As a new parent there are many things you may run out of
from time to time - sleep, nappies and patience, to name but a few - but the
one thing I can guarantee that you’ll never run short of is advice.
From the moment you declare to the world that a baby is on
the way – and when to tell people that is often the first bit of advice you’ll
get – everyone and his mate will be queuing up to offer words of wisdom.
Of course this isn’t a bad thing. Yes, 90% of the advice can
be filed away under the heading “Statements of the bleeding obvious”, much can
be politely ignored and some is just downright batty but in the mix are some true
gems that make you feel grateful for having a close family and fine friends.
One thing I’ve noticed though is just how much of this
advice seems to be geared towards making parenthood convenient. A classic
example is:
“Oh don’t sleep with your baby! They’ll want you to always sleep with them!”
Of course they will, after all it’s very comforting to all
concerned and is what we’d all be doing if we were living a more natural life. After
all, this idea of everyone sleeping in separate rooms is astonishingly recent
and, whilst having your own space is all very nice, the first thing most of us
do when we leave home is to hunt down someone willing to share a bed with us.
Attachment Parenting is the ‘new thing’ to help address this
slightly perverse view of baby rearing and, like most new ideas, is just taking
us back to how we used to behave before work, 60’s pseudo science and Victorian
morality arrived to fuck things up.
I can’t say we’ve fully embraced attachment parenting. Not
because I don’t agree with it but because I’m not sure my back would be up to
the job... although the fact that it seems to have more than a hint of the
bobble hat brigade about it is also a bit off putting – why is it that so many
people with good ideas feel the need to spoil it all by wearing daft head gear
and drinking Yak’s milk?
Anyway, this blog wasn’t supposed to be about the advice you
get, it was supposed to cover the advice that doesn’t rear its head above the
carry cot.
So far I have come across two very important points that I
wish I’d known about before Marty arrived.
The first is floorboards! Do yours creak? If so, sort them
out before baby arrives, especially those in the proposed nursery. I singularly
failed to do this and I very much regret that fact. Ours creak like crazy
things and as a result getting Marty to sleep and then getting out of the
bedroom afterwards is like a scene out of an Indiana Jones film. If the floor
creaks he’s going to wake up again so I have to mark my start position, take 4
paces to the left, 3 steps forward, two to the right.... I have yet to be
chased out of the room by an enormous boulder but I have also yet to get out of
the room first time without Marty waking up.
Another thing that no one mentioned was glasses. Do you wear
them? Did you invest in gloriously expensive ones? Oh dear!
Here is a simple test to see if your glasses are suitable
for parenthood. Pick them up in both hands by the bits that go over your ears.
Now, whilst holding on tight, stretch your arms out wide. Now throw the glasses on the floor and giggle in delight. Now
pick them up in your fist and hurl them across the room whilst shouting ‘Daggies!’.
Repeat until the guy in the opticians notices what you’re doing.
I only need glasses for reading so I have taken to buying a
box of them every few months from Poundland. In our house they have the life
expectancy of an asthmatic Mayfly but they are wondrously cheap and provide
Marty with some exercise.
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