My son has now past the three month mark, making him no longer a newborn, and just a plain regular ol’ baby. In retrospect, it has been an amazing experience, and I wish it on everyone who wants to raise a child.

But like most amazing experiences, it was a special type of suck at the time, that I was in no way accustomed to or used to. It is often said, that the first thing to expect when you’re expecting, is advice from everyone. This is definitely true, but they don’t tell you why. Dealing with a newborn is such a special type of suck that everyone who has been through it wants to reduce the bitterness for you as much as possible, and they do this by sharing any golden nugget of information that they wish they new or listened to at the time.

Becoming a father, has no doubt made me a better man. Below are some of the lessons I have learned.

In the lead up to the arrival, I was mentally preparing myself for the worst case scenario. Generally I have got through life, by preparing for the worst, and adjusting to reality. However, this time the reality of a newborn was something I was no way ready for and had a very difficult time adjusting to.

Come game day, I can not sing enough praise to the midwives of GCUH, they did and said everything needed to assist Sofia in her labour. Meanwhile, all I did, was try and encourage the use of mindfulness and breathing techniques and come up with bullshit mickyaustin yoda quotes, like “there is no can’t, just will”.

The little man came out smelling like what you expected a womb to smell like, which is something I had never put any thought to before. Sofia held him and I cut the cord. When it came to my turn to hold the little fella, all I remember thinking, was well we got through that, guess I have to look after this thing for the next eighteen years. With the adrenaline from the action gone, and the burden of a tragic labour lifted, I struggled to stay awake while holding the little man. Sofia might even suggest I fell asleep, I did not. It was an experience with no special emotions of overwhelming love or achievement, just a switch of burdens.

We then stayed in the hospital for two nights. The majority of my experience with hospitals is through being in the mental health wards. For me, they are safe spaces, where I can be a different part of myself and even compete with other insane people to see who gets the title of the most insane, all the while having a high level of security. So over these two nights, with the safe arrival of my son, and the capable hands of the midwives assisting, I slept on Sofia’s hospital room couch, snoring so loudly that I could be heard throughout the ward.

Our midwife was amazing, and helped Sofia a lot, when I did wake up and offer to help, she simply said no to me, I was too much of a fall risk.

The first two weeks with a newborn was quite torturous. I woke up one night to see Sofia staring dead at me – she was sleeping with her eyes open. Another night while she was breastfeeding, she woke me asking why I was nursing a blanket in my sleep, to which I panicked thinking I had lost the baby.

As a man, that has never had any troubles staying awake when there was a pressing task at hand. I found out for the first time how hard it is to battle sleep deprivation and how humbling it is. In those first two weeks I am sure, both of us fell asleep with the little man in our arms at one point, and co-slept a few times.

In those first two weeks, I never felt more useless as well. The plan was Sofia would breastfeed, and I would nappy change. It made sense, but when Sofia started requesting me to change dry nappies (no blue strip down the middle of them), that quickly changed as well, and Sofia was doing both.

I came from a workplace where I was respected, it was orderly, timely and efficient. Having a newborn is none of those things, a baby is a wrath of its own. The only thing I could do was scroll aimlessly through social media, while doing skin to skin time with my son. I was useless and I had no energy to do anything, while at the same time craved some excitement from my “before child” lifestyle.

I actually tried to and was encouraged by my wife, to return to work early. They wouldn’t take me. It turns out the two weeks I had off was just enough to form a bond with my son, that upon returning to the workforce, I missed him. That coupled with my own personal demons, made me inefficient. I did not have the ability to work in a manner that I considered worthy of my remuneration, and quit my full-time work, to focus further on the family, the family business, and my own personal state.

I have therefore been extremely lucky to spend the first three months in large contact with my son.

These are the lessons I learnt.

As a parent you have to back yourself and become more assertive in your own beliefs. You also have to think very critically. There is so much information through websites official and unofficial, old wives tales, family experience and personal experience, that you will find numerous conflicting information. I’ve learnt to embrace this, as more often it tells you a lot more about the person providing advice than about your own baby. For example, the “stick to a routine” verse “feed on demand” advice.

You must learn to be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to know what your baby is feeling or thinking. For example, the little man, from about the fourth night learnt that he could break free from the swaddle wraps. There is this weird claim that babies like to be reminded of the womb, which to me doesn’t make too much sense. Who would really want to be trapped in the fetal position, swallowing their own piss? So Sofia started using swaddle bags, which is just a fancy name for baby straight jackets.

The little man hated the straight jackets, he would constantly fight against them, and one morning we found him with his hand squashed against his face, as it was poking out the top of the bag trying to break free.

For me this was unacceptable, straight jackets aren’t used in public health anymore (at least I have never seen any). A practice I have experienced though is being strapped to a bed and left there for approximately five days. I was more than happy to let Sofia take the reigns in the parental department, but I was not going to accept my son’s freedom of movement to be so forcibly taken away only days after he first received it.

I removed him from these swaddle bags, and was given the task of soothing our little man. Of course, I would try everything, but in the end, nothing quite soothes like a mother’s teat. Thus, not only was I useless, I was in Sofia’s mind a detriment to the process.

Having a newborn is a form of psychological warfare, but it is also a form of psychological training. Watching and listening to your newborn cry, in my opinion is most closely replicated to watching and listening to a steam whistle kettle boil while someone you care about is sleeping in the next room.

