Fred

I was not convinced about having a second child as much as my partner was, and then I came round to the idea of it and we conceived and that was great, and everyone in the family felt comfortable about it. My daughter was very excited, I was very excited, but as it got closer to having the child it felt like I was getting closer and closer to a cliff and I was going to fall into the abyss.

From my previous experience as a mental health worker, I started to spot warning signs that I needed to have some kind of communication. Because I think that the first step in anything, when you think that there's something going wrong with your head, because that's the first thing people spot, the first thing to do is to actually talk to people about it. So we've had a very open communication with my partner, and we've been able to talk a lot about the way that I've been feeling. And I've also been quite lucky, that I have quite a tight-knit group of male friends who are actually the partners of - my partner has a mum's group, so there's probably six mums who hang out every week with the kids, and they've all grown up together.

And the dads have actually got a tight bond now. And without trying to scare the males into having sort of bonding and talking sessions, that's what we've been doing, and it's been really useful. Because it's not just me who's been going through this, there's been a couple of other guys who are in a similar situation of just stress, panic, fear, all of those sorts of things, coming out into the open. I think it's the fear of the unknown, and wondering whether you can actually cope with having another child. There's always an assumption that a guy can cope with everything that's thrown at him and there's not so much availability for support networks.

And there's an assumption that a guy can get through this without any help. And yeah, I don't feel strong enough to be able to do that. I've broken down a number of times. And by that I mean lots of crying and thinking that I can't do it and I don't have enough mental strength to get through the situation. But being able to express that has been very, very useful. As I got closer to the time of the birth I was much more excited about the birth.

I think because of having these sessions talking with my wife and talking with my friends, I came to realise that it was actually getting to the point more of excitement and more of an adventurous kind of spirit than a fear spirit. I think I described it as rather than just jumping off a cliff into the abyss more like actually going cliff jumping, which is something I used to do as a kid. Which was dangerous, scary, but ultimately rewarding and fun, and I think it was good to go in with that kind of mindset into the birth, rather than anything else.

I don't know whether it's the area that we live in but I was very lucky that I did the normal antenatal classes, which is very women-centric approach. Prior to doing that, I was asked to join a men's only antenatal group, which was probably the best thing I've ever done as a parent. And this is before I'd had kids, this is before my first child. And it was in that one that I learned there that men can get postnatal depression. I had no idea. I had no idea what the rates of it were. I had no idea what the rates of female postnatal depression were or are.

And it taught me a whole suite of skills that they don't teach in the normal antenatal classes. And that's given me a real edge on most guys. And it's not looking at it from a competitive point of view but you know, there were things that were so obvious that they were teaching us that I had no idea about and I would never have known about them. And that kind of really core set of skills like bathing and how to support your partner through the post-birth process, the years after the birth. There was just so much really good practical advice there that's really given me the skills that have helped out through this. And I used a lot of those skills during the last eight weeks, especially spotting issues with my partner and issues with myself.

The birth itself was interesting. I wasn't involved in the birth. I fell asleep.... It turns out we had the due dates wrong and she knew she was going into labour and we expected it was going to be a long labour, so I actually fell asleep. And she birthed at home, and did it on her own. The next door neighbour who was also our doula - we had a birth helper with us. She actually caught the baby, and it was only after he had been born that I was woken up. But they couldn't, they literally couldn't wake me up, and it was all very quick, it was a two and a half hour process. So that made me feel odd, because I wasn't involved in the birth process. I was very hands-on in the previous one, caught the baby - both natural births, and I had a very big emotional release birthing the first one and I didn't get that with the second. So that made me feel pretty rubbish.

I had no idea because I was the youngest child and I'd never spent any time with any other kids. The only time I'd spent time with kids they were crying and being a pain in the arse. And the way that parents seemed to deal with it was to remove the kids from the situation and I didn't really see what was going on and I would have probably held a child maybe a couple of times, because none of my friends had kids. My sisters had kids but I didn't live in the same country as them. I didn't really have any experience of what it was going to be like so I didn't really know.

On the other hand, my wife was the oldest of six kids and she seems to have spent a significant part of her childhood helping raise her family with her parents. So she had an understanding of what it was like. I think that her approach to raising her kids is different to the approach that her parents had. So I don't know what my expectation of it was. I just remember it feeling overwhelming and often more than I could handle.

I'm taking both kids, even when he's eight weeks old, I'm taking both kids for a day now. Bottle feeding - we express milk and bottle feed. So that gives me a really good sense of wellbeing, the fact that I can look after both kids. It's a real tick in the box there. It gives my partner time on her own to do what she wants to do, go and hang out with her mates or whatever. Helps the relationship - she values that I'm chipping in. Because it can really feel like I go off to work and I've got the easy life. And it's not really like that but it's really good to have those skills and just have the trust that I can do it. My own trust and her trust that I can do that.

I've also been highly motivated, highly driven, highly goal-oriented. And most of the goals and targets that I set I meet. It's when I don't meet them that the opposite thing happens when I start to feel really crap about myself. And what we've noticed is that we're missing more and more of our goals and our expectations in life as we have children, because funnily enough they get in the way. [laughs]

And that's the same for my partner as well. I mean, she's highly motivated and we don't have small dreams, we have big dreams and with everything that we've ever dreamt of doing we've achieved so far. So it's just a bit frustrating when we can't quite get the things that we want now, and we do beat ourselves up about it.

