Having a baby

I’ve been wanting to write about having a baby for quite a while, but it’s difficult for two reasons. Knowing where to start and knowing where to stop. I could write for days but quite a lot of it would be boring to anyone who isn’t directly related to me.

So I’m going to start off with this hot take: being a parent is tiring, difficult and takes up your entire life.

With that piece of information that literally no one talks about as an opener, you know there’s loads of nuggets of gold coming up next.

Whilst it is definitely all those things, it is also one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced.

I fully appreciate that it’s not for everyone, and for those it is not for, I envy you and your lifestyles where you can leave the house on a whim, without needing to remember ever little thing that might be needed.

However it is very much for me and there are so many little things that make it worthwhile, such as when I went into her room to wake her yesterday and she excitedly said “DAH-DEE!” and gave me a big cuddle. Then there’s also the big things that make it worthwhile as well, such as seeing her grow into a little person with her own likes and dislikes, as well as learning things all the time. She makes me proud of her ever day.

She has been learning about her world and learning how to communicate, and each little thing she learns is just joyous.

There are two things I would recommend for any new parent. One is baby signing – we used the excellent Tiny Talk – and it meant that we have been able to understand what Imogen wants a long time before she was able to talk.

The other thing I recommend you need to get onto before you have a baby which is hypnobirthing. Whilst I got involved in this, obviously my partner felt the most benefit as it seemed to make the birthing process go a lot more smoothly. When she suggested it, I thought it was some sort of hippy nonsense, but it is grounded in science and psychology and I really liked learning how the human body actually grows a little human and then sends it out in the world.

One of the things that I found difficult was letting go, both literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, the instinct as a parent is to protect your child from any harm, but you have to let them fall occasionally, you can’t always be holding them. You have to let them learn how the world works and how to interact with it. In a figurative sense, it has been difficult leaving her at nursery. She has been going for just over half a year and initially it is really scary leaving her with other people to fend for herself – and it is difficult too when she is upset about you leaving her there.

The other thing I have found really difficult is leaving a baby sleeping. How do you know they’re still breathing? They don’t look like they’re moving. I can’t hear anything! What if they’ve stopped? How can I check? Fortunately the anxiety around this dies down over time (although doesn’t seem to have disappeared entirely yet) and also fortunately every time she has continued to breathe despite my worrying.

It’s difficult to know if you’re parenting right. But when you see your child hugging a book and saying “cuggle” you know you’re probably doing ok. I’m sure I’ll overanalyse several parenting decisions in the future – I need to keep telling myself that there is no right way to parent and you just have to do the best you can.

So in conclusion, becoming a parent made me feel scared, clueless, frightened and that I’m in way way too deep… but it has also made me laugh, cry with joy, made me amazingly happy… and on balance I’m really quite glad it happened.