Before I became a parent I did everything a new parent would. I read up on how to be a good parent. One of the things a lot of literature preach is that we should never spoil our babies. Like if the baby cries you shouldn’t immediately pick him up but let him cry it out a little so he learns to calm himself down. That we set fixed routines for our baby (eg Gina Ford) and make sure they sleep when they need to sleep. This is so they’ll know when to sleep and they’ll be less cranky. We must also limit how much we carry him or don’t spoil him by doing things like patting him to sleep because then he’ll just expect it all the time.
A lot of what we read really makes sense. When Shorty and I tried to apply it though we failed tremendously. When Fighter cried we tried to leave him alone to see if he would calm himself down but he didn’t. 30 seconds of waiting and hearing him cry felt like an hour to us until we couldn’t take it. We went into his room and picked him up.
We expected Fighter to be a really spoilt baby. We expected him to cry all the time and expect us to pat him to sleep each time but the truth is…. he’s nothing like that. He’s a happy baby most of the time and has a rough routine he follows. He does want a lot of attention so sometimes when we leave him on his own he starts making noise and if we ignore it long enough. The same goes for when we bring him out, if we ignore him and leave him in his stroller, he starts crying after a while. After all this though, we still find that he’s largely a really easy baby to take care of.
I was reminded of this last night after work. I went for dinner with some business partners and I decided to bring Fighter along. My business partners didn’t mind of course. The whole time while we were having our dinner conversations, I just had Fighter on my lap. He sat there quietly as if listening to what we were talking about and didn’t make much of noise. Towards the end of the dinner though he started getting tired and a little grumpy… but still under control.
We finished dinner then went straight home. The very minute we put him back in his cot, he fell asleep.
As if he was so tired but didn’t make any noise to disturb our dinner.
Sometimes I wonder whether it’s really true that Fighter is really easy to take care of, or whether because Shorty and I as parents are really tolerant. I mean there are times when he gets cranky too but somehow to me and Shorty.. we don’t feel like it happens that often… even though to others it may be often.
At the dinner last night my business partner said that he notices that I’ve become more fatherly now. Shorty said she’s always been like that… always wanted to have kids and all. It’s true… I’ve always loved kids and I’ve always looked forward to the day that I would be a father. I just didn’t know how my kids would look like.
Now I do (well at least one of them)… and he’s more than I ever imagined.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space