Opinion: Parenting columnist and new dad Alex Jee describes adapting to life with a newborn baby

In his first parenting column for KentOnline, new dad Alex Jee describes getting to grips with his all-consuming sleep deprivation, nappy-changing politics – and how there’s nothing better than a reheated cup of tea…

There’s a special kind of tiredness that only a select number of people will understand.

It’s one where no matter how old you are, you suddenly find that your legs weigh seven tonnes, your hands only complete certain tasks and your back seems to have taken on the form and mobility of a loose bag of pebbles.

Time ceases to be anything other than a human construct. You have breakfast at lunchtime, and a midnight snack at 3pm.

You’ll find drinks that you made hours ago lying on the side and you won’t care, as for some reason, you’ve adopted a waste-not-want-not attitude of a severity last seen in the Second World War.

As I’m writing this column I’m drinking a microwave-heated tea that I believe to be about five hours old. Sue me, it’s delicious.

And yet at the same time, you have the reflexes of a cat and can cross the span of a room before your mind catches up with you. Even in the dead of night you can change a nappy before you can say, well, ’dirty nappy’.

When it comes to it, your body will do everything it can to keep someone else safe, because they depend on you.

You’re a new parent. And I bet you’re doing a lot better than you think.

Now, being a dad, one is told on a not-quite-infrequent-enough basis to suck it up and keep buggering on, no matter how tired you are. After all, your wife, girlfriend or partner was the one who carried the baby for nine months. And hey, I’m not going to argue with that - my wife’s pregnancy was pure hell (but more on that another time).

“Apparently being faced with a full nappy is NOT a good enough reason to tap out, especially if it’s first thing in the morning...”

I also have the added benefit of a newly-acquired dad power of being able to fall asleep whenever and wherever – although I’m not necessarily aware of this, and an unrelated apology to the concerned dog walker who saw me napping in my (parked) car and assumed the worst. A supermarket car park is the perfect place for a sneaky nap, if you ask me.

The fact of the matter remains - exhaustion in the first weeks, months and (I don’t doubt) years of being a parent is almost certainly the hardest part about this new role.

So what can we do about it?

Well, if you’re blessed enough to have a decent support network behind you, then do lean on them. That can be family, it can be friends (and a shout out here to that special breed of friend who come armed with food ready to be frozen and an insistence to do housework, you heaven-sent angels) or – and perhaps this is most important of all – it can be your partner.

My wife and I have adopted an approach called ‘tapping out’, where no matter when or where we are, if the crying gets to be too much or we simply just need a break, then the other will step in and take over.

Here’s a helpful tip I’ve learned though – apparently being faced with a full nappy is NOT a good enough reason to tap out, especially if it’s first thing in the morning. Your partner WILL notice, and you’re liable to have the nappy hurled at you. Sorry dear.

As always, some things will work for you and some will not. But for everyone, keep the faith. We’re all on our way.