I always knew becoming a parent would be a huge life changing event. I believe that’s what you call stating the obvious. There was always going to be limitations. But I didn’t give much thought to just how much of a non-stop thing parenting was actually going to be. For some rather […]
It’s a daunting prospect. Taking a 4 month old baby on a 6 day, 700 mile round trip across the UK with a ferry to Amsterdam in between. I guess that technically makes this a little more than just a UK road trip, but going with the title “UK Road Trip With a Ferry to Amsterdam in Between 2017” would be a weird title.
It’s something that not many people give that much thought to, but postnatal depression affects somewhere between 13-19% of mothers, and around 10% of fathers (numbers vary depending on the studies). That’s quite a lot of people. So what I aim to do here is give a few ways that I feel, either from my own experiences or through research, may alleviate, or in some cases help prevent, postnatal depression. Due to the fact that I am a father, some of what I’ll say here is aimed more at other fathers as opposed to the mothers, but the majority of it applies to both. Here we go:
For the men out there that are bracing themselves for the day your partner goes into labour, then know this: It will be the worst thing you will ever watch your partner go through. Not just because it’s utterly ridiculous how painful it looks, and dare say actually is, but there is nothing you can really do about it. And for a lot of the time, you won’t even feel like you’re wanted or needed there.
It’s probably one of the biggest fears of soon-to-be parents. Colic is a condition described as excessive, persistent crying in seemingly healthy babies that lasts for more than 3 hours a day, 3 days a week, for 3 weeks. It can effect around 20% of babies and is one of the more stressful things a new parent can go through. Generally its effects are more prevalent between months 1 and 4, after which the length of crying trends less and less until eventually stopping.
It’s been quite a busy week for Isabelle. First of all she’s suddenly decided that now would be an excellent time to start grabbing things. It’s been slowly coming, but it’s amazing how quick they can almost flick a switch and start doing something. One minute she’s casually enjoying looking around in her bouncer, and the next thing she’s smacking the seahorse, who she also seems to treat as her therapist, as he appears to have to listen to all her problems. She’s also worked out that if she hits Nemo, he makes a noise. But apparently all that grasping, bouncing and smacking is very tiring, and for the first time she fell asleep in the bouncer. It didn’t look the most graceful, but she somehow managed to pull it off.