For this special Thanksgiving episode, the original hosts of This is Only a Test get back together to welcome Norm as a new dad! We talk about babies, birth stories, and binging Red Dead Redemption 2. Happy Thanksgiving!
One Day Builds
Adam embarks on one of his most ambitious builds yet: fulfil…
Show And Tell
Adam recently completed a build of the royal St. Edwards cro…
Making
Viewers often ask to see Adam working in real-time, so this …
One Day Builds
Adam and Norm assemble a beautifully machined replica prop k…
One Day Builds
One of the ways Adam has been getting through lockdown has b…
Making
Adam unboxes and performs a quick test of this novel new hel…
Making
When Adam visited Weta Workshop early last year, he stopped …
One Day Builds
Adam tackles a shop shelf build that he's been putting off f…
Show And Tell
Time for a model kit build! This steampunk-inspired mechanic…
One Day Builds
Adam reveals his surprise Christmas present for his wife--a …
Don’t get me wrong, I love the regular crew, but the classic lineup is something special. Brings me right back to 2012.
Happy Thanksgiving fellas, from a foreigner who doesn’t really celebrate this, but who just got back from watching the Macy’s Parade in person on his first trip to NY.
#bringbackabunchofdads
Apparently the series that Will is trying to recall is Earth Star Voyager.
What I want from Disney Plus is the Gummi Bears and the Honey I Shrunk The Kids TV series.
My first just turned 7 a few weeks ago and some of these stories resonated deeply. If you tear up on the drive to work at 630am and no-one is around did it really happen?
I remember when Ashton was born sitting up in the hospital for days waiting for the induction to take. I can whole confidently state that the prepared birth plan went out the window in the first few hours…
Early in the morning the trace they were running indicated lowering heart rate, possibly due to the cord position so they jumped in to action and got the paper work all sorted as we were prepping for c section if things turned. They prepped the epidural and then things got interesting. I had been sleeping in the rooms spa bath at the time and was awoken by the nurses talking to my wife.
A nurse woke me an said very matter of factually that things were about to get busy so stay calm and do as instructed. She hit the button behind the bed and immediately 12 people came in. The action was well rehearsed.
The first person through the door came straight up to me, put his hand on my chest and walked me backwards into the corner of the room away from the action. He handed me blue scrubs and a red hat and said ‘put these on and follow the crew out of the room into the theatre, do not touch anything. With this red hat on no-one will ask you to assist and no-one will hand you anything. If things get tense I will be standing next to you and give you further instructions. Go’.
As expected things escalated quickly and in what felt like no time at all we were in a theatre surrounded by the surgeons and staff. The midwife said ‘We have agreed to give you the opportunity to try pushing three times. If that is unsuccessful we will move on to the next phase’. They coached my wife through it and remarkably on the third push Ash was born.
They did the cleanup and baby checking quickly and then put the little guy on my wife’s chest where he remained basically until we went home a few days later (pretty standard here).
The second one, we were in and out in 6 hours…..
I had a great joke in the prenatal class that failed miserably that to this day i still think is worth saying 😉
Best of luck Norman. The only advice I offer new or expecting parents is you know more than you think you do and you are more capable than you think you are. You’ll be fine.
Hope you don’t miss sleep…
BH
Annihilation isn’t on Netflix in the US. At least at my subscription level. Anyone know when I’ll be able to watch it?
Really happy for Norm! 2 weeks in and so much more to come.
Congrats Norm!! Wrong song!!!
It’s probably too late now, but is it worth saving the cord blood/cells for the kid’s future?
Will, the show you mentioned with the 1 adult and a bunch of genius kids on an ark type space ship is Earth Star Voyager. It may have been just Voyager when it was originally aired.
There is definitely something special about this lineup… No offense to Jeremy and Kishore. They’re great too but my nostalgia for this is strong.
I have a question that nothing I’ve read seams to cover, and any parent I ask doesn’t remember. So I do wonder if I don’t need to worry, but no one has told me.
My question is, how to you manage the first 6 months?
When the baby is too young to move its head, and every product talks about SIDS, my partner and I are just stressing about how hard is this to manage.
Were expecting around May next year, and I can’t thank bunch of dads and tested enough for the very laid back and logical view on kids and baby’s.
Hi Kerber,
I think your
questions has gone unanswered primarily because it may vary so much between
families, children, parents, etc and may all have been forgotten actually
unless absolutely fresh 🙂 Most of the coping information is anecdotal anyway,
so use it to build your knowledge base but expect that some or all of it may
not apply to your situation. I’m not going to preach at you, but I would like
to offer you my experience, your mileage may vary.
I had a really good
post for you but the page wont let me post it for some reason and i’m having to
type it all again….
I don’t think you
have anything to worry about and the only way to understand this is to research
fill your head with as much information as possible. When things happen you’ll
be all over it and don’t have to stress not knowing.
I’ve only really
got the same two bits of wisdom that I offer expecting parents and that is:
and
Understand that you
don’t know tired like you will soon. You could be a party animal and spend the
weekends raving and go to work Monday morning and just own it (like i did), but
you have no idea what days and weeks on end with sleep deprivation feels like
until you have kids. Know one prepares you for this, no-one prepares you for
how you feel towards your partner or your new child. you will experience all of
the emotions and have some of the most uncomfortable thoughts. It will get better,
it will pass, this will be the best experience of your life. You will very soon
get to meet someone who loves you unconditionally.
