Hi, having been the stay at home parent now for some weeks I have made several observations about now having a baby which I had never thought about. We all know the big changes which occur for example your sleep time is now dictated by a little person, your eating habits go out the window and your social life, well it just ends (temporarily).
But as I brought my little one to see her grandparents over the weekend I realised that even small chores are a lot more complicated. My mum phoned and asked me to bring her in some milk, no problem I thought I will go to the shop at the end of her street and get it. But wait I now have a baby, do I carry her in (shes 7 months now and not easy to carry for a long period)? Do I carry her in her car seat? In the end I dropped her at her grandparents and went to the shop hence giving me a break and them some quality time.
I then reflected back on other experiences over the past while, for example whilst out buying a shirt for a Christmas party I picked the one I liked quite quickly ( I am male and packed shops in early December don’t appeal to me), got the size and thought lets quickly try it on and off we go. But wait what about the pram and baby?? Too embarrassed to ask and not wanting to look foolish I just bought the size I thought was right and thankfully it fitted. (Here she is thinking, “you actually paid money for that shirt?!?”)
Another example is the petrol station, do you bring her into the shop to pay when finished refueling, I have seen people leaving babies in cars and paying, didn’t appeal to me. Now I ensure I go to the stations which have a pay at pump facility.
One thing which has helped though is home shopping. We just order on the computer and go to the store and load the car up without worrying about what to do with the baby in the backseat. That was up until last week when they didn`t have some of the items I needed that day. What to do? Well I had no pram with me as I needed the boot space for the groceries, the little one was sleeping soundly and I needed a few things. Rather than try to put her into one of those uncomfortable looking baby trolleys and risk waking her I decided to lift the car seat and put her in a trolley and away we went. I did get some strange looks but she slept straight through so crisis averted.
I know there must be many other small daily occurrences waiting to happen in the coming weeks, some of you must have had the similar experiences so please feel free to share them and give me a bit of pre warning…….
Thanks for reading
P
I am the FUNKYDADDY! 
There are many things I realized I took for granted pre-children and shopping is one of them. I also only go to pay-at-the-pump gas stations, because it’s too much of a bother to get the toddler and baby out of the car to pay (especially during the colder months) and there’s just no way I’m going to leave them in the car alone, even if it is only for a minute. I’m also a big fan of just sticking the baby seat in the grocery/shopping cart (though I’m resorting more and more to online shopping). In the warmer months, I typically wear my non-walkers. I can easily pop a little one in and out of a ring sling or stretchy wrap when I have many stops to take care of.
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Going to the toilet… Who knew such a simple and necessary act would require quite so much planning and forethought?
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Very true indeed, especially when you go to the baby changing facilities and there is no toilet, what do you do then!!
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Well, you have nappies…
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My solution to some of those issues is to get a sling. Some dads don’t like them and they’re not for everyone but I find it comfortable and Elsa can see more than in the pram.
You need to buy a decent one and read up first, some are harmful because of the way the baby hangs.
If you google there is probably a sling library near you where you can try a few for a week or so to see if you and baby get on with them.
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I also only do pay at the pump, do as much shopping online as possible, and leave her in the car seat placed in the stroller to shop. I agree with another poster that a sling/ baby carrier is helpful you can have your hands free and baby can look around. This helps when shopping and she wakes up unhappy in her car seat I just transfer her to the carrier.
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