I am Tom, a 30-year-old and incredibly lucky Dad to my 7 month old daughter, Rosie. As one of many first time Dads, welcoming Rosie into the world was a life changing experience filled with many ups and downs; the many hours spent playing with her and watching her learn and grow to the late-night feeds and what felt like endless nappy changes.
Needless to say, the first few months of being a new Dad was challenging and intensified by Rosie being one of many babies born during the middle of the global pandemic; I had no idea that becoming a father would be one of the most testing experiences of my life.
I was fortunate to take of just shy of one month off work when Rosie was born so my wife and I could tackle the first few weeks as new parents together. As many first time Dads will know, there was a constant feeling of being on edge making sure Rosie was feeding, breathing and sleeping whilst trying to decipher the many different screams and cries that I didn’t think was possible for such a tiny human to make!
There were many disadvantages to the pandemic, the biggest being unable to have all our family to visit regularly to say hello to Rosie and to support us where they could. However, one of the biggest silver linings to this situation was being able to work from home and spend much more time with Rosie then I would ever have done in normal circumstances when working in the office.
Before I knew it, my paternity/annual leave was up, and I went back to work. Originally, I had a routine where I would cycle to and from work a few days a week (knowing that getting exercise is important to mitigate the early onset of Dad bod) and working from home for the rest to support my wife and spend time with Rosie. This routine worked for a couple of weeks at which point I thought I had this Dad malarky cracked and felt like superman.
However, through a combination of little sleep, Rosie initially struggling to feed and having issues with reflux (I became a human muslin most evenings), had a gigantic effect on both mine and my wife’s mental health which slowly seeped into our lives without realising. This came to a head when I came home from work on a few occasions to find my wife in tears and being unable to cope; we later found out that she was suffering from post-partum depression.
I felt so sad with what my wife was going through, and I felt shame/guilt that I did not see the signs sooner or try and offer more support where I could, in particular where most antenatal classes would have been face-to-face pre-pandemic so there would have been a natural community to offer support. In addition, the Government guidelines meant that the majority of our family could not come up to visit and help with looking after Rosie/us. My survival instincts kicked in and for the next couple of months all I could think about was making sure I was available to support my wife and look after Rosie 100% of the time.
Through a combination of trying to “step up” and be the leader of our new family together with struggling to cope with the pressures of returning to work, I ended up burning out and becoming depressed. I thought that depression would never happen to me as I am usually an optimistic, positive person and didn’t think being a Dad would have an effect on my mental wellbeing, in particular where there are people out there who have it a lot harder than I did. Initially I thought I would keep my chin up, get over the next few weeks of sleepless nights and it will be smooth sailing from there. How wrong I was.
Fortunately, all was not lost, the post-partum support team from the local NHS services (including a regular visit of the health visitor) allowed my wife to share her thoughts on dealing with post-partum depression. Opening up then enabled the Health Visitor to recommend the Baby Buddy App from Best Beginnings. The Baby Buddy App is available for new parents to access information and support for their baby up to the age of 6 months.
In addition, Best Beginnings offer group support sessions to new mums which my wife took up. They put her in a group of other mums who would meet online via Zoom for a few weeks to discuss life as a new a parent and the impact it has had to their mental health and challenges faced in during the pandemic. These sessions were run by trained facilitators who guided the group through different ways of discussing the being a parent and providing options on how to improve your mental wellbeing.
During the group session, my wife was advised that Best Beginnings were now offering support to Dads as well and she encouraged me to sign up. I was apprehensive at first because I found the idea of opening up to strangers as unusual and uncomfortable. However, with how low I felt and a sense of feeling like there was no end in sight with everything, I decided to take part.
I was part of the first Dad group session ran by Best Beginnings. There was 5 of us all together in addition to the facilitator, Sandra, which ran for 3 weeks. During our Dads session we discussed topics such as (1) what it is like to be a Dad, (2) the feeling of being good enough as a parent (against the belief that we need to always be perfect), (3) how we can communicate with our partners and offer support, and (4) coping techniques when we feel overwhelmed or down.
These sessions made me realise that I was not alone with my struggles and that other Dads are in the same boat which made my thoughts and feelings more understandable; I felt ok not being ok.
I cannot recommend the services of Best Beginnings enough to all the Dads out there. The Baby Buddy App and most importantly the group sessions provided a platform for me to talk about my concerns as a new dad without facing any judgment in a confidential environment. This, in combination with joining the Leeds Dads community, built a foundation for me to take further steps in addressing my depression.
I would encourage Dads to go online and look at Best Beginnings and access the group sessions as soon as possible. Because Best Beginnings is a charity that is reliant on funding to run these group sessions, they are only available until the end of March 2021 (I know that the team are trying to find ways to continue these sessions beyond March and they will let people know as soon as possible).
Finally, is ok to feel overwhelmed, have bad days, feel a sense of hopelessness and not feel like you are good enough; we are all human and we have all been there. Remember, you are not alone and there are a fantastic number of charities/support services, like Leeds Dads and Best Beginnings who you can talk to and take that next step into improving your mental wellbeing.
