what are they - it seems from doing some research that they are called toxic erythema and are to do with the hormones in his mum's milk. They should go as soon as they came, so the health visitor said and are nothing to worry about. In fact every baby from our NCT class seems to have had them just in time for Christmas! But at least they are nothing to worry about and by looking at the responses to my question on yahoo they are pretty common.

The NCT class reunion

The NCT class reunion
Originally uploaded by joel72.

We had a great time last week meeting up with the rest of the NCT class for our reunion. It was hosted by Katherine and Spencer in their lovely home in Wimbledon. It was great to catch up with everyone and find out how they are getting on and share experiences and concerns. Although the NCT classes themselves were good - they're not cheap at £200 - the most useful thing we have found is the networking and making friends with a new group of people who are experiencing something completely new for the first time too. So well worth doing for that alone - all the stuff we learnt I think went right out of the window when Jack was born, but I think it probably does help to prepare yourselves for what might happen and what to expect.

Jack's new admirer

My sister and her daughter Ellen, who is just nine years old, visited us recently to see our new baby. It's amazing how kids are so obsessed by babies and probably girls more than boys. My niece Ellen was really taken by Jack and it was so sweet to see her with him and wanting to hold him etc... it was soo sweet and a really touching moment.

Bottle feeding our newborn baby Jack

There was cause for celebration in the Garner household the other day when the health visitor weighed Jack and he has been putting on some weight. Born at 6lb 12oz, Jack now weighs 7lb 8 oz. A good weight gain. He is being fed on breast and expressed milk via a bottle as well and occasional top-ups on formula. So all bases covered really. From what little we have learnt so far feeding is the key to him being happy and also keeping him quiet and content for longer periods of time. At the moment he is feeding every two to three hours, with the aim to get him to feed every three hours and sleep for an hour between feeds. It's hard work though as he doesn't always want to follow our plans. In the past few days he has wanted to feed almost constantly, so we hope that's him going through a growth spurt. Anyway we are healthily obsessed - I hope- by him putting on weight at the moment and I guess many first-time parents would feel the same.

At last a decent night's sleep

Just when we were getting at the end of our emotional tether last night, our little baby Jack actually had a reasonable night's sleep last night allowing his very tired parents to recover a little.

One thing that has been playing on our mind has been his belly button - while the navel cord clip has thankfully dropped off causing great celebration in the Garner household three days ago - where it has fallen off looks a little bit sore and is slightly pussy. The midwife told us over the phone that this was ok and that we should just keep it clean by washing it once a day with water that has been boiled. Anyway we still not happy with it, so hopefully the health visitor will be able to explain more, but as we haven't seen or heard anything from them yet, I will not be holding my breath on that one.

So hopefully I'll get a few tips about his belly button problem and post them here. At least the horrible navel clip has fallen off as this was causing Jack some discomfort with his nappies that had to be folded down so far so that they didn't rub on the clip. This also seemed to make them more prone to leak.

It's my first day back at work today. I felt a mixture of sadness leaving home today, but also strangely excited about a return to some sort of normailty.

Jack and his first walk.. well push

Another day and another sleepless night for the first-time dad .. Jack is defintely getting a bit better at sleeping, but we are still getting up every two to three hours a night. It's hard work and sometimes I wonder how many first-time parents have been driven to absolute despair trying to get their little one to settle. I'm about to go back to work after two weeks paterniity leave, which I think is probably about long enough. My wife probably doesn't agree, but she seems to be much more ready to cope all day without me being here now and I think I'll go stir crazy if I don't get back to work and activate my brain again. However, I'll probably miss Jack like crazy, in fact I know I will, but I don't think I could do the house huisband bit, in fact I wouldn't be very good at it either.

Before I go back to work we have been trying to get out and about with Jack as much as possible, so Charlie feels ready to go out by herself when I'm not around. This is a great idea, because it gives her confidence to do this alone and is great to get some fresh air, plus when you time it right, he seems to sleep like the proverbial baby. It's also worth it to discover the little hiccups you might face - for instance, we couldn't unfold our Quinnie pram and had to go online and download the instructions before we could figure it out. It couldn't have been simpler either - so sleep deprivation must fuddle the brain, although most would say I'm not the most practical in any case.

Here is the link to some responses to a question we posed on Yahoo answers - great responses to this little problem, which again was pretty obvious if only we had thought about it. Beware though if you have a little boy, not only do you have point the little winkle down, but watch out for him spraying you when you take off his nappy and a bit of cold air hits his little fella.

Week one and we're exhausted

I've been a first-time dad for 10 days now and Jack has been home for eight days. Both me and Charlotte (my wife) are absolutely exhausted, but just when you think it couldn't get any more tiring something good happens that gives you a lift. Jack had his best night sleep yet last night after we worked out some things we were doing that he clearly didn't like.

First - we were turning our light off in the bedroom during the night, but we think Jack doesn't like this. So we bought a little 15w bulb to go in one of our bedroom lights and left this on all night - if he needed changing there was no need for us to turn a light on and wake up Jack and ourselves. We had two wake ups last night, but they were fairly brief feeding and changing with Jack hardly waking each time.

Second - we were having problems with Jack's nappies leaking everytime he pees and waking him. We have tried various types of nappies - Pampas and Huggies and vaious sizes but no luck. What we weren't doin was pointing his winky down and so the wee wee was leaking out of the top and waking him all the time. See these responses on yahoo answers.

Third - we put him to bed properly, washed him, fed him, changed him and then burped him and that seemed to help him get off to sleep in a really calm way.