First-time dad

Proper norfolk

2008-09-07T15:59:00.001Z

Slow you down like hold you hard, are proper norfolk sayings and we love them

Storage

2008-08-15T08:23:00.001Z

In the rain

Jack the jockey

2008-08-09T09:10:00.001Z

Learning to ride in the kitchen

Network Rail's hi-tech solution to the hot weather

2008-07-28T16:21:00.001Z

Its hot in London and that means no-one can read the monitors at Sutton station because of the sun's reflection. This solution made me chuckle.

Jack in majorca

2008-06-08T07:29:00.001Z

Sunday morning at the market in the playa mayor in pollencia. Beautiful sunny morning and jack eating his breakfast for once!

Jack and his new shoes

2008-05-24T08:11:00.001Z

Jack admires his new shoes before we head off for katie curtins christening in Olney

My first driving lesson

2008-05-11T10:16:00.001Z

I love my land rover. Thank you very much pops!

Jack having a ride

2008-05-11T08:53:00.001Z

Jack takes a ride on the dilly - Charlie was pulling him round the garden at Godwick this morning.

Jack and Charlie at godwick

2008-05-05T16:04:00.001Z

Jack walking with Charlie at godwick village

Is it golf or is it a broom?

2008-04-20T16:10:00.001Z

Jack playing with daddy's golf clubs in our garden. Think we need to get him some proper ones tiger!

Jack reading his fav book

2008-04-20T12:38:00.001Z

Jack enjoying a good read during lunch

Getting dry

2007-12-10T22:28:00.001Z

Getting dry
Originally uploaded by joel72.

Jack having a bath with daddy .... he looks like the next Ricky Hatton

Jack, Oliver and Thomas at their first party together

2007-09-16T12:57:00.000Z

I love this photo of Jack (centre) with his two mates Thomas (left) and Oliver (right). It's a lovely picture and is a lovely feeling for the boys' dads to see their three sons together like this as they have been best friends for years.

Jack on the swings

2007-08-13T21:07:00.000Z

Its great watching your little ones laugh out loud as its so spontaneous and natural. In this pic Jack is getting really excited about being on the swings for the first time. Everyday there's something new that makes him laugh out loud.

Jack's thinking about crawling

2007-07-30T21:38:00.000Z

We think Jack is only days from starting to crawl.... he's getting very frustrated as he can't quite get the hang of it yet. So we may have to start thinking about making the baby proofing the house soon and perhaps look into some of these safety options. We're also trying to encourage him to learn to feed himself a messy operation as you can see.

Hanging out with Jack's friends

2007-07-21T07:42:00.000Z

Jack, Matthew and Isla hanging out and having fun in the playpen..... .

Jack's new best friend

2007-07-18T06:01:00.000Z

Of all the toys you buy for your little baby, there always seems to be one that they love more than anything else. For Jack its Mr Woof Woof. And doesn't he love him, although he seems to bite and thrash him sometimes, tere's a special twinkle in his eye when you give him Mr Woof Woof.

Jack on holiday - and flying on a plane

2007-06-25T21:52:00.000Z

We've just been on our first holiday with Jack (hence the lack of recent posts) to the south of France where Charlie's mum and dad have a lovely place. We stayed with them, which was great as it gave us both a bit of a break as well.
We were a bit concerned about Jack flying but he was fine as long as we kept him sucking on his dummy while we took off and landed so his ear's popped with the change of pressure. From this pic he looked as though he was loving it!

One of our favourite baby Jack pics

2007-06-05T21:19:00.000Z

As Jack gets older - he's now six-and-a-half months old - he's definitely developing more of a character. He now goes ever so slightly crazy when he doesn't get what he wants and his vocal range has certainly developed to include a wide range of noises from frustrated grunts to high-pitched squeals of excitement. For these pics he was happy to pose in his new favourite position - sitting up!

Jack's starting to sit - well with some help

2007-06-02T06:54:00.000Z

Last weekend while the weather was dreadful and we had to spend most of the long Bank Holiday weekend locked up in our homes as the rain fell outside, we noticed that Jack was starting to sit up and stay sitting up with a little help from his hands by leaning forward.

This seems to be quite normal timing for babies and within the next month he should start to sit unaided allowing him to explore with his hands.

