Derailled

Woohoo! I am now a father. Little Alice entered the world yesterday. Both mother and baby are in excellent health and so far little Alice has been really really good, but I think she could just be planning her strategy at this point in time. Any tips from recent fathers out there?

Congratulations.
No tips, just congratulations.

Well done - the secret is to get extended family involved while you take as many 'extended breaks' as possible.

Congratulations.

Go ride your bike...now; did I say now, I meant RIGHT NOW. You're not going to get much time from now on.

Congrats dude, my only suggestion is to do as much as possible to support your wife, altho' it will be tiring for you it will be exhausting physically and emotionally for her

Make sure she gets time to sleep when the babies sleeping etc, proper sleep will be a thing of the past for quite a while unless you are lucky and get one of those mystical babies that sleeps thru

p.s. the first 6 weeks were pretty hard for us, babies tend to only do 4 things, cry, sleep, feed, and poop, but then around 6 weeks they'll often start giving you a bit of feedback, smiling etc, made it all worthwhile

And don't have too many expectations of what parenthood is and how babies should behave.

First time parents tend to make a lot of comparisons with stuff they read and other people's experiences. Don't do that. It just adds unnecessary pressure.

Relax as much as you can, support your partner to the hilt like jb said, and know that as long as your baby is given plenty of love and adequate care, everything will be just fine. The occasional blow job during the healing period doesn't go amiss either. Doing housework facilitates this greatly.

Oh, and congrats. Good work.

Nice job that man

often all simultaneously!

Congrats Spence.
No additional advice from that already given. Sorry.

Congrats

Congrats

My main tips would be to try and rest when baby sleeps and that slowcookers are your friend (chuck everything in the pot in the AM, hearty meal in the PM).

Wheres the pic of the new bubs Spence!!

Thanks for the words and good advice everyone. So far it's been going really good. Baby was born by c-section, but one of the advantages of that drama occurring is that Chloe is able to stay on the maternity ward for a few days, and having immediate access to midwives has been priceless. We've already learnt heaps that I think may have taken a while via trial and error.

Also, on that note without going into details the birth was a little more complicated that we would have liked. The staff at the Women's hospital in Christchurch were just absolutely brilliant; absolute stars every single one of them! I wouldn't have known that the hospital even existed had it not been for baby, and I certainly wouldn't have known that it was staffed by such skilled and caring human beings. Honestly, I feel very lucky to live in a country where that level of healthcare is available to all. Obviously, you only get to see it when you need it, but trust me, when you need it and it's there it is beyond measure!

Heh. Well I never thought I'd be one for uploading baby pictures, but here we go.... isn't she cute!

She is gorgeous mate! Hard t believe that she is only a few days old! Good on ya! You must be proud as hell

Best wishes to you all

Super cute Spence!!