Darren O’Connor is on a mission to become the best dad he can be. His blogs and podcasts at askdad.ie are mostly about the positive things associated with becoming a Dad, while his hilarious tweets document his parent fails as a newbie.
“I always thought that if I could be a stay at home Dad, I would. I’d love it. The bonding, seeing all the small little developments.
The grass is always greener on the other side, however. I gave my wife a break to go and enjoy some personal time, to meet friends and have a night out. The texts she got from me were brief and positive: ‘All well’, or ‘Just had a nappy change’. The usual.
Meanwhile at home, it was chaos. Our little man sleeps really well at night but as a consequence he’ll only take 10-20 minute mini-naps during the day. How the feck are you supposed to get anything done in 20 minutes?
My only goals for the day were as follows:
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Look after the child
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Eat
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Clean the Kitchen.
As a bonus 4. Write a blog post
So the day starts out at a leisurely 11am. There are two of us and all is dandy. Then my wife leaves and I’m on my own and honestly, it’s a walk in the park! Baby is happy out. There’s gurgling and smiling.
12:00pm: He’s relaxing. I think I’ll pop him in his sleeper and prepare lunch.
12:05pm: Doorbell rings, dog barks, he jumps and starts screaming with the fright. I put down my slices of bread, pick him up, answer the door, ‘no I don’t want your fibre-powered broadband (well I do but I’m not willing to pay what you’re asking) and thanks for disturbing the child.’
45 minutes of various levels of screaming later, I have an idea: ‘I’ll prepare a bottle and that will help settle him’. I put him back down in the sleeper and a new lease of full-lung screaming ensues. I boil the kettle, grab the pre-pumped bottle from the fridge, drop it in hot water to take the chill out and pick up the baby, cuddling him in close and telling him it will all be okay, the bottle is coming.
I grab the spew cloth, bib and the warm bottle. He has no patience for my inexperience with the bib and has no problem letting me know. Finally, we are sitting, bottle in the mouth and I have some peace and quiet as he guzzles the contents and swallows a ton of air with each gulp.
Feeding takes nearly an hour as he is sleeping on and off between each round of sucking. Now I hit a dilemma. He needs to be winded. But he’s asleep! If I don’t wind him, he will spew and wake. If I do wind him he will wake. I’m tired. I’ll let him sleep, I decide.
Not 60 seconds later, there’s a burp, a spew and a scream.
‘Oh come on child!’ I think. ‘Really???’ His bib is soaked, his babygro is soaked and his vest is soaked. AND he’s wide awake.
Up onto the changing table he goes for a full wardrobe change followed by cuddles and pacing and lots of ‘shhh-ing’ and pats on the back. Finally he’s asleep. Again.
This time he goes into the doughnut cushion on the couch. He likes that.
I remember my lunch… it’s 4pm. The bread I left out is dry and goes into the dog’s bowl and by the time I have a cup of tea and a sandwich ready theres a big ‘Wharp’ followed by the smell of fermented yoghurt.
‘He’s filled his nappy, hasn’t he?’ I grumble. ‘Well he can sit in it now until I finished my cuppa.’
He’s well awake by the time his nappy is changed but after his little nap he’s pretty happy, all smiles and giggles and gurgles. When I try to put him down: screaming. Pick him up: happy.
6:30: He’s looking for another feed, which he gets followed by a 20-minute nap, during which I try get dinner together, although I’m not very hungry, having only just eaten lunch.
Dinner is eaten with one hand and I read him some nursery rhymes until 8pm, when it’s bath time. That all goes swimmingly (pun intended) and he sits in the doughnut cushion sucking his fist while I clear up the messy kitchen and put his dirty clothes in the laundry.
10pm: Time for his final nappy change and he has no problem polishing off the bottle. Now comes the nightly struggle to get him to sleep. Boy does he fight the sleep! He thrashes his head back and forth, kicks and wriggles and cries. I try every comforting position. Up on the shoulder, cradled, lying across the arm face down but each position seems to spark a round of screaming until finally, he gives a big sigh and… he’s gone.
The house is a bombshell but I’ve had enough. I turn off the lights, put him down, crawl into bed… and seriously question the whole stay-at-home dad thing!