It's time for us to watch out and to start thinking about baby proofing our home! He's already started throwing his toys on the floor to get us to return them to him!

Jack's six month anniversary

2007-05-25T05:26:00.000Z

Yesterday Jack was exactly six months old - where does the time go? It's weird because on one level it does seem a long time ago that he arrived with us, such a long while that I can hardly remember exactly how he looked, and yet on another level the time seems to have flown by.

All I can say is that so far (and I'm touching every bit of wood I can find) he has been a dream. We have hardly had a sleepless night and he seems a contented little baby. We haven't really followed the Gina Ford approach as such (we have never bought her book) but we have followed a pretty strict routine and it seems, in his case , to have worked.

Now he's feeding on solids really well, we're about to cut out his lunchtime bottle. So you see you just go from one stage to another, and perhaps this is why the time flies by and yet it's hard to remember the details and I guess that's why I write this blog!

Jack's christening party

2007-05-22T19:48:00.000Z

We recently had Jack's christening party at the local church from my mum and dad's home in Tittleshall, Norfolk. It was a great day shared with lots of family and friends, some of whom travelled a fair distance to share it with us. After the service we had a lovely meal back at the Great Barn at Godwick on my mum and dad's farm. We didn't manage to get many photos in the church of Jack being christened, and this is probably the best we have got so far.

Jack showing off his new teeth

2007-05-16T05:45:00.000Z

I love this photo of Jack showing off how he wants to start biting everything and using his new teeth His two bottom teeth are now through and here he is using them by biting daddy's finger. Nice! So far he hasn't had too much pain with these two - the odd moment where they are clearly painful, but he has still kept sleeping. Fingers' crossed.

Jack feeding and teething

2007-05-07T08:16:00.000Z

We love this picture of Jack as he seems so happy. He has taken to eating so quickly and he especially loves his baby rice porridge at 10am. He is also having pear and apple purees made by Charlie and other stuff as well.

His first tooth is causing some pain and he seems to be a bit grissly this morning, but he's still sleeping through the night so far. I found some good teething tips on ask baby.com. We are using Ashton & Parsons infant powders - they are sachets of powder that you pour on his tongue to numb the pain and they do seem to help, although he doesn't like the taste much.

colour-co-ordinated Jack - his clothes now go with his new pushchair

2007-05-06T07:12:00.000Z

Jack's all smiles here in his matching clothes and pushchair outfit.... and while he is a really happy little man, his first tooth is on its way through and it is causing him some pain sometimes. We're keeping our finger's crossed that he doesn't start waking during the night, but guess that our blissful last three months without a broken night's sleep is likely to end!

Messy and happy, just like daddy

2007-05-03T07:02:00.000Z

Jack has a new bumbo seat and this is how we feed him now.. it's great for that, but it doesn't stop the little man getting his baby porridge all over his chops!! Good boy, looks like he's taking after his daddy! We bought our bumbo on ebay for about £27 - a few quid cheaper than retail.

Baby swimming today

2007-04-21T07:08:00.000Z

Week four today - let's hope that Jack will start to enjoy it more. No dunking this week, to see if that helps!!

Jack's first taste of baby food

2007-04-15T08:00:00.000Z

Jack's just started to have some baby food and his first taste of solids. He's now coming up to 20-weeks-old and his loving it so far... particularly baby custard. Seems like he might have a sweet tooth like his mummy!!

Jack with his cousins Josh and Sam

2007-04-14T07:10:00.000Z

We had a lovely Easter weekend away with our families in Norfolk... Thanks to Marie for sending the pics as I forgot our digital camera. Also apologies for the lack of posts, just been a bit hectic changing jobs at work...

Should have some more baby swimming pics later today as we go to Jack's third session - let's hope he enjoys it more this week. He's also started having some baby food... which is really exciting.

Jack's first picnic on Sunday in Battersea Park

2007-04-01T17:46:00.000Z

I think this is a gorgeous pic of Charlie and Jack on our first picnic today (1 April). It was a gorgeous spring afternoon and we had a lot of fun chillin' out in the park and stuffing our faces at the same time... Jack is still on the same menu, so his food was still the same as ever... but he seemed to enjoy himself.

