Here’s Ben Wakeling, from Goodbye, Pert Breasts , with a humourous look at what advice he thinks should really be given to expectant parents.

If you’ve had kids, you’ll know as well as I do that friends and family just love to dish out advice as you approach your due date. Except that it’s not really advice. “You’re not going to get any sleep now” isn’t advice. Neither is “Breastfeeding can be really painful”. Sucking in through pursed lips, shaking your head and smugly stating “I’m glad I’m not you” is definitely not advice.

There are some things that I wish someone had told me before I had kids: ideally, before the thought of a kid was but a mere twinkle in my eye. Just little snippets of information that I can actually use when I become a parent, that’s all I’m after. So, here’s what I wish someone had told me before I had children.

Lie-ins will not be a part of weekends for at least ten years. Now, I’m not stupid; I know that with a baby comes a considerable reduction in uninterrupted sleep. I knew before I became a dad that the days of crawling out of a sweaty bed at midday on Saturday would be a thing of the past. But I assumed I’d still get to sleep until 8, maybe even 9 in the morning. Nope: I now class half six as a lie-in. If I’m really lucky, I might get to 7am, but it rarely happens. Thanks a lot, children.

I would become super-sensitive. I’ve never been a particularly emotional person; but since having kids I well up at the stupidest things. The other day I watched a TV programme where some kid hugged his dad, and I found myself blinking rapidly, fanning my face with my hands. Sad songs make me feel really sad. I’m welling up now, just writing this. Man up, Benjamin!

Babies don’t just poo…they poo a LOT. I read a statistic somewhere once which said that newborns go through about ten nappies a day. That’s about 300 a month. Nearly 4,000 per year. I guess I just assumed I’d be wiping poo off my baby’s buttocks two, three times a day maximum. But it’s almost relentless; nothing fills you with despair more than the squelch of another deposit being made at the nappy bank, although the faces they pull can be pretty funny.

I’d need to take out a second mortgage. I’ve always been aware that bringing up a child is expensive, but I wouldn’t have expected to go without clothes just so I can have the money to buy yet another multipack of nappies. Formula milk is just as expensive: unfortunately, despite our best efforts, breastfeeding was just too painful for my wife when feeding my second little boy, and so he’s been chugging on Cow & Gate for the last few months. It’s over £8 a tub! Can’t I just feed him Sainsbury’s Basics apple juice?!

I’d get excited about trains and tractors. Suddenly, and quite inexplicably, my childhood fascination with large vehicles has returned after having children. I find myself pointing at tractors even when there’s no-one else in the car. I’m dreading the time I’m driving my boss somewhere and halfway through the journey I exclaim “Oooh, look! A caravan!”

Going out means staying in. I can’t remember my last trip to the cinema. Nowadays, if we want to see a film, we wait for half a year for it to come out on DVD so we can rent it. ‘Going out for a meal’ really means ordering in a takeaway pizza. It’s been so long since I went out at night that I’ve forgotten how to dance. At least, that’s what I’m blaming my clunky moves on.

I’d turn into my dad. Out of all the nuggets of advice that someone could have given me, this would have been the most important. It’d mean that I could watch out for those tell-tale signs and nip them in the bud. But no-one told me that I’d end up turning into my father, and so now I find myself making the same terrible jokes as him, standing like him…I’m even nurturing the beginnings of a beer belly.

What’s the moral of this story? If you’ve got the bright idea of dishing out advice to an expectant couple, at least make it good advice; or, a few weeks later, you might find yourself at the sharp end of a very cranky and very overtired father.

What do you wish you had known before you had kids? What do you wish people hadn’t told you? Share here in a comment below and we’ll choose one person to win a Twist N’Pop Straw cup.

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