He Says, She Says
How to survive the first week of parenthood
Award-winning wife and husband writers Robyn Wilder and Stuart Heritage reveal what the first days with a newborn baby are really like
I’ve been writing about being a parent for seven years now, ever since my own first bleary weeks of new motherhood.
Perhaps because of this, I often receive emails from readers asking what ‘number one item’ I recommend for the first few weeks of pregnancy. I advise, always, buying the longest, sturdiest phone-charging cable possible.
Inevitably, I’ll receive a follow-up email from some of them – months later – apologising for thinking I was joking ‘about the phone charger thing’. They’ve had the baby now, they’ll say, in fact they’re trapped under it with a full bladder and dwindling phone battery.
They know their choice is to wake the baby, which may start a cycle of crying, or pee themselves. And they ask for more recommendations for their first weeks of parenthood.
I advise them to buy several multipacks of extra-long phone cables, and plug them in next to every comfortable seat in the house. Next to this they should stash two bottles of water, two packets of biscuits, tissues, wet wipes and baby-changing paraphernalia.
Don’t worry about keeping the house tidy, I also say. Don’t have anyone over to keep the house tidy for. Only let people in if they’re bringing you home-cooked food, cleaning your house, or they’re the sort of people you don’t mind seeing in stained pyjamas and a dirty house.
There’ll be time enough for everyone to meet your baby. This is your time to meet your baby – and to be a family, and take a breath, and decompress slightly from your pregnancy and birth. So much of bonding with your baby involves just sitting and holding them.
Writers Robyn and Stuart share some home truths about early parenthood
It can be such a lovely time.
A lovely, lovely, mellow, Netflix-bingey time. And you don’t have to worry about only watching age-appropriate things. You can watch anything; it’s a baby. That said, avoid procedurals featuring children in peril, because it’ll be too upsetting.
Also, stay away from all mumblecore, because newborns are inveterate snufflers and you won’t hear a thing. And of course you don’t want whodunits, because babies have a spooky sense for scenes when it’s revealed who has, in fact, done it – and they will pass wind all over it just to mess with you.
Other than that, enjoy your week. Enjoy your baby. And your family. And charge your phone.
How do dads survive the first week of parenthood? The short answer is that it depends on one key factor: is this your first child?
If it is then congratulations. This will be one of the most relentlessly profound weeks of your life. Every morning, you will wake up early and, as the weak morning sunlight streams in through your windows, you will gently creep downstairs with your new child in order to let your partner claw back some sleep.
You will sit on your sofa and there you’ll stay together for hours. You’ll gaze upon the most precious thing you have ever seen in your life, their tiny hands gripping your finger for comfort. You will breathe together. You will bond. You’ll greet visitors warmly and gracefully. You’ll be tired, but you will remember this week for the rest of your life.
If it isn’t then OH BOY, GOOD LUCK. If the first week of being a father is like exhaling in slow motion, then the first week of being a father of two is like sprinting through a minefield with tennis rackets for shoes, during a rave in a burning warehouse. It is HARD. Your partner still needs to rest, and you have a new baby to care for, but now you also have an older child to care for too; one whose immediate reaction to their new sibling was a legitimately unsettling mixture of jealousy and disinterest.
There is nothing profound about a second baby. Every moment of learning how to juggle two kids at once is a screaming, full-volume stress-test that you are bound to repeatedly fail. You’ll quite often find yourself gnawing on chocolate standing up, like a feral raccoon, just to keep your energy levels up for the next round of relentless high-speed multitasking. Your hair will thin. Your skin will sag. Visitors? Absolutely not. They already came to see the first one, so chances are they won’t bother this time. Nobody gives a stuff about the second child. You’re on your own.
Obviously there are benefits to this. By never receiving anyone’s full attention for even a moment, your second child will grow up to be much more hardy and self-reliant than your first. And, in time, the moment will come when your children will become friends. When that happens, you will find your workload will drop a hundredfold. But that’s four years away, minimum. Better to just bite down on something hard and get through it.
