Description

Nina Sebastian discusses fatherhood and pregnancy from the man's perspective.

Transcript

Nina Sebastiane: Hello! I am Nina Sebastiane. Welcome to Baby Talk! Now, lots of the programs you see on the Baby Channel concern mothers. So, today, we are going to looking at fatherhood. Stephen Giles, author of the book You're The Daddy will be joining me a little later, plus we will hear from our celebrity fathers and real dads. But first, I am delighted to be joined by Jon Smith, who has written Bloke's 100 Top Tips For Surviving Pregnancy. Welcome to the show. Jon Smith: Thank you. Nina Sebastiane: You have got two children of your own and obviously this is written from first-hand experience. But why did we need the Bloke's 100 Top Tips For Surviving Pregnancy? Jon Smith: Now I think blokes or men in general get a real hard time when it comes to being affected by pregnancy in terms of how people see their involvement. We can't to our friends the support, because really don't want to talk about the subject. Midwives are obviously concerned with how the pregnant partner is getting on and doctors are same. So, I am hoping through the book that blokes can really find the solace they need and the support that they need through reading a book rather than just winging it alone. Nina Sebastiane: I mean, are blokes becoming more interested in the whole series of events? Do they want to know more? Do you think? Jon Smith: I think they do, I mean there is a lot of pressure on blokes to take much more of an active role, but I think that they want to take much more of an active role, and where do you find the advice and the support that you need when there is no one else to turn? Nina Sebastiane: So, what did you do? How did you research this book, because obviously some of it must be personal experience? Jon Smith: Very much so, but, at the time of writing the book, I ran a toy shop and I had all these dads wandering to the shop, looking for somebody to talk, somebody to talk to. Nina Sebastiane: That's brilliant. So, they would come into the shop wanting advice? Jon Smith: They would want advice about toys and I would ask them if they wouldn't mind filling in a questionnaire about their pregnancy or their partner's pregnancy experience and the whole fatherhood issue. And I found that they were more than willing to give these diatribes and the essays on how they found the whole experience and through those kinds of questionnaires I was able to construct the book. Nina Sebastiane: So, you actually researched this with real blokes going through the experience or having gone through the experience? Jon Smith: Very much so. I think there were 116 I interviewed as well as my own experience, obviously as well. Nina Sebastiane: And what did you -- I mean, you must have had some hilarious replies. I mean now some of the ones I love in here. I have got to read you a couple out. This one, Tip Number 55, however much you wash already, wash more, wash to the point of developing obsessive compulsive disorder, da, da, da, da. It basically goes on to say, you are a stinker and you smell. I mean, pregnant women have very heightened sense of smell. Jon Smith: They do. And it's important to acknowledge that, because otherwise you are going to get shouted at. So my advice is, change your socks probably three times a day. Nina Sebastiane: And this other one, Tip 54, you might feel that in her opinion you can't do anything right as far as she is concerned, that's right, you can't. Don't fight it. Just accept until the baby is born, you are going to be picked on a lot. Have some sympathy. As far as she is concerned, you are the one who got her into this mess in the first place. That's brilliant! Did you find a lot of sort of solace in writing the book? Jon Smith: I did. I mean, it was a form of catharsis there and I was obviously writing retrospectively after having two children. But what was interesting from the writer's point of view is that the two pregnancies were very, very different, even though you think you would be expert, you have done it once, I have even written a book about it. Suddenly number two comes along and I am experiencing completely different reactions from my partner than what I experienced the first time around. Nina Sebastiane: Yeah. What would you say, I mean, there are going to be dads watching this, and thinking, I am a bit nervous about it. Where do I start? What sort of -- what's your top tip for somebody watching this about to have a kid? Jon Smith: I think, if you are panicking with the news that you are expecting your first child or even your second child, it's not to let it out that; that's how you feel, certainly. You eventually for the first few days or certainly the first few weeks, if there is panic there, it will all sort itself out and anyone who doesn't panic, I think, is misleading themselves, because it's a monumental piece of news even if you have planned the pregnancy to suddenly find out that you are going to be a dad is as profound as it can possibly be. Nina Sebastiane: Well, that's very interesting and I think it comes up in one of your sort of first sort of bits of advice, doesn't it? Which is, don't let on. Take it like a man, not everyone reacts positively to such life changing news. But I mean it is life changing. Lots of things can be affected in your relationship with your partner as well, can't they? Jon Smith: Yeah, it's a very strain-time to show any sort of discourse about, oh, I am bit frightened about this whole pregnancy. It's not going to go down too well with your pregnant partner who is equally happens to come to deals with -- come to terms with becoming a mother very, very soon, and for you to be running around like a headless chickens, it's not going to assist the time. So I think it's time to cool down, calm down, and just take everything in your stride. Nina Sebastiane: Absolutely! For you looking back on your -- obviously you got two lovely children now, how old are they? Jon Smith: Ali is 5 and Ronin is 18 months. Nina Sebastiane: Oh fantastic! So you are sleeping again. Jon Smith: Just. Nina Sebastiane: You get your life back to some kind of normality at night, that's great. I mean, what would you say to somebody who has had this first child now and he is trying