Jack and his first dip in the pool - babyswimming

2007-03-31T07:09:00.000Z

We have just started taking Jack to baby swimming classes at our local group in Balham, south-west London.

Jack's first class was interesting as I'm not sure how much he enjoyed it. There were five other babies there some a bit younger than Jack and some a bit older. While some of the others seemed to cry a little bit, Jack seemed to cry throughout the class.

Even in our first class we dunked Jack - in other words, fully submerged him below the water for a few seconds. It's quite a heart-rendering experience as you watch their little face as you take them under, but it's very safe as babies have a reflex that stops them trying to breathe underwater.

The first class lasts for nine weeks and by the end of it Jack should be able to swim short distances underwater. How amazing is that. It's the next class today, so wish me luck. Hopefully he'll have a better sleep this morning before the class and this might mean that he doesn't cry throughout like last week. More baby swimming pics of Jack on flickr.

Baby Jack on video

2007-03-18T07:38:00.000Z

Jack's first ever debut on video can be seen here - filmed by his mummy Charlie and stars Jack and his dad Joel. Nothing much goes on so don't expect too much from the little man, he is only just making cooing noises, so getting to grips with the script was a bit tough for him!

Whose that babe with Jack?

2007-03-13T20:13:00.000Z

The three of us had a lovely day today in gorgeous spring sunshine at Kew Gardens. Jack was on great form and we really enjoyed ourselves walking around the wonderful gardens,and seeing the lovely spring flowers and enjoying the sunny weather. We also managed to grab a spot of lunch at the Kew Grill, which has a great lunch offer of £12.50 for two courses, so as I was on holiday we thought we splash out and take Jack out for lunch! We took loads of photos which I have posted on flickr and this is my favourite.... Charlie looking wonderful and Jack happy and pretty cool in his little baseball cap!

Jack is changing everyday

2007-03-12T07:55:00.000Z

Everyday Jack seems to be changing - I've put some more photos of him on flickr from this weekend - but everyday he is doing new stuff, or making new noises. It's a really exciting time for all of us.

Is he the coolest baby in the world?

2007-03-02T12:37:00.000Z

I guess every dad thinks this, but Jack dressed up in his jeans and Baby Gap top, just looked like the coolest little boy ever.

He is now 14-weeks-old and a lot of the lovely clothes that were brought for him when he was born and now fitting him. And as he's not pooing and weeing all the time, dressing him in trousers and tops rather than baby grows is ok and we don't need to change him all the time.

Now he is giggling away and just being much interactive - great for Dads as I think we need the feedback and stimulation that a baby starts to give at this age.

Is Jack starting to crawl?

2007-02-21T21:57:00.000Z

Jack is now nearly three-months-old and his spending more time on his tummy.... and he's trying to crawl. He's obviously not crawling yet, but he's definitely getting much stronger and he can spend more time on his stomach, which I think helps him strengthen muscles in his back and neck.

Jack's sucking his thumb???

2007-02-18T07:49:00.000Z

Jacks got really itchy eczema on his face - it itches most along his eyebrows. I guess its no surprise he has it, as I had exzema as a boy until I was about 18 to 20, but I hardly get it at all now. But can we treat it?? It's definitely very itchy for him and irratating especially when he gets tired.

There is some useful advice I've found from this article and this one on the ABC of eczema. But he is off to the Dr next Tuesday, so we'll see what they think he should use and whether there's something that can be prescribed..... Olive oil doesn't seem to be doing the trick at the moment.

Now is Jack sucking his thumb already?? Not sure whether its the thumb or thumb and fingers yet, but he is definitely self-soothing and we hardly ever give him a dummy now at all.

I love the weekends with Jack

2007-02-17T09:07:00.000Z

Weekends are now spent looking after Jack, but I love it - he is such fun now that he's 12-weeks-old and seems so much more settled in himself.

Several people said to me that three months seemed to be apoint when things got easier and I have to say that seems to be true. He is sleeping through the night regularly, and he is muck more interactive now.

I was watching the Brits the other night and Snow Patrol were playing one of my favourite songs - chasing cars, which was the song I was listening to as I drove to and from the hospital the day that Jack was born. So here it is.. hopefully I've embedded the link correctly.

