I'm a new dad of a wonderful 7 month old girl, but I'm finding some aspects of parenting kinda difficult. My daughter is crawling about at light speed (especially when I'm changing her nappy), she's waking up frequently in the night and has some sort of altitude sensor that wakes her up as soon as I try to put her down. This, to not put to fine a point on it, can drive me up the flamin' wall. About 80% of the time I just get on with it and everything's fine, but occasionally it just really gets to me and I lose it. I'm grinding my teeth to a pulp, my knuckles are permenantly white and I'm scared that one day I will take it out on this little bundle of energy that doesn't know what she's doing to her daddy.
My wife, who seems to know absolutely everything about parenting and kids and has a Zen-like aura around her at all times, just asks me "why I let her get to me"? Which isn't terribly helpful and just makes me feel guilty for being a "bad parent." Add to that the anxiety that I might one day hurt my daughter and you have a recipe for an early death for Dad.
I know that babies just want to play and explore and can't be rationalised with, but the feeling of lack of control is hugely frustrating and I get really wound up sometimes. Please tell me that all new dads go through this phase and eventually just learn to control their temper!
hi famousdog
dude when my first was born 5 years ago ( i have 2 boys) i thought it would be kinda easy ! its been the most traumatic time ever. I have to say that i was the most placid kind of guy untill fatherhood. There have been times when i have had to walk out of a situation and take the stress out on something ( for example i started this reply 20 mins ago but have been up the stairs 8 times to 1 child!) errrrrrrrr
i was going to say things get easier ! lol but they kind of do and you learn to deal woth the stress which wont last for ever!
When both the boys were babies and woke up at nght it used to drive me nuts what my wife could sit down with them but if i tried to they would scream the house down, i have spent many many hours in the middle of the night wandering around with a sleeping child in my arms coz if i sat down heaven help us.
You could try taking the kid for a drive. they fall asleep really easily and then stay asleep whern you get back and you can put them back in the cot. worked like a treat with my mate and his 5 kids !!!!!
Hiya mate,
First off well done for saying this publicly (even if none of us know you personally). I think it's a bit of a taboo subject, but I believe at time all of us feel real anger towards our kids. At this age I think it comes down to two things:
1) Not being able to properly communicate with them, and hence can't reason with them (but then I doubt you can ever reason with your kids π )
2) Desperately wanting them to always be happy
My son is seven months old today, so exactly the same age as your daughter. Normally I am fine with him, sometimes I take him off my partner's hands when she's finding him too much. Sometimes when he has a crying fit I actually find myself laughing at him and how silly he looks.
However... sometimes it goes right through me and winds me up within seconds. The worst one that he does recently is a high pitched squeal that makes him sound like a banshee. Yesterday I got up early with him to give his mum a lie in and it was a disaster. I got downstairs and realised that in our Easter Sunday laziness we hadn't washed any of his bowls so started washing them up. Of course, he was hungry and started screaming for food. The more he screamed the more wound up he got and was inconsolable. I couldn't pick him up as that would have delayed me getting him breakfast (and so he probably would have carried on) but the more I rushed the more mistakes I made, culminating in completely screwing up the simple mixing of the breakfast foodstuff and water leaving an inedible stodgy mess... so off course he screamed more. My wife came downstairs when she heard me yell "alright, I'm doing my best!"
Of course, if he was older I might have been able to explain that I needed to quickly wash some of his things up and given him something to take his mind of it (or asked for help). But at that age such communication doesn't work and he wants/expects/demands/needs food there and then. And of course, it rips me apart to see him unhappy.
Now... if I had taken a deep breath... I may have slowed down a little. I might have even realised the rational solution of just making his breakfast in a normal china bowl (if I'm not going to let him grab the bowl why do I need to make it in a plastic one?). But because I let the situation get the better of me I lost it.
But hey, I'm human and at least I'll do it differently last time. That's the only thing I can think of - take a deep breath, maybe leave the room for a minute to refocus (and realise they look a bit funny going red in the face) and go back in... them crying for a few minutes, whilst not ideal, won't emotionally scar them for life or make you a bad parent. It's not an ideal solution, but it's all I can suggest. You are NOT a bad parent IMO (and talking about it and asking for help proves that you aren't 100%)
As for your wife, I'm sure she's got wound up at times, you just probably weren't there to see it. My wife does! And I can't help with the altitude sensor, my son has that too and we haven't found a way around it yet! I'll let you know as soon as we do π
You could try taking the kid for a drive. they fall asleep really easily and then stay asleep whern you get back and you can put them back in the cot. worked like a treat with my mate and his 5 kids !!!!!
That's my get out clause - several times I've thought "I'm visiting my parents" as I know that by the time we get there he'll be asleep and I'll also have a couple of extra 'reinforcements' who are more than happy to give him some attention. Once or twice me and my son have also gone a long long drive into the countryside until he's been asleep for a good 45 minutes! π
Thanks Freerunner and Chutzpah! Just to hear other Dads express the same kind of frustrations makes me feel a lot better. I was surprised when I searched the forum and nobody seemed to have brought this up (at least recently). It seems such an important thing to deal with, especially for men, who I think we'll all agree (he says, generalising wildly) are the less patient gender.
Thanks for the suggestions. My daughter is going through a back-arching phase which means we can no longer cradle and bounce her back to sleep (our usual tactic) and we haven't got a car yet, having just moved back the UK! But I'm sure we'll cope. I just have to take a deep breath and keep telling myself that 90% of the time she's actually a very well-behaved little girl. π
keep up the positive perspective dude, as you say its just a phase that she'll grow out of.
Frustration is my new middle name i have come to realise, I don't think anything prepared me for the back seat i now have in my own life! Everyone else in the house def comes first and i come last , but to be honest i think thats how it should be. This might sounds sexist but i'm the guy and i should be more sacrificial i think. My wife and i understand now that as long as i do get some me time at some point i can pretty much do life with out any major explosions on my part and i keep reminding myself that i would rather be frustrated over petty things that will one day seem insignificant compared to having had a fantastice family over the long haul.
Hope today is a fun one dude. π