to sort of -- I don't know sort of just get back into a routine of things, just get back to a normal pattern of life. Does it ever go back to normal? Jon Smith: It doesn't go back to the way it once was, because you'll always have the child in your life, but I think after time, maybe after two years, you begin to form a new pattern which is very similar to the life that you want once led. But everything you do, every decision that you make will always involve your child whether that be taking them on holiday or how your weekends fare, ripe fruits or your feeding time, you're cooking for three rather than two and it's such a profound change to everything that you do in your life, but that's not necessarily to say that it's a bad change whatsoever, it can be very much fun. Nina Sebastiane: What did your partner or your wife think of you actually writing this book, because you've taken quite a few of personal references in it, haven't you? I mean you've tried to write as third party, but there must be something that she goes, that was me, cheeky so and so. Jon Smith: She was actually very, very supportive, mainly because when I was first going through her pregnancy, if that make sense, I was desperate for some reading materials so I could better understand what was happening and that sadly wasn't available at the time. So when it came to me, writing the book, she was very supportive, because she knew there would be other people out there wanting to read the things. Nina Sebastiane: I think, in the last sort of two to three years, a lot of things have now begun to sort of start coming out. There are lots of men wanting to find out more, aren't there? Do you think men want to know more about the whole experience full stop? Jon Smith: I think we do, blokes get a bit of rough time in the media as being useless and not so interested, but I think, they are and they want to be involved and once they arm themselves with the information and now thankfully, there is a range of books available particularly for men to help them through the experience. I mean a lot of women will say, what help do they need, they didn't have to give birth, but it's a very emotional change during the nine months that happens to the dad to be as much as there is to the mum to be, granted, we don't have to give birth. Nina Sebastiane: I mean you've touched on all sorts of stuff. You got bad poo days, private -- was that you, this is the great one. Oh! I remember reading this. Added to all these other indignities, don't be surprised if your partner suddenly starts passing wind in your presence for the first time in your relationship. It's completely normal. She can't help it. It's a by-product of the pregnancy, let's face it, you'll still laugh, it's candid in pose, but I mean do you think there is anything that you -- one overall message that you can give a bloke who is about to have their small child. Jon Smith: Enjoy as soon as you can. Once the panic goes away, once the worry begins to dissolve, your baby starts really from the pregnancy and the moment that you fully allow yourself to become enveloped in that pregnancy and therefore that child, the moment that your life change for the better. Nina Sebastiane: Great! Jon thanks so much for coming in. Jon Smith: Thank you. Nina Sebastiane: And telling us a little bit about your Bloke's 100 Top Tips for Surviving Pregnancy. Coming up now it's time to hear from the Baby Channel's four celebrity fathers to find out how they coped with the brand-new baby. Kevin Day: The one thing I have never gotten to use to even though it's nine. You se boundless people complete strangers even who feel that they can give you advice about childbirth. When you walk through the streets with a pregnant woman, you go to the shops with an infant child, other people who feel that they entitled to give you advice about how to raise that child, how to raise your child. There is still somebody now in our local shop as I drive out her out to walk, she constantly says, well, you've got another child you know. You can't even know your own child. It's not fair to -- It's like, it's none of your business. We raise that child as -- and the whole terrible thing with parents, two sets of parents who clearly love you dearly, but all the way through the pregnancy they will unbound to tell you in exact detail what things like in their day, how things are not as good in nowadays, how the childbirth thing is blah, blah. And you just get bombarded by a person whom don't know much. So much of it is contradictory. You don't know where to turn. You've got the National Childbirth Trust telling you one way to raise your child. And close to that you have got another way to raise your child. He has got natural instinct telling you to you do this way. You've got grandparents. Your head explodes in the end. Damion Queva: I think the other thing is that they tend to descend on you suddenly. Yeah, you could say you've got this exhaustion, you are absolutely tired. If you got a quite moment now, baby is down. I think the other big thing is that my wife and I are both quite strict about is we didn't want everybody picking up the baby unless they have washed their hands and we can worried about that. Please, don't kiss the baby on the face, because you know this kind of -- you know that can be very early stage. At a very early stage they can pick everything up -- We are really conscious of it. If some way you have to be so conscious that you know -- Kevin Day: Somebody brought that -- somebody said that to you. Damion Queva: Yeah, midwives said look be careful when I pick up the baby they come in especially if they've been stroking cats and all kinds of different thing. Well, the scariest thing about I recall was a disease is called when you touched a cat and then touch a baby and that type thing. We were kind of paranoid with our first one, because we were like, holiness sake, this is it, this is precious and no way we're going to let anything happen. So when someone came in, oh, show me the baby, I would say, would you mind washing your hand. I know it sounds really dumb, but we would like that. The other thing was that everyone turned up, brothers, sisters, aunty, aunts, and that it was like. Kevin Day: Good intentions too. Damion Queva: Good intentions, brilliant intensions. You know your first two years are just like -- Chris Brooks: You raise that wall window, isn't it? Because every minute the door bell rings and somebody new is coming through the door and you feel bad for saying and eventually we're going stay, look, we're going to have a couple of days on our own, and I am sorry grandparents and sorry friends. Kevin Day: And there is this all in-laws thing, isn't it? Oh! Eve now we get that. There are different ways that both sets of grandparents have their own raising children, sending to school with their -- But we don't want that school, do you? But we just don't have a reason what we think. But it wasn't it easier for you had the second or third child? You did become more automatic? Jonathan Wills: It much more relaxed. I mean again poor old baby would have been left on shelves and over the years. Oh! Look there she is. She is number three. She is just for the -- kind of thing. And she had but it again we sort of talked about that how they are different and how their characters have changed, but number three is so different than number one, because number one had absolutely everything as you say. Pull into from hand washing to God knows what and as you said number three is probably picking up dirt -- and whatever is in it. Yeah, I mean it's exactly great -- to meet is probably the result of it. Kevin Day: I do have to say we would the one piece of advice I would say stuck, is you do get bombarded. I went to every aunty in our class and I took notes and I was really all of it went out of my head completely as soon as the situation arose. The once piece of advice and I have actually lived by this. We had a child psychologist came to us in -- class. He said to us there is no such thing as a bad baby. Children aren't evil. If they cry, it's because they're hungry, they are sick or they are wet. If you've dealt with all these things, the child won't cry and a child doesn't got a sense to think, oh, I am going to be a big mystery, so I will keep him awake. And that was really important piece of advice, because then you think, oh, great. The child is crying, that's the signal that something is wrong. Let's find out what that is, sort it out. Then they're happy smiling. And I was far more relaxed going into being a parent; otherwise I was a nervous wreck. I'm probably still a nervous wreck, but that really helped the first few days when you have got these tiny vulnerable thing in your lovely flat and you don't know how to look after that. That was the problem almost constantly at the back of my mind. Chris Brooks: And we had the same advice with Kasty. If he is crying, it is because he needs a nappy change, he is sick or he is not eating properly. But the problem was there was no midwife or health visitor the one actually say let's move onto the bottle. It's whole breastfeeding, bottle feeding thing was like a complete nightmare. You read websites and you always feel like you better off starving and then taking off the breaks. In the end I said to Karen and maybe it was easy for me, because I've been with Kasty when Kasty was born and this was Karen's first. So I've kind of been there before, so maybe I was a little bit more at ease with that. I'll say he needs feeding. Let's get him some -- or let's get him some powder milk and go for it. Damion Queva: It's amazing how quickly they take to powder milk. You go, wait, hold on a second. They are not getting what they needed, but obviously they were hungry, because they take to these bottles thing. Kevin Day: But then you feel guilty about that which was -- Chris Brooks: Which was the whole circle with Karen and she wasn't sleeping properly, because the breastfeeding. He wasn't taking as much breast. So he is up every hour and she was just completely knock up and then the guilt sets in yourself, but then when he was on bottle of milk, I mean I could some of the pressure of her at night and then she had calmed down a bit which in term made Harry come down a bit and I were almost a happy family. Kevin Day: I feel so sorry for women now, especially because they are so surrounded by conflicting advice and one of the things they have really been always talked about was that nature is the most powerful thing in the world. Instinctively, you should know what to do and what's best for your kid and she says that I know that, but when you pick up a magazine or you turn on the television there are so many programs say one thing, you've got breastfeed or you can't breastfeed, they got be off the breast in 3 months. You can't have them new bed, you must have them new bed. So they are like I don't know what to do. I think there is a lot of pressure on the parents as well, because you do get -- the parents will say to you oh! When did he start walking? You say I don't know that. Well, mine is walking a month ahead of years. Jonathan Wills: With the trends and these different books that come out every year. Just getting back to the old in-laws one I was quite interest as well. I just wondered that how in terms with the relationship with the in-laws to the child we're talking earlier as well about these differences we have with our parents and how that differs to, because my father's relationship to my children, his grandchildren is incredible. I look at him with my girls now and I think you were never like that way. He has got really good relationship and if there is sort of interesting dynamic between the in-laws and the actual children. Kevin Day: It's funny I feel really safe with Ally's parents living in Birmingham which is this is not the end of the world, but it's one way both for working that way. So they don't him anymore than probably 3 or 4 times a year. So every time they see him trying him, he is older, but my dad -- my mom was away nursing and her parents when my dad was living with us, you've never seen a close relationship between a child and his grandparents. They both absolutely obsessed to each other which is fantastic, but the only downside is that we can't ask anybody else to look after him, because both of them get crossed. Sometimes he is not available. So it's really difficult. It's fantastic at one point. She is always there to look after him. But if he is not there we can't go out.