Child Development Tips

DUNCAN: I remember when we first brought J home, we had to give her a bath. We laid her down on the mat. Dinah and l were running in and out of the room, getting towels and stuff, and she just lying there going 'Waaaah!' And we're saying to her, 'Look, we don't know what we're doing, either! This is new for us, too! Don't expect too much!'
 

Child Development Tips

IVAN: I continually felt I might not be up to the task. I still do, and I don't think that's anything unusual. You just do your best. And I think anybody who says they know how to bring up children is lying, or a fool. I still worry late at night, about my son, about my daughters, what I've said to them, what I've done, or whatever. It never goes away. 

ANTHONY: Up to the task, no, never felt that at all. It was hard after R was born, because Astrid was so ill and knackered and down and we were a bit on our own. None of our family live locally and the parents are quite old. My mum's blind and got arthritis.

Astrid's younger sister was quite cool, but my sister just disappeared off the map. So it was hard physically. I gave up work and did a lot of child care (R was on bottles from the first night) and didn't go anywhere. Oh, and it was Christmas and Astrid's sister and new husband stayed with us in Astrid's tiny flat. Urn, busy.

And it's never really eased off. You always want to do great, exciting, loving, supportive things, but somehow the mashing-up first. I don't think I'm a bad dad at all, but it's such a slog.

The baby stares at you as though you are an idiot. And maybe you are. But the baby doesn't know that. All the baby is doing is growing. Everything is subsumed to this task. When your partner was pregnant, the baby's health and well-being always came first. That wasn't a conscious decision: the biology took care of it. Now baby is out in the world, you the father have joined the equation.
 
Baby's needs still come first, but it's both you and your partner who will now be squeezed dry. At birth a typical baby weighs 7.5lb. It will lose a couple of pounds in the first few days of life, as it adjusts to the sudden loss of its beloved placenta. A week later it will be back to birth weight and from then there is no looking back. Glug, glug, glug, glug. After five months Junior will have doubled its body weight, and will add the same again by its first birthday. Not even professional darts players can do this. At birth Junior is, on average, 20 inches tall (or long). A year later he or she will have added ten to twelve inches. His or her brain will have more than doubled its weight. The heart will be nearly twice the size. She could well be talking. He could well be walking.
 
Compared to most animals the human baby seems a vulnerable, rather weedy thing. A baby cow pops out, stands up, around a bit and that's it. End of childhood. Whereas our young are 18 or 19 before they finally leave home, go on terrible gap year holidays to the Far East and end up as drugs 'mules' for lipsmacking oriental villains. Human childhood lasts forever, primarily because of these large brains we have been saddled with. 

Chimps and apes reach sexual maturity far more quickly, and so did our distant hairy ancestors. But the great.evolutionary tool that is our brain has developed beyond these modest origins, and now it needs all those years to acquire the knowledge to lead an independent life. (Until we move back home at 25, that is.) To find out more, you can check out Child Development Tips.