11-weeks-old and Jack's changing

2007-02-11T21:46:00.000Z

Jack is now 11-weeks old and he is doing really well. All this week apart from one night, he has slept through the night from 6-30pm until about 7am... Pretty good. He is still having his late night feed at about 10-30pm, but he rarely needs changing at this time and if he is fast asleep, he hardly wakes and he goes straight back to sleep.

So we are pretty pleased and our life seems to be getting back to normal - we had our first dinner party this weekend and it was really nice to have some friends over and just chat like normal adults.

Our next challenge is to wean him off his late night feed, but he needs to have bigger feeds in the day to go without his late-night feed. He is now having about 6oz a feed, so he is nearly there but not quite.

But he is doing really well and is really starting to alter by the day now.

A well used prambulator

2007-02-08T17:10:00.000Z

On a recent visit to my folks' place in north Norfolk, my mum notched up an ambition of hers - and that was for Jack to go to sleep outside her house in my old Silver Cross pram...

Pram design has clearly altered somewhat in 30-odd years as I can't see that you can readily fold this one up and put it in the car.. but hey it seemed pretty comfortable still and Jack fell asleep outside their front door in much the same way as I had done 35 years ago now...

When a baby sleeps through the night

2007-01-31T21:26:00.000Z

Now our baby Jack seems to be sleeping through the night - he is now 10 weeks old and I have to say for the first six weeks I could never see the day when he would sleep though the night... well he has done so for the last three nights, so fingers crossed this is a sign that this is going to be a normal pattern..

His pattern now is a feed at 9ish then at midnight and then he sleeps through till about 7am in the morning.. the question now is can we manipulate his evening feeds, so we can start feeding him earlier at say 10pm and then get him to go through the night?

It seems from this chart that most experts feel that you shouldn't skip that feed until he's three months old.. so we have a few more weeks to go yet.

We are considering putting him onto the Gina Ford the contented baby system - but we haven't finally decided yet.

Now we have a CD that plays a vacuum cleaner sound

2007-01-25T17:54:00.000Z

I don't think I'd ever have believed that we would buy a CD that just plays the noise of a vacuum cleaner, but we have and it works a treat and soothing Jack in the evening and sends him asleep....

It's called a baby vacuum cleaner..... and all it plays is the sound of a vacuum cleaner continuously and for this work of art we paid a whopping great £7.50... but as Charlie says its worth it for an evening without Jack crying. I think it must be just "white noise"... but it does seem an easy money-making venture to me.

A hairdryer and the famous

2007-01-23T17:47:00.000Z

Just thinking about Jack being soothed by a running hairdryer in his room.... and it reminded me that I'm sure I'd heard a story about Wayne Rooney only being able to get to sleep when a vacuum cleaner was running in his room.... and a quick search revealed I was right with this story on Yahoo!

The first eight weeks - how has it been for us

2007-01-21T20:46:00.000Z

A first-time-dad's account of the first eight weeks of our baby Jack's first eight weeks.

It's hard to distill it all to make sense, suffice to say that while you may not think that you'll ever get a good night's sleep again during the first six weeks of your baby's life... it does as everyone will tell you get better.

I remember the first four weeks, being absolutely exhausting not just because of the lack of sleep, but also as having a new baby for the first time is a stressful experience.

Having talked to friends and family, it's also true that every baby is different. We have probably had it quite easy with Jack, but there have been times when we have been at the end of our tether too, so if you get there, then you are in the same place as many, many other first-time parents.

A quick resume for us would be:

0-14 days - Jack slept a lot, but not at the same time as us.... so we were up a lot at night, probably feeding every two to three hours. This is hard work and your baby seems very fragile.

14-28 days - We were starting to get Jack used to when night and day was, but he didnt want to sleep unless he was cuddled... he was like this up to six weeks old really. However he was feeding better and drinking more... Jack was being breastfed at and Charlie was expressing her milk as well, so I could help out with some feeds. He would still need at least one to two feeds a night. In express milk terms he would have about 30ml in a feed - not a lot.

28 days to six weeks - this was over Christmas for us and Jack definitely started to understand the difference between night and day. He was sleeping better at night, although he was still going to sleep most times when he was held. This is the stage when for us every time he sensed he was near his moses basket and being put down he would scream.... this meant a lot of rocking and singing to get him into a deep sleep so we could get put him down. A lot of the books tell you not to let him fall asleep in your arms and if you can avoid it, then it's worth it, but in our experience this wasn't going to happen.

