I love my DP's optimism

[PregnantOnPurpose]

Just asked him, while lying in bed talking about our first scan today.

Me: "Do you think you'll need help from the nurses, to be shown how to change a nappy when they are first born?"

Him: "No, I know how to change a nappy PregnantOnPurpose, I'm not stupid"

Me: "Oh why, have you changed a nappy before?"

Him: "No but its easy"

I admire his optimism, but I dont think it's as easy as he thinks..
The logarics of changing the nappy itself yeah sure, can probably figure it out.

But has he ever tried to wipe a wriggling babies bottom? After a particularly messy poo?

Is it THAT easy?!

I've changed hundreds of nappies for the children in my family, but now were having our own and I'll be changing at least every 1 in 2 nappies!

Feel free to share your random pregnancy or baby related thoughts, no matter how weird or wonderful:)

Newborns are easy, it's when they become mobile it can become challenging

It really is that easy, they’re rather self explanatory once you have a crack lol both my husband and I opted out of any classes when I was pregnant with our first and we did just fine.

I found the newborn stage incredibly easy and self explanatory, didn't need any help even with a super preemie baby in hospital. I think he will be absolutely fine.

Regardless of whether it's easy or hard you just have to do it! Our baby was a complete wriggle bum from before he was born so we've always had a challenge on our hands and neither of us had changed a nappy before he came along. The newborn stage is ok as the poo is quite contained, we found it got worse around week 8 when they become more explosive and you end up with a poo covered baby within minutes.

He’s got the right idea. You should build on that optimism and expect full participation from him right from the beginning rather than infantilising him or starting from the premise that it’ll be sooo hard for him to do things that millions and millions of people do every day. You learned perfectly well how to do it, so he can too.

(Only a bit of friendly advice since most of the world and the vast majority of his and your social conditioning will be working against the concept of a 50/50 parenting partnership)

to the both of you and congratulations on your baby to come!

My oh is worried about wriggling. He had arthritis in his hands so more of a concern. Mind, he can handle a wriggling cat so...errm.

I'm worried about slippery babies and bathtime.

Oh and my favourite thing to tell new parents is something I learnt too late as mine were into secondary school by the time I leant this little tip:

Baby vests have those envelope necks so that you can easily take them off baby down over their shoulders and body so that you don’t have to manoeuvre a pooey vest over baby’s head!

Put Vaseline on the baby’s bottom when you put the first few nappies on. A decent layer. The first black poo is really sticky and hard to get off. The Vaseline creates a barrier layer making it very easy to remove. We just tried this tip with our second who was born last week and it made a huge difference.

It is easy. The nappies are fairly self-explanatory. There’s nothing particularly difficult about raising a baby (if there were the human population wouldn’t have grown so much) but it can be a bit hard wearing at the beginning as you get used to it’s routine.

Honestly, he's right, it is easy and common sense (assuming using disposable).

I didnt think about slippery babies and baths! What if I drop them?! 😱

Towel laid at bottom of baby bath means your baby won’t slip. Rest baby’s bottom on towel and support his or her back and neck with your secondary arm while you use your primary hand to wash baby.

You can get a baby bath with a special baby support for £5-20 now depending on the shop. No need faff around with towels

Oh yes that’s true, I have seen those. I had mine quite a few years ago now so I’m not exactly up to date with baby equipment!

Will the nurses show you how to change a nappy??

Yes it is quite simple although gets stressful when the baby wees or poos on you as soon as you take the nappy off in the middle of the night and you have poo all over your pyjamas and are too tired not to want to cry ... but no, I wouldn’t have expected a nurse to show me how to put a nappy on.

No one in hospital showed me how to change a nappy, they went through it in my NCT class.

I knew how to anyway as I work with children but that’s not the point.

When our ds was born the midwives asked dh if he would like to dress him for the first time. Dh later admitted to me that he was really quite scared, despite having worked in care and dressed adults on a daily basis. We were both once defeated by a baby grow in the middle of the night, neither of us could figure out how the poppers went, so we gave up and found a new one. It never occurred to me that dressing a baby might be tricky, lol.

DH still frequently forgets to pull the nappy ‘frills’ out and often puts baby vests on backwards. We have 2 children and have been parents for nearly 4 years.

Without sounding mean, looking after your own child is quite different to looking after somebody else's and will be a learn as you go process for you both.

I know a lot of people that have started joking about dads not being able to do things, and I think it can make them anxious when it doesn't need to. We wouldn't like it if people did that about us.

Let him remain optimistic, much better to do that and learn on the job than be worried about not being good enough.

In hindsight it's quite easy but at the time when we had just had our 1st child up the hospital we both didn't have a clue! the midwife had to come and show us how to change nappy and wipe our daughter lol and dressing her took ages as we were overly careful with arms,legs etc can definitely tell the experienced parents from the 1st timers,but we learnt as we went....now pregnant with our 4th and dab hand at it all now lol

Soooo.. do you think the classes were worth going to? I've seen such decided opinions on the classes.

I'm still miles and miles off going to any yet but I'm just trying to be prepared

I enjoyed my NCT classes but they vary massively from area to area and the quality of the person who runs them.

I enjoyed knowing the other Mums and we met before and after our babies were born for a long time. My NHS antenatal classes were useful as they were run by the midwives so we got to have a tour, we were given all the info about the hospital, local taxi companies, when they expected you to come in etc. However my group was huge so it wasn’t very personal.

Both showed us how to change nappies, talked about breastfeeding and bathing a baby etc.