The most important thing to do is support your partner and go above and beyond. This may be your usual M.O. but you will have to step it up. Its a hard task having a baby for your partner, mentally and physically. You wont understand the rationale behind some things that happen but stick with it. You will be tired, you will get up set, you will argue with her, you will cry, you will miss appointments, you will be late to everything, and as with all trauma, you will forget all this in 6 months time. You’ll be fine mate.
Build your support network. Friends, family, other mothers and fathers in your area, join a mums or dads group. Share your joy but most importantly talk about your struggles. I cant stress this enough, talk to your partner, your friends, your family and share and ask everything you can, the good and the bad.
Do prenatal classes (that’s what they are called here) and learn what you can. The more information you have in your head the more you can draw from when things go wrong, not that they will, they will be super rare. Don’t be shy, ask the questions, remember when you’re feeling shy, know that I’ve made an epic fool out of myself at one of these in front of about 20 people and you’ll do better than that. That’s a story for when i’m invited onto the ‘bunch of dads’ podcast perhaps (hint hint)…..
Humans have been having children for our entire existence, 10’s of thoughts of years at least and you aren’t the first and you wont be the last human to have a child. As a Salmon knows to swim up stream to spawn, you have this child raising in your DNA. In the last 150 years we’ve had decent medical science and in the last 20 we’ve been able to share our thoughts and findings instantly on a global scale. You are not alone. Raising a child is deeply ingrained in your psyche, and you will get through this and the reward is the most awesome little human you can imagine telling you how much they love you and where’s mummy…. I’ve got two (5 and 7) and they are the funniest, kindest, most empathetic, beautiful children you could imagine. Ask any of your friends with children and you will hear the same thing. That’s for a very good reason.
Once you’re new born has past the first vaccination date, get them out in the world. Your routine is important but expose to noise, people, life. We acclimated our kids super early and they sleep through anything, we can do long car rides and we can go out with friends to dinner any time and they are well behaved and very social. We got our sleep, and therefore life, back early on because of this. nothing phases our kids now and my youngest is Miss Independent. She was walking at 8 months and toilet trained by 9 months: Top Tip, you cant buy underwear for kids that little, it was pain in the ass, but she wasn’t going back to the nappies… Don’t put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door. Get friends and family over (as long as they are vaccinated against hooping cough) and get on with life. You will enjoy it much more.
Be mindful that a baby’s neck is fragile and they have cartoon large heads but you don’t need military precision to manage this. They wont build the muscle strength in their neck if you baby them too much anyway so you have to be careful but not extreme. Young kids will try to roll over and look around and learn to crawl as soon as they are ready and able. Remember that no matter how tired you are, you wont drop a child. I’ve don’t some pretty stupid things when tired and all I can say is without any practice i’m a level 10 child juggler, all natural, and kids are flexible, lightweight, and heal pretty quickly.
I’m not sure where you live but here in Australia, SIDS or SUDI was a massive thing in the 80’s and have dropped rapidly (by more than 84%) since then. I cant honestly recall the last time i heard about a SIDS incident in the media. I believe it turns out that there were some common causes of this phenomenon and through research and education we may have pretty much eradicated it. There are edge cases of course, but don’t think too much about what you cannot control (pretty much life really). What you can control though is:
Don’t put your baby on a water bed or bean bag.
Don’t use soft bedding like quilts, doonas, duvets or pillows.
Use a firm, well-fitting mattress.
Don’t use cot bumpers.
Keep soft toys out of the cot.
Position your baby’s feet at the bottom of the cot.
Tuck in the bedclothes securely or use a safe baby sleeping bag (which has fitted neck and armhole and no hood).
Baby’s also have a hard nose at a young age so they don’t suffocate while breast feeding. Pretty neat hey.
We put our kids in a onesy, perhaps with a singlet if it was cool or a grow bag (sleeping bag with arm holes) when it was very cold and put them in their cot with nothing else. not toys, blankets, etc. We had a breathing sensor in there as well as a camera but took though out because false positives stop your heart if your in the other room sleeping. Man i cant tell you how many times i sprinted through a dark house at the sound of that alarm. Its probably why I look 40…
I’m not sure what else to say but feel free to ask any question you like and i’ll do my best to share what i can. I’m confident anyone on here and our there will do the same. Like i said, build that support network not, don’t leave it.
I wish you and your partner the absolute best and cant wait to hear how it all went and see some pics of the little one.
Regards
BH
PS, Happy Holidays from the Hewitson Family
.
I can’t thank you enough for the long post. I’m glad to hear that I shouldn’t worry too
much.
I’m from Australia too, so it does all make sense, and we are booked into classes.
Thank you for all your insights, it does pay to have multiple inputs as to what
worked and what didn’t for different people. Especially when it comes from people who are cool, calm, and collected.
You’re welcome mate. Best of luck. As mentioned, if you need anything, flick me a message.
How is your baby world going mate?
BH