For us, Jack was being fed primarily by formula and he was staring to drink more - about 60-70ml of milk a feed, but he was still quite small, about 10lbs.

Towards the end of this period we started to feel that he was sleeping better at night - sometimes he would go for a five hour stretch in one go... brilliant. However, he was starting to show signs of collic..... normally in the evening at about 8pm till 11pm. During this time, he would howl and he was hard to find ways to stop him.

So we were getting a better night's sleep, but dreading the evenings, when dinner would normally mean passing Jack from one another around the table as he cried.

Six to eight weeks old - Jack was sleeping better at night, and was generally happy during the day. He started to smile at us... at about four to five weeks. Collic like symptoms still evident at evening time, but we decided it was time to put him down after his bath and feed in the evening at about 7pm.... to start he hated it. We would spend one to two hours singing and rocking him, before he would tire himself out with crying ......and fall asleep.

THEN we found the secret of the hair dryer........ if we put Jack down and put Charlie's hair dryer on he would settle and sleep. It was amazing. He had the odd blip, but generally it worked really well.

He was now starting to eat over 30 oz of milk a day.. and feeding about six to seven times a day. Normally he would have a dream feed - one when he was still just about asleep at about 11pm. In this feed we would try not to wake him at all, so he would only have his nappy changed if he needed it and probably wouldn't need burping... why because when they take a bottle when nearly asleep they don't take in hardly any air.... He would then wake again between 3am and 4am. This was pretty good.....

And so we are roughly where we are now... he's still on a true "Gina Ford" style routine, but a three-hour feed rota as the "baby whisper" recommends and it seems to be working pretty well and we now more relaxed as we get a good break in the evening to have our meal and watch a bit of telly.. what a treat!

He is still sleeping in his basket in out room and the next step is to move him to his own room in the next week.

and so a hairdryer is giving us some piece and quiet

2007-01-18T17:53:00.000Z

Yep.. you wouldn't believe it, but while this first-time dad was doing some surfing about colic and baby health I found somewhere that said try running a vacuum cleaner to soothe your baby, the low-level humm might help.

Sure enough we tried a hair dryer and yes it has worked pretty well and certainly seems to soothe Jack when he gets irritable in the evening...so far so good.

Of course, he still knows his moments to play up and when his godmother Tamsin came round the other night, he decided it was time to take no notice of the hair dryer and screamm his little head off... and hence dinner was a slightly truncated affair..

Baby colic .. and Jack's evening cry

2007-01-12T13:38:00.000Z

You can't quite see it, but Jack's sleep suit is embossed with the words I'm loud and I'm proud.... this has been very appropriate for him in the past few nights.
He is now nearly seven weeks old, but he seems to have a very grissly evening slot when he shouts the house down and nothing you do can shut him up. Is he colicky?? Eventually he goes to sleep. To be fair he has been sleeping longer through the night - it's just getting there that has been a bit of a struggle...
Any advice then please let us know ... I guess he could have a bit of colic, but that seems to be a fairly unscientific problem with no solution how to cure it.. I've found this article and this one. Hope they help ... for us we'll try anything to soothe home a little, although it does seem that my wife Charlie is far better at this than me.

Jack, Josh and Oliver

2007-01-09T18:18:00.001Z

Jack, Josh and Oliver
Originally uploaded by joel72.

I think this is the first New Year's Eve when I haven't got absolutely hammered and can actually remember everything.. how times change. Well with a little baby your options are somewhat restricted. So we went over to a friend's house for dinner. We had a great time with them and their little one's and managed to guzzle a couple of bottles of bubbly to celebrate in middle fo the crying!! So here's to a great 2007 and to Jack's new friends Josh and Oliver

Grandma, Jack and his bottle, Sam and Charlie

2007-01-07T19:26:00.001Z

Grandma, Jack and his bottle, Sam and Charlie
Originally uploaded by joel72.

