In this day and age, the role of the father in raising a child has increased a hundredfold. The old way was the mother gave birth and dad really didn’t have a lot to do until the child was about 2! I exaggerate to make a point. I remember raising my three kid’s years ago and how the 2 hourly feeds played havoc with my wife’s life cycle. Sometimes the feeds were done in bed, but that was more a rarity than a common practice as I was on shift work and having us both with disturbed sleep patterns was not a great idea!
How I wish there had been the internet and iPad’s and Angry Birds games back then. Even when I did help feed the baby with a bottle, it would have been nice to play a bit of online poker or some word games. Whatever was available to pass the time as the baby sucked joyfully on his bottle, had his nappy changed and was put back to sleep.
Fast forward and here I am in a new relationship and guess what? I have a baby son. I don’t work shifts. As a matter of fact, I don’t work in a regular job at all. I am a writer so I can do my job at anytime inspiration and creativity calls. And, I DO have the internet and my preferred games along with a whole range of other apps like Netflix and sometimes I can idle my time away on while the baby is being fed. I can’t actually write while I look after feeding the baby, the disturbances don’t do a lot for a line of thought, but I do find some more simple things to do, like play some online slots on sites like MansionCasino. You just keep clicking, which is like pulling the handle, and win and lose. But it’s not just these games that are of great assistance to mums with newly-born.
I was at my laptop writing the other day and a friend from the opposite time zone came online. She didn’t actually contact me but after a while, my Skype indicated she was online to chat. Hey! It was 2.30 am in her part of the woods. After a few minutes, I sent her a message: “What the hell are you doing up at this time, Sally?” She answered that she was feeding the baby and was chatting with a friend in my time zone (and whom I knew) while trying to get her bub back to sleep.
This wasn’t the only time I had seen this. I was updating my Facebook page with some photos and comments and I noticed another friend online, and in that opposite time zone. When I asked her what she was doing, it was the same thing. She was feeding the baby and updating her Facebook at the same time.
Social media and access to a million different game sites have really changed the way in which parents look after their babies during the middle of the night. It might even be close to the truth to say that it’s no longer as much a burden as it was before the coming of the internet. We all love playing some computer games and we all love checking out the gossip on our social sites. Just don’t let your two-year-old anywhere near an iPad for a few years.