Soaring Worldwide business development manager Stewart Dyer welcomed his first child Izzy into the world almost six months ago and here he shares his experiences as a new father.
Being a new parent is as tiring as everyone says it will be but it’s awesome all the same.
When you have a baby, your whole dynamic changes. You suddenly have this little thing that effectively does nothing but you can’t help but worship the ground she walks on despite the fact she can’t walk yet! Without a doubt I am tired a lot of the time but when they get to the age where they start grinning and smiling at you then it makes it all worthwhile.
One of the big things has been lack of sleep but you get used to unbroken sleep pretty quickly. The first couple of weeks are pretty horrendous especially coming back to work but you do get used to it. All that pales into insignificance because when she was born nothing else mattered. It is amazing how selfless you become because your lives are suddenly all about her and as long as she is happy then that is all that counts.
If I’m being honest then you can’t really prepare for how tough it is going to be. People do warn you but unless you have trained your body to not have sleep for six months then you won’t know what it is like! It is as hard as people say but that should not put anyone off starting their own family! You also enjoy being a parent more than you would ever think. You don’t realise how much you’ll love being a father until you have your own child.
The good thing about Izzy is that she is happy all the time so we have been quite lucky. You do hear horror stories of babies crying all the time but she has been brilliant. Sometimes she doesn’t sleep very long but she is happy all the time. She wakes up laughing and screaming with joy. Even though you don’t want to be woken up at 5am in the morning, you can’t help but lay there smiling because she is so happy. She’ll often chat to her teddies but when she is bored with them she will shout to myself and Lea until we take her in bed so she can chatter away to us.
Being a parent is massively motivating. On the one hand you are so tired and you would think it would make you less able to perform and do the events, late nights etc. But actually you do all of that because you want to do as well as you can because you’re not just providing for yourself and your wife anymore. What you earn is no longer pocket money to go and spend because it becomes more about providing for your baby and there is no greater motivation in my opinion.
If I had a tip for anybody about to become a parent then it would be to get ready and mentally prepared! To be honest, the best thing you can do is to ensure you both know it is going to be tiring because you will undoubtedly have tough moments. It’s important to support each other though because the actual experience of being a parent and having a child is awesome.
Supporting each other is key because looking after your baby is the easy part – it is an amazing and life changing thing.