"New Dads Bootcamp" for first time day who never changed a nappy, fed a baby etc?

" Really? You'd disinfect you nailbrush with milton? "

Don't get this? But I've never used Milton.


" The worst thing about the lack of sleep is that you won't catch up until your children are teenagers and keep on a lie-in at the weekend - and even then, they'll probably keep you awake at night! "

I've a solution for this, I'm also going to stay up all night partying with them when they are teenagers to make up for what I'm missing now. My current solution is to try and go to bed not long after them. :( Managed to wake up 'naturally' at 8 am this weekend - before the kids, yippedydoda !!!:p
 
Anyone know of a 'New Dads BootCamp' type thing in Ireland that I could go to. Wife is pregnant with our first child and I have never changed a nappy, fed a baby etc and figure I'm going to have to know pretty soon. I know they do weekend stuff like this in the States but was wondering if anyone knew of anything like that here ?

Sure won't your wife take care of all of that malarkey.
 
I just received this email titled 'Are you ready to have kids' which contains some useful advice for the OP. I particularly like the 'goats in the supermarket' one.


Test 1

Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months. After 9 months remove 10% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for paternity, go to local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to its head office. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behaviour. Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel:
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4-6kg, with a radio tuned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4 am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy at it seems.
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door saloon. And don't think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family Cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it in the cassette player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate biscuits, mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. . perfect!

Test 6
Get ready to go out.
1. Wait.
2. Go out the front door.
3. Come in again.
4. Go out.
5. Come back in.
6. Go out again.
7. Walk down the front path/driveway.
8. Walk back up it.
9. Walk down it again.
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps.
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8
Go the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your weeks groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9

1. Hollow out a melon and then make a small hole in the side.
2. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
3. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an aeroplane.
4. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
5. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.
You are now ready to feed a 12-month-old child.

Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Fimbles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for at least five years.



Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flower beds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?

Test 12
Make a recording of Janet Street-Porter shouting "Mummy" repeatedly. Important: No more than a four second delay between each "Mummy " – occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next four years. You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continuously tug on your skirt hem/shirt sleeve/elbow while playing the "Mummy" tape made from Test 12 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:
1. Take a cup of cream, and put 1 cup lemon juice in it.
2. Stir.
3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture.
4. Attempt to clean your shirt with the saturated towel.
5. Do NOT change. You have no time.
6. Go directly to work.

Test 15
Go for a drive, but first:
1. Find one large tomcat and six pit bulls.
2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.
3. Put the pit bulls in the front seat of your car.
4. While holding something fragile or delicate, strap the cat into the child seat.
5. For the really adventurous, run some errands, remove and replace the cat at each stop.

You are now ready to have kids.
 
Rainyday I'm laughing out loud here. Very very good post. Today I did not blow a fuse when going up the stairs with my breakfast (half a piece of toast and a much needed delicious cup of tea) with the six year old in front of me whinging about the way her cardigan sleeve was folded by her dad turned around dramatically and knocked the tea all over me and the stairs ............ These days I'm gratefull that a) she didn't get the baby with the tea, b) I don't dress until everything is done first c) it's only tea d) and posts like this to make me grateful that mine don't do ALL of that.
 
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