5 Things New Parents Are Tired Of Hearing

Today’s post comes to us from Sean Patrick, new father to a 4 month old daughter.

Becoming a father is amazing! It’s also amazingly difficult at times, especially for the first few months! It’s not all puppy dogs, rainbows and ice cream. In fact, there’s a surprising lack of ice cream involved.

In the midst of mountains of dirty diapers and piles of smelly milk-stained shirts, we find ourselves also having to interact with other human beings (Imagine that – there are other people in the world besides your newborn. Crazy, right?). A task that used to be so easy but somehow has become burdensome with this newborn bundle of joy because it seems like they keep saying the same phrases over and over again. As a brand spankin’ new father, here’s the top 5 things my wife and I are tired of hearing:

1. Don’t Blink… It goes by so fast.
Does it? Because it’s 3am right now and I can’t get this screaming baby to take a bottle. The first few weeks of having a kid can feel like an eternity! Or whatever the next thing is that’s slightly longer than an eternity…

2. Is he sleeping through the night yet?
Well, he’s 8 minutes old so… No, we’re still working on the whole sleeping through the night thing. This seems to be one of the fist questions new parents get. The reality is that if the baby isn’t sleeping, neither are we. A more accurate question might be, “Remember when sleep was a thing?”

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3. Are you breastfeeding?
Personally, no. But I don’t have the anatomy for that. If you’re asking if my wife is breastfeeding then that’s a weird question too. Why? Because it’s usually asked by a dude. In what other situation would it be not be weird to ask about my wife’s chest and what we use it for?

4. When’s the next baby?
The next baby? We’re not sure we’re going to survive this one! When you haven’t had kids of your own, it may seem like popping out babies is easy. Want to know what it’s really like? Imagine going to the theater to see a movie that only plays once every 30 days and each time you get there, you somehow had the show time and missed it! After a few months you finally see it and you love it! In fact, you love it so much that you preorder the DVD but it won’t get here for almost a year. When it finally arrives you realize that the movie is stuck in your DVD and will never stop playing! Then up walk your friends and ask, “Do you want to go see a movie?” It’s kind of like that.

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5. Let me know if you need anything.
A more accurate phrase might be, “I’m not sure how to end this conversation about your new baby so…. BYE!” If you truly are that one in a million friend who wants to help out then try something more like, “I’m free on Thursday for three hours. I’d love to watch your kid so you can get out of the house or go sleep in the other room.” Chances are we want and need the break and you could be our life jacket.

Sean Patrick lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Whitney and 4 month old daughter, Brooklyn. They enjoy laughing together, drawing eyebrows on their dog and writing Hunger Games fan-fiction under the pseudonym, “Julius Peppers.” Sean Patrick claims to know the best way to make toast and to have invented the phrase, “Oh, no you didn’t!” but rarely receives credit for it.” He works at the Church at Rocky Peak as the Kids Pastor and travels across the country DJ’ing large events such as Super Bowl XLIX in Phoenix, AZ and the 2015 Mercedes Benz Oscar’s Party. In his spare time, he trains to become an Olympic-Level nap taker. Find him on twitter at @seanpatrickdj.