First-time dads can get really snap happy and I hate to think how many photos we have taken of Jack now.. but they are all worth it. It's like keeping a big diary I guess. I think we have about 60 photos uploaded onto flickr, which is a great website where you can let your friends and family have access to your photos, once you have taken them. We only bought a digital camera about two weeks before Jack was born - definitely worth it if you haven't got one. Particularly as they are so handy and small now that taking them into hospital etc is no hassle and you wouldn'y want to miss the chance of taking those first pics of your little baby.
Anyway must go as ours - now six weeks old - is just waking up. Back to work tomorrow after two weeks off with my wife and son, which has been lovely. We've had a great time and Jack is really changing all the time... it's amazing how fast they do change and I'm lucky to have had the time off work to have witnessed it.

A baby's first month- a first-time dad's view

2006-12-29T21:06:00.000Z

As a first-time parents this is what we have experienced in our first month:

1) the first three weeks are really hard work.... don't let anyone lead to you believe anything else. For one you don't really know what are you doing and your baby will cry and there is no way you can work out what it is wrong with them. Sleepless nights are a given - we were up every couple of hours to start with and it was exhausting. I'm sure every baby is different, but our experience was that if you could feed them enough - then that really helps in getting them to sleep for a decent length of time that you can have a break. This might mean topping your baby up with a bottle to start with - expressed breast milk in a bottle was a massive help to us in getting Jack to have enough milk. So tip one is to buy an express milking machine to make sure that your baby gets enough breast milk in those first few weeks.

2) Infacol: we have found this really helpful in getting Jack to bring up wind. We have been using it from day one on recommendation from some friends and it seems to have worked really well in helping him burp.

3) A good tip for easy nappy changing that I read was to unfold the clean nappy under your baby so that you can remove the dirty nappy and the clean one is already in place. This helps to speed up the process, which is pretty important if your baby hates having their nappy changed as ours did. And remember if its a boy point his winky down and it'll save you lots of wet baby suits and cot sheets.

4) Try to get them to go to sleep in their cot - and not in your arms when you want them to go to sleep. This can be hard to start with - Jack always preffered sleeping in our arms than the cot. But you have to get them in the habit otherwise they won't sleep without being cuddled.

5) Buy a Baby Bjorn or a similar baby sling so you can you get your baby out in the fresh air. They are so easy to use and far quicker than getting the pram out all the time.

Taking the baby outside is great for his snuffle

2006-12-28T18:57:00.001Z

Papa, Charlie and Jack
Originally uploaded by joel72.

It's been great this Christmas for a first-time dad with an urge to take digital pictures... but we have got some great images all stored on Flickr, so everyone can see them.

We weighed Jack today and he is now over 9lbs - he is growing pretty fast and he seems more robust than before.

What's also been great over the Christmas break has been to have the time to take Jack out for some walks in the fresh air. He still gets a bit blocked up, particularly in the evening, so getting him outside for some fresh air really seems to help unblock him a bit. Here we are going for a walk with Charlie and Jack in the Baby Bjorn - these are brilliant and well worth buying - and Charlie's dad, Dennis.

We now wish we had travelled to Norfolk with the Baby Bjorn and not lugged the pram back as well - it's so easy to use and really great for the little one as they just seem to snuggle up to your chest and sleep.

Charlie and Jack with his new toys

2006-12-27T19:05:00.001Z

Charlie with Jack's new toys
Originally uploaded by joel72.

Jack got lots of new toys and baby suits and clothes on Xmas day.. we can't wait for him to grow into them all. He'll be more fashionable than his mum and dad when he does. It was a lovely day though and really made a first-time dad proud.

Jack Garner - on his first Christmas

2006-12-27T14:23:00.001Z

Jack Garner - on his first Christmas
Originally uploaded by joel72.

Jack's first Christmas was at his Granny and Pops at their home in Norfolk at Godwick. We had a lovely time and he was as good as gold all day. I love this picture of him in his lovely my first Christmas suit - how sweet...

baby Einstein ... Jack in his for first time

2006-12-21T13:25:00.001Z

baby Einstein ... Jack in his for first time
Originally uploaded by joel72.

There's always something to be concerned about as a first-time dad and if it's not Jack's nasty spots, it's his cold and stuffy nose, his fluctuating bowel movements. However, he has been recently weighed and is right on track having put on quite a fwe opnces to now weigh 8lb and 60z. This is good news and despite al our worries shows that he is doing really well and he looks happy in his baby Einstein... for the first time for him and the first-time dad. Not sure he looks convinced about the vibrating seat in this picture, but it is appropriately named as you need to be an Einstein to put it together.