I think the hardest thing in this whole process, post the birth of my son has been the relationship with our daughter, and that's from me and my wife. It's been very hard. My daughter was very excited about having a baby and she's a wonderful big sister. And I don't think there's too much jealousy involved there, but she's certainly struggling with it and she's bearing the brunt of our stress and anger. And it's simple things like her not listening will quickly turn into anger from us. And then because we get angry she gets upset, she starts crying, the baby starts crying. You know and then, and, and you just, you just put your head in your hands and just go, "Oh my God". Things can go so quickly wrong, and it usually happens when you've had a full-on day at work and you come home and there's an expectation because you're the new person at home that it's time for the person who's been at home all day with the kids to have a break, which is totally understandable, I'm sure I'd do the same. But when you've just had a gutful of it at work, and you have had a gutful it at home, it's just - it can be a bit much sometimes.

So yeah, I think that she's been copping it a little bit. She's also being a pain in the backside sometimes. She's four years old, I mean - and we kind of, we've acknowledged that we're sometimes thinking that she's an adult, we're expecting her to behave at a level where she's not at yet. So we've got, we've got to give her a break.

Last night I got home and my wife had to go out for a meeting. And so she ran out the door when I got in, and I had to cook dinner whilst my son was having a meltdown. So I was trying to bottle feed my son whilst cooking the dinner whilst my daughter was having a meltdown trying to climb up me, and I was so close to breaking down. But I didn't and I tried, you know I tried everything that I could not to do that and, and in the end it was okay. But it was close. It was really close and it was - it felt like it was going to be anger and then walking away. But it wouldn't, it wouldn't have helped the situation.

I was not convinced about having a second child as much as my partner was, and then I came round to the idea of it and we conceived and it was, that was great, and everyone in the family felt comfortable about it. My daughter was very excited, I was very excited, but as it got closer to having the child it felt like I was getting closer and closer to a cliff and I was going to fall into the abyss.

I was scared stiff of having the second child. So it must have been tough, the first one. You know, there was lots of broken sleep... there were lots of arguments because of whatever stress was happening, be it through work or at home. So yeah, it must have been tough.

And you know there's an assumption that a guy can get through this without any help. And yeah, I don't feel strong enough to be able to do that. I've broken down a number of times. And by that I mean lots of crying and thinking that, 'I can't do it and I don't have enough mental strength to get through the situation'. But being able to express that has been very, very useful.

From my previous experience as a mental health worker, I started to spot warning signs that I needed to have some kind of communication. Because I think that the first step in anything - when you think that there's something going wrong with your head, because that's the first thing people spot, the first thing to do is to actually talk to people about it. So we've had a very open communication with my partner, and we've been able to talk a lot about the way that I've been feeling. I've also been quite lucky that I have quite a tight-knit group of male friends who are actually the parents of - my partner has a mum's group, so there's probably six mums who hang out every week with the kids, and they've all grown up together.

And the dads are actually, you know got a tight bond now. And without trying to scare the males into having sort of bonding and talking sessions, that's what we've been doing, and it's been really useful. Because it's not just me who's been going through this, there's been a couple of other guys who are in a similar situation of just stress, panic, fear, all of those sorts of things coming out into the open. I think it's the fear of the unknown, and wondering whether you can actually cope with having another child. There's always an assumption that a guy can cope with everything that's thrown at him and there's not so much availability for support networks.

Parenthood has made me question whether I'm a patient person or an impatient person, because I'm both - very patient and you know, on lots of levels I'm a very patient person. But I also find that I'm quickly impatient and that that impatience quickly turns to anger and that's not something that I'd really exhibited much before. Because if I was feeling that way I would usually take myself away from the situation. I've not been a very confrontational person. I've never had a fight, I've never had a physical thing with anybody. And I'm really quite a passive person like that.

So it's brought out this kind of quick anger which I didn't realise was there, which is sometimes a bit scary I think that it's there. It's made me realise that there's a whole lot of love in there, which is a wonderful feeling. And the reward you know the love from my daughter is unconditional. There's an amazing love. Even after something's gone wrong, she's done something she shouldn't have done, you've told her off. You know, even then, it doesn't matter, there's always that unconditional love. That's amazing.

We've not had a very standard way of looking after our kids I suppose. So we try to keep a bit quiet about the way that we do things, and we do things for our own reason and... some people question why we do things the way that we do.

We didn't cut the placenta off, we didn't cut the cord at birth. We left it attached. We have been doing nappy-free or elimination communication. So that means that you don't use nappies. With our second child, right from the second day or the third day we were putting him on a potty. That's different. We've chosen not to inoculate. Just different I suppose - but we're both in agreement on why we're doing that. Not so much the vaccination, we've had some quite heated discussions about vaccination. But we've come to an agreement about where we are with that now.

It's only the Western world in the last 30, 40 or 50 years that they've been taking this approach with disposable nappies. In other countries they don't do what we do here. So I don't know where we found it out, but just talking to people and um we both read a lot and research around something. So if somebody says, "You must vaccinate your kids", then we'll go, "Okay, well fine - why? And what's the evidence to suggest that we should do that?" Or whatever it is. Breastfeeding, or bottle feeding or sleep patterns - allowing the children to cry themselves to sleep or whatever issue it is that people talk about, we'll generally not take an opinion on that until we've read around it.

Note: This website does not endorse anti-vaccination. Please see http://www.ncirs.edu.au/immunisation/fact-sheets/mmr-vaccine-ibd-autism-fact-sheet.pdf OR http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/autism_spectrum_disorder_and_vaccinations.html