The Baby Fathers Manual

By Richard Ogilvy

I raised my daughter partly alone from the age of 3 weeks and fully alone from 4 months until she was a teenager. It was a phenomenal experience. Not always easy by any means, but a life-changer. We both grew up further.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483578583

Book preview

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Chapter 1: Age 0 to 6 months

You are unlikely to be alone with a baby of less than two or three weeks (in which case you’d certainly have experienced help): under normal circumstances within this time span both mother and child have developed a steady routine of feeding and cleaning which is maintained for some months to come. In fact the very predictability of this stage makes it perhaps the easiest of them all, as you may well appreciate in later months and years.

The entire saga, throughout this and the next three chapters, will be divided into subheadings beginning with:

Feeding:

A store of natural mothers milk should have been left in the freezer. Alternatively powdered substitute mothers milk (no other kind) can be made up, though only with boiled and therefore sterilised water. In the early weeks a baby will sleep much of the time and be woken up by its own stomach. Usually that means a fairly regular four to six hours.

A bottle containing 250 to 500ml. - 1/2 to 1 pint - of previously defrosted milk (natural or substitute) will need to be ready for warming at the first squawk. A one month old infant of either sex will normally consume up to 250ml., rising to 500ml. or more for a large six month old