Tips for toddlers and new parents

Prior to being a dad I had heard all the clichés, they grow up quickly and time flies by.   Never being one to adhere to what people say, I knew that my time as a dad would be different.  However, 11 months in, all of those overused clichés are true, so very true. 

We did prep ourselves, just in case they turned out to be correct and that preparation wasn’t enough.  If you’re a new parent, you’ve purchased the books and talked to friends here are four tips to reinforce what you’ve been told.

Photos and video

Take lots of photos and video, especially when they’re infants-then take more photos and video.  I look back at Baby Mojo when he was an infant and I want more photos.  We didn’t take many videos when he was an infant and we’re making up for that fact now. 

It’s tempting not to take photos of them when they’re infants because they really can’t do anything.  In hindsight, that is exactly why you should take photos of them when they’re that young.  We took some photos during that stage and they’re good, but I wish we had taken more.

Get to know your babysitters

It is never too early to get to know the babysitters in your neighborhood.  For us, teenage girls aged 13-15 were the best and most willing to babysit.  Sometimes our babysitter stable has been  empty and other times we’ve had four of them call us back within an hour.

The babysitter is important because you need to get out of the house, i.e., date night, at least once a month.  It really helps the spouse and you keep the relationship sane, as well as, having a bit of fun.

Energy

Being a stay at home parent is exhausting.  I’m in good physical shape, but I found myself in need of a nap around 2:00 every afternoon.  Pick any reason why taking care of a child is so tiring, but it is a physical beat down.  For the first four months I needed a dark, quiet room at the end of every day.

However, it was then that I realized that I had stopped exercising.  I used to love to ride my bike, lift weights or play tennis, but since the birth of our son I hadn’t done any of that.  Granted I was still getting exercise, but it was only walking him around our neighborhood in the stroller or buggy.

Since then I’ve started getting more strenuous exercise and I feel so much better and have much more energy.  Sometimes that exercise has to come when the baby is napping, early in the morning or late at night, but it happens.  Granted I’m still tired at the end of the day, but not as much as I was when he was an infant.

The time

I’ll be a stay at home dad and start my own company with a handful of clients who need PR services.  That was the original plan.  However, not too far down the road we realized that the idea for a stay at home parent to earn approximately the same income as the working spouse was almost impossible.  We’ve got friends who have a nanny or put their child into daycare for a day or two, but that wasn’t an option for us economically.  So we budgeted, cut out the movie rentals, have salad night once or twice a week, pack lunch for her, looked at where we buy groceries and stopped buying $5 coffees.   

From the time they wake up to when they go to bed you don’t have time to engage in a professional or business type atmosphere.  I still have the occasional teleconference, but they happen during his morning or afternoon nap.  When he goes down for the day I’ll spend two to four hours on some work for a client, but then I need to relax a bit, exercise or simply chat with my wife. 

I knew that our time, energy and memories would be something that my wife and I would need to juggle in order to fully be effective parents.  Getting to know your child’s babysitters well in advance is something we’ve learned in the first 11 months.