We did tummy time every day, we would place him on his stomach and start the timer once he started crying, after the designated time had been achieved we would pick him up and sooth him. I remember the first day, where we timed him for 30 seconds. It was excruciating and seemed to go on forever, I nearly had to physically hold Sofia back from picking him up.

By the end of the first week however, he was actually somewhat proficient at moving his head (he was only a skinny little fella) and could easily move it from side to side. By the second week he was sleeping through the night on his belly (still waking up to feed). By the first month, he was rolling from tummy to back on demand.

The other great thing about having a child, is that the buck stops with the parents. For any decision that is made, it is the parent that has to live with the consequences. This fear of responsibility does drive one to be conservative. I have the firm opinion though, that one can do just as much damage by coddling as well. Thus, sometime you just have to wash your hands clean and leave it up to others and the gods.

A great example of this was after he got his six week immunizations. He was pretty dopey and if ever there was going to be a night that he would suffocate in his sleep, it would have been that night. I wanted to move him onto his back. Sofia, exhausted was adamant that he was fine. I couldn’t hear him breathing, Sofia was sure he was.

I went to bed with the belief that my son may not be alive in the morning. I slept soundly, as I trusted in my wife’s care of our son, knew she loved him just as much as I did, and had insights I may not. I also knew waking him to turn him over would instigate a battle I had no desire to fight, and that I could absolve myself of any responsibility.

Your own child is a beautiful thing, because you actually have more control over its life than you do your own. The parents are completely responsible, but they have to also learn how to absolve responsibility. Some of our most torturous experiences as new parents, were putting to sleep a windy baby. The pain from the infant crying is real, worrying about keeping up the neighbors is real, but the cause of the crying is a mystery. During those long nights, the self doubt is pervasive. You assume the crying is causal and then continue to blame yourself. I was assuming, I was too rough with him while trying to degas him, while his mother is assuming she ate something wrong. We are tired irritable and upset, and end up getting angry at each other – In the end, we never found out, we didn’t need to, he moved on, and so did we.

The little man also taught me how to communicate through figuratively crying. It is a great pain relief to try and mock your babies cry, it takes the focus away from his expression of pain that you can’t control, and adds an audible talent that you both can work on together. I do not remember what Sofia was doing the first time I tried this, but after changing the little man’s nappy and bouncing with him for a couple of minutes, I could tell his cry’s were more persistent than painful. So I started mocking him. He enjoyed it, with an almost cry laugh and a smile, and we cried back and forth for the next little bit. For the next couple of day’s I could get him to cry on demand by doing it myself. It was great fun, I like to think he was trying to teach me, how to cry, but through it, I also learn his range pretty good and built up a pretty good resilience to this audible expressions.

To me that is all crying is, an audible expression, and as a new parent, one must learn that there is a big difference between expression and demand. As a newborn that doesn’t giggle, every sound he made was some sought of cry, be it a coo or a scream. Being able to differentiate the differences is the key. I loved to sit there and watch my son make effort cries in his endeavor to move 5 cm to reach his toy, his mother thinks that is cruel, and doesn’t want to see him struggle.

Pretty much every new activity, be it playing on grass, at the edge of they waves, or going in the pool, has a pretty good chance of bringing on a cry for the first time. It sucks, but it is one you get used to, and it brings a sweeter joy once the little man is used to it. But I have never heard my child cry as consistently, nor discovered new scary parts of his vocal range as when he gets placed in his car seat.

Invariably the little guy cried whenever in the car, and living in the Gold Coast with family in North Brisbane, the poor guy does spend a lot of time in that dreaded seat. At the beginning his crying mixed with our lack of sleep always resulted in loud arguments, which seemed to put him to sleep. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter why, but I like to play baby whisperer and tell everyone, that he is happy and content that his father is defending him and telling off his naughty mother for making him go in the car seat again. I think I have pretty good baby whispering skills, but I understand actually telling off his mother every time isn’t very productive for our relationship. So nowadays as a family, we listen to RTJ, and let them be angry for us.

This brings me to baby whispering. I mentioned before, raising a newborn is a psychological battle. By this is simply mean if you have the candid ability to credibly interpret his demeanor in order to convince the majority. You win. It is the same with animals and spirits. It is a skill, based on experience, research and creativity – and it is completely biased.

If you spend any time in government lead mother’s groups (key word being mother and not parent), you will quickly hear all of the conflicting advice. The government employees from my experience are much more likely to make something up that conflicts with the government website, than say I don’t know. These places are very much group-think mother tanks, where a key group of mothers, sight government website advice to a midwife in her golden years for brownie points. No one dares to mention government recommended personal exercise though, somehow that one slips through cracks.

I strongly believe that it takes a whole tribe to raise a child. You learn from the past, plan for the future, and you react to the present. In the first few weeks, outside help for us was a God send, knowing what to expect helps. But if you and your partner are committed to the cause, there will come a point, of hold my beer I got this. This is where the freedom of the individual and the institution of the family becomes paramount.

You know your child best, because you know yourself and your partner better than anyone else. The extended family is next in line, because while they may not know your partner they know you and raised you.

So in summary the lessons learnt were:

• Back yourself;
• Think critically;
• Take responsibility;
• Absolve responsibility;
• Trust your partner;
• Let your child teach you; and,
• Speak for your child.