Jack with his nasty spots

2006-12-20T21:54:00.001Z

Jack with his nasty spots
Originally uploaded by joel72.

One thing that we have been worrying ourselves about recently have been these little spots that have suddenly sprung up on Jack's little face. At first the worst fear was that he may have menigitis, but he hasn't had a fever and the spots go clear when pressed. But what are they - it seems from doing some research that they are called toxic erythema and are to do with the hormones in his mum's milk. They should go as soon as they came, so the health visitor said and are nothing to worry about. In fact every baby from our NCT class seems to have had them just in time for Christmas! But at least they are nothing to worry about and by looking at the responses to my question on yahoo they are pretty common.

The NCT class reunion

2006-12-15T18:47:00.001Z

The NCT class reunion
Originally uploaded by joel72.

We had a great time last week meeting up with the rest of the NCT class for our reunion. It was hosted by Katherine and Spencer in their lovely home in Wimbledon. It was great to catch up with everyone and find out how they are getting on and share experiences and concerns. Although the NCT classes themselves were good - they're not cheap at £200 - the most useful thing we have found is the networking and making friends with a new group of people who are experiencing something completely new for the first time too. So well worth doing for that alone - all the stuff we learnt I think went right out of the window when Jack was born, but I think it probably does help to prepare yourselves for what might happen and what to expect.

Jack's new admirer

2006-12-13T19:08:00.000Z

My sister and her daughter Ellen, who is just nine years old, visited us recently to see our new baby. It's amazing how kids are so obsessed by babies and probably girls more than boys. My niece Ellen was really taken by Jack and it was so sweet to see her with him and wanting to hold him etc... it was soo sweet and a really touching moment.

Bottle feeding our newborn baby Jack

2006-12-08T16:44:00.000Z

There was cause for celebration in the Garner household the other day when the health visitor weighed Jack and he has been putting on some weight. Born at 6lb 12oz, Jack now weighs 7lb 8 oz. A good weight gain. He is being fed on breast and expressed milk via a bottle as well and occasional top-ups on formula. So all bases covered really. From what little we have learnt so far feeding is the key to him being happy and also keeping him quiet and content for longer periods of time. At the moment he is feeding every two to three hours, with the aim to get him to feed every three hours and sleep for an hour between feeds. It's hard work though as he doesn't always want to follow our plans. In the past few days he has wanted to feed almost constantly, so we hope that's him going through a growth spurt. Anyway we are healthily obsessed - I hope- by him putting on weight at the moment and I guess many first-time parents would feel the same.

At last a decent night's sleep

2006-12-07T12:22:00.000Z

Just when we were getting at the end of our emotional tether last night, our little baby Jack actually had a reasonable night's sleep last night allowing his very tired parents to recover a little.

One thing that has been playing on our mind has been his belly button - while the navel cord clip has thankfully dropped off causing great celebration in the Garner household three days ago - where it has fallen off looks a little bit sore and is slightly pussy. The midwife told us over the phone that this was ok and that we should just keep it clean by washing it once a day with water that has been boiled. Anyway we still not happy with it, so hopefully the health visitor will be able to explain more, but as we haven't seen or heard anything from them yet, I will not be holding my breath on that one.

So hopefully I'll get a few tips about his belly button problem and post them here. At least the horrible navel clip has fallen off as this was causing Jack some discomfort with his nappies that had to be folded down so far so that they didn't rub on the clip. This also seemed to make them more prone to leak.

It's my first day back at work today. I felt a mixture of sadness leaving home today, but also strangely excited about a return to some sort of normailty.

Jack and his first walk.. well push

2006-12-05T19:10:00.000Z

Another day and another sleepless night for the first-time dad .. Jack is defintely getting a bit better at sleeping, but we are still getting up every two to three hours a night. It's hard work and sometimes I wonder how many first-time parents have been driven to absolute despair trying to get their little one to settle. I'm about to go back to work after two weeks paterniity leave, which I think is probably about long enough. My wife probably doesn't agree, but she seems to be much more ready to cope all day without me being here now and I think I'll go stir crazy if I don't get back to work and activate my brain again. However, I'll probably miss Jack like crazy, in fact I know I will, but I don't think I could do the house huisband bit, in fact I wouldn't be very good at it either.

