The First Year Being a Dad

The first year of being a father was one of the greatest years of my life. I had no idea what to expect and there was no lack of learning. Everyday was a new challenge and a new experience. There were ups and there were downs. At times I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, but sometimes everything just seemed to fall into place. Every minute of the first year I cherish and will forever hold in my heart and memory.

I can still remember the first day bringing Oliver home from the hospital like it was yesterday. I had never put a car seat in a car before and it was a nerve racking experience. I was so concerned getting it tightened in correct that I actually pulled it to tight and it sat Oliver almost straight up. Of course he could not control his little head so when I put him in the seat his little head flopped over to the side. Kristi road in the back with him and made sure his head stayed in the right place. It was a pretty good glimpse of what I had in store for me. There was going to be a whole lot of learning and figuring it out.

We had all the stuff a bassinette, changing table pad, bouncing chair, and lots of little blankets. We tried putting Oliver in his bassinette, but that really did not go to well. We actually let Oliver sleep in the little bouncy chair for about the first six weeks. We would set the bouncy chair up next to the bed put him in and turn it on. Putting it next to the bed really did not go that well either. I have learned now that babies wake up many times a night, and not necessarily to eat. Oliver would wake up and make some noise so we would wake up thinking that we needed to do something. It took a few nights of this then we decided to put him right outside the bedroom door in the living room. Then we got to get a little more sleep because we would only hear him when he was hungry. After about six weeks we tried the bassinette again, but still with no luck so Oliver spent the next couple months sleeping in his swing. The movement really helped him sleep, and it also let us get some sleep.

I soon realized that you can read books, magazines and look up information on the internet but every baby is probably going to be a little different. I believe that most of being a parent is common sense and intuition. There are certain things that will just come naturally and then some things I had to reprogram myself to do. I tried to avoid the experts and just go with what little I knew about babies. Kristi had much more experience than me having worked at a day care for a couple years, being a nanny and just babysitting in general. I counted on her for a lot of advice and the more technical aspects of being a parent like taking a babies temperature, which could be a whole topic in its self.

The first year of feeding Oliver was fun when we finally got away from the formula and started feeding him baby food and then eventually solids. I really enjoyed seeing his reaction to new foods. It was a whole event in the house, there was no new foods introduced to Oliver if both of us were not there to see his reaction. Some reactions where much better than others, there were some foods he did not like at all on the first taste that ended up being his favorites. You don’t realize how convenient it is to be able to eat until you have to spoon feed a baby three times a day. It was a great day when he figured out how to eat on his own.

So sleeping and eating where nothing compared to mobilization. The first six months Oliver pretty much stayed in one place, he might have rolled over of scooted but never got too far. Then came crawling and that was something different entirely. Now it was time to truly baby proof the house. It was time to put the outlet plugs, put up the baby gates, and make sure none of the furniture could fall over. Everything changed as he was starting to develop a little sense of independence and control of his body. That was a fun time and I remember thinking “I can’t wait until you can walk” then my wish came true. One day he crawled over to the couch and managed to stand up by himself. It was only a couple weeks later that he was taking steps and not to long after that he was walking. At first he needed help standing up then one day just as if he had been doing it all along he stood up and took a few steps on his own. There has been no stopping him since that day!

It has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world being a parent, but the rewards are far greater than anything else. Of course there was much more that happened in the first year, but honestly I want to be able to write about them separately. There are moments of that first year I will never forget and will always fill my heart with a warm feeling every time I remember them. I can hardly imagine a life without my son and I feel truly blessed to be given the gift of being a parent!