Lesson learned for me as a new father to Immanuel Aritonang

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 3:14pm

It's nothing new, and you probably have read this somewhere down the line, written by different people with different approach and different conclusions.But here is my lesson learned as a new father.

Immanuel Aritonang was born 3 months ago on April 13, 2009 and lo and behold was blessed with yours truly as his lovely father.
As you all may have guessed, yes I did not and have never taken any fatherhood class or any daddy grooming seminars.
It's all learning by doing.And the following shall be my humble list of lesson learned. You are all free to comment, add or advise to delete or edit, but keep the insults and the sarcasm to the minimum, alright!

So here goes:
1. It's best that you prepare before hand your wife's clothes and things inside a bag in your car before you go to the hospital for child birth. Your new child's clothes shall be lent from the hospital when he is born but your wife needs her clothes, bathing stuff etc.

2. For you who cannot stand the sight of blood, then it's best to opt out attending the child birth in the delivery or operating room. I pass out just watching the video, let alone being in there personally. The doctors are so focused on your wife's labor and child's birth, let's not trouble them by passing out and dropping to the floor while your wife is in labor.

3. Try not to hear the complaints of the nurses and midwife about how ill-informed you are as a new father. Their father's and husband's poor performance might have bigger impact in their perspectives.

4. When your wife has just finished her caesarean section in the operating room, chances are she is still under sedation when your child needs feeding. So prepare a baby milk before hand to feed the baby. This is just for the early phases. Once she regain her consciouness, mother's milk is better by far. Now Immanuel only feed on his mother's milk until 6 months -nothing else for now.

5. Learn how to help your wife feed and nurse the baby, bathe them with warm water and to look for symptoms of irregularities such as warm, flu etc. I learned on how to hold Immanuel and to burp him in these early days. I am so proud of myself, ehehehe.

6. Babies tend to love being hold and carried around. Don't worry it's just the way babies make sure that they got proper love, attention and care from mother and father. Immanuel does not cry but he shall shout and throw punches and kicks if you do not carry him around showing stuffs in the house.

7. Make sure that your babies are feed properly. In Immanuel's case he wants to be fed every 15 minutes in his initial days. Now in his 3rd month, he wants his baby milk every 3 hours.

8. I don't know exactly what happened, but Immanuel does not like baby talcum powder. He sneezed a lot when applied and told us that he does not like talcum. Baby oil works wonders, so please use baby oil instead of baby powder.

9. Our bed is 2 meter by 2 meters and the height is around 1.25 meter. My mom and mother in law told me to remove the bottom portion and just use the pillow top. Having your baby rolls over and drop from that height straght to the floor is a definite no-no. Prepare yourself with baby car seat and stroller for traveling and his crib for social time in the living room. For Immanuel: we have to be careful, he is an active baby with lots of roll over, bends and kicks.

10. Keep fresh clothes at all time for your babies. There's lots of pee-pee time and poo-poo time. It's normal. Anyway Immanuel is the new boss in this house and he can do whatever he wants to do anywhere, anytime he wants it done.

God bless everybody!