Before I go back to work we have been trying to get out and about with Jack as much as possible, so Charlie feels ready to go out by herself when I'm not around. This is a great idea, because it gives her confidence to do this alone and is great to get some fresh air, plus when you time it right, he seems to sleep like the proverbial baby. It's also worth it to discover the little hiccups you might face - for instance, we couldn't unfold our Quinnie pram and had to go online and download the instructions before we could figure it out. It couldn't have been simpler either - so sleep deprivation must fuddle the brain, although most would say I'm not the most practical in any case.

Here is the link to some responses to a question we posed on Yahoo answers - great responses to this little problem, which again was pretty obvious if only we had thought about it. Beware though if you have a little boy, not only do you have point the little winkle down, but watch out for him spraying you when you take off his nappy and a bit of cold air hits his little fella.

Week one and we're exhausted

2006-12-03T20:23:00.000Z

I've been a first-time dad for 10 days now and Jack has been home for eight days. Both me and Charlotte (my wife) are absolutely exhausted, but just when you think it couldn't get any more tiring something good happens that gives you a lift. Jack had his best night sleep yet last night after we worked out some things we were doing that he clearly didn't like.

First - we were turning our light off in the bedroom during the night, but we think Jack doesn't like this. So we bought a little 15w bulb to go in one of our bedroom lights and left this on all night - if he needed changing there was no need for us to turn a light on and wake up Jack and ourselves. We had two wake ups last night, but they were fairly brief feeding and changing with Jack hardly waking each time.

Second - we were having problems with Jack's nappies leaking everytime he pees and waking him. We have tried various types of nappies - Pampas and Huggies and vaious sizes but no luck. What we weren't doin was pointing his winky down and so the wee wee was leaking out of the top and waking him all the time. See these responses on yahoo answers.

Third - we put him to bed properly, washed him, fed him, changed him and then burped him and that seemed to help him get off to sleep in a really calm way.

DJ jack having his hearing test

2006-11-30T18:15:00.001Z

DJ jack having his hearing test
Originally uploaded by joel72.

All parents hope when their baby is born that they'll be no problems... but you don't expect all sorts of things and it can all come as quite a shock in the hospital when they run tests on oyur new born. When Jack was born he had what they call wet ears and couldn't hear anything, so they had to test his hearing a second time with this wonderful contraption to check whether he had any hearing difficulties - here he is with the equipment on in hospital. Fortunately his hearing is fine.. he looks like he is listening to some cool tunes here!

I've also been worried about whether you should feed a newborn baby again once it has been sick or spits up its milk after a feed. Jack has been doing this during his feeds at night, so I asked a question on yahoo to find some answers? I'll let you know responses tomorrow.

Being a first-time dad

2006-11-29T22:42:00.000Z

Watching the birth of your first child is the most amazing thing in the world. Everyone had told me this beforehand, but it's hard to put into words what it is ACTUALLY like. I don't thnk I can do it justice just to say that it makes you feel ten foot tall and so happy. If you could bottle and sell the feeling it would be gold dust as its unbelievable.

After a lengthy labour - 16 hours - my wife Charlotte gave birth to our beautiful little son Jack. Since then we have been learning endlessly. You can't prepare yourself for it enough.

In just a few days there are so many questions we are still looking fo answers too... like should you feed your baby again if they are sick after a feed? We're not sure but I hope to find the answer and then post it here along with other questions and queries that we stumble upon as our little boy grows up...

So far it has been amazing. Don't underestimate the number of nappies you change or the amount of time spent feeding your baby. The thing we have learnt so far is that feeding is the key - if Jacks feeds well then he seems to stay a happy baby that sleeps well, but everyday there seems to be a new challenge.

What's this first-time dad blog all about

2006-11-29T00:32:00.000Z

This blog is all about being a first-time dad and the new experiences that you feel every day once your first baby has arrived .. my aim is to post regularly along with pictures to record the different feelings of being a daddy for the first time. It's mainly for my benefit but it may be interesting for others ... I hope so. Now's time to meet the star of the show, my son baby Jack William Garner, born at 2.05am on 24 November 2006.