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It’s virtual insanity!
20th December 2007
Reporter Emma Wright enters the world of parenthood for a day... and soon finds out how hard life can be as a new mum.
ASPIRATIONS of being a mum have never really hit me, so when my news editor wanted someone to do a ‘fun feature’ on babies I seemed like an obvious victim to pick on.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not completely phobic of children. I did my fair share of babysitting to earn a few pennies while I was a teenager, but the thought of having a child of my own fills me with the sense of dread only those who have jumped out of an aeroplane or seen Jim Davidson live can sympathise with.
• Feeling confident, Emma brings Elliot into the Mercury newsroom...
Other people’s babies are very cute and have the added bonus of being ‘hand-back-able’ when they poo, wee, cry, throw-up or, as is usual, all four at the same time. And as my colleague Mark pointedly said: “You have the maternal instincts of a black widow spider.”
So for the 18 hours that Elliot the artificial baby was in my care, I kept a diary of the highs and lows, mostly lows, about the life as a working 23-year-old single parent.
Thursday BC (Before Child).
• 11.30am: The sudden realisation that I will be getting a baby in six days hits me like the proverbial tonne of bricks. I ring Sue, who is organising my trip into parenthood, who explained I will not be able to switch off the baby while I am at work. This is for real. I will need to organise a babysitter from 4pm ETL (estimated time of labour) until the end of my working day at 6pm.
• 11.32am: Expletive, expletive, expletive. I realise I also have a Cheddar Parish Council meeting on Tuesday night that I need to go to, so I will have to organise a babysitter. This is not a good start.
Friday BC.
• 10am: My friend Vicky announces she will be off work on Tuesday so she can babysit in the afternoon. WOOHOO. Unfortunately she will be busy in the evening so I still need to find someone for when I go to Cheddar.
Monday BC.
• 8pm: Less than 24 hours to go. My last night of freedom is spent in front of the television with a glass of wine. I thought it was only sensible to get rid of all the alcohol in the house, you know, for baby proofing reasons. I still haven’t found a babysitter for Tuesday night. I asked my neighbour but she is working and suddenly my friends are all ‘busy’.
Tuesday, Labour Day.
• 12noon: I’m having a major panic now. I decide my friend, who wishes to remain anonymous so I will just call him ‘Gavin’, will be sympathetic to my plight as he has just had a baby of his own. I send him a quick email to ask for a babysitter for two hours tonight.
• 1pm: The reply, in full, reads: “Mate, are you kidding me? Do you honestly think that in the few precious hours I have to myself kid-free that I want to look after your baby? Keep looking my friend, and good luck. If you were any kind of mother you would have arranged care long in advance or take the baby with you. Welcome to my world. Should be compulsory for all young people I reckon.” And after I tried to bribe him with a pint as well.
• 3pm: I meet Elliot. His eyes never shut, his joints are a bit stiff and he has a creepy looking mouth, but he’s my baby. It is quite handy he was born with batteries and a blue jumpsuit. Sue hands me a bottle, changing mat, nappy and a monitor I have to wear on my hand so he knows his mummy is nearby. I am also given a blue square to clip on my shirt which is apparently my breast feeding nipple. I instantly decide bottle feeding is the way forward. If it were up to me I would shove a bottle of UHT in and be done with it.
• 4pm: I introduce a screaming baby to a bustling newsroom on deadline day. The little blighter won’t stop crying until I hand him to ‘Auntie Judi’ aka, my editor. Dishearteningly he instantly stops crying, but then starts again when I hold him to have my picture taken.
I then head out to Vicky’s where I dump the screaming child and run away.
• 6pm: My friend Sarah, a qualified midwife, picks up Elliot and takes him to her house. She said: “I bottle fed him three times and changed his nappy three times but for the three hours I cared for him he would not stop crying.
“The tea was burnt and by the time I had actually finished eating it with one hand it was stone cold. The experience taught me that caring for a baby is one of life’s most challenging tasks and should never be entered into lightly.”
• 9.15pm: A mere three hours later I arrived at Sarah’s apologising profusely as my meeting had gone on a little longer than I had expected. She casually told me ‘he’s in the kitchen’ so I knew it hadn’t gone well.
• 9.20pm: Driving home with a (thankfully) sleeping baby. The calming tones of my Mika album must have had a positive affect.
• 10.30pm: I was just drifting off to sleep after a long day at work when Elliot, or should I call him Damian, let out the loudest, shrillest cry I have ever heard in my life. My new neighbours must have been chuffed to bits. Finally work out he didn’t want anything but a cuddle.
Wednesday.
• 2.30am: I wake up AGAIN for no reason other than to cuddle Elliot. I almost scream. It had taken me ages to get to sleep because Elliot lets out a little snore when he is dozing, which keeps me awake.
• 6.30am: Okay, this isn’t funny now. I have to be bright and alert at work, I’ll be having a shower in an hour and could really do with some shut-eye. Again, he only wants a cuddle. You can tell he is a boy.
• 8am: I managed to remove the mattress from my back and climb into the shower. Elliot stays asleep until I am dressed, then bawls the house down while I apply my make-up with one hand. I have dark circles under my eyes, I put my hair up because I don’t have time to dry it and fall out the door. I bundle Elliot into the car and drive as quickly as possible to Sue’s house, where she tells me with sadistic pleasure that he was only programmed on a ‘medium’ difficulty setting.
I have to say the whole experience left me traumatised, tired and contemplating a life of celibacy (just to be on the safe side).
I have the highest amount of respect for working parents who manage to do it all without ending up in an asylum.
I admit that at several points I was tempted to shove the little blighter, er... I mean, angel, in the boot of my car but decided against it as I didn’t want ‘wasting police time’ on my criminal record.
This is what the videos show:
• Video 1, 10pm: I arrive home and the baby is sleeping. So far so good.
• Video 2, 10.25pm: The baby is crying and I don’t know what to do.
• Video 3, 10.30pm: Just managed to get Elliot back to sleep.
• Video 4, 2.20am: The baby is crying again. Hope I haven’t woken the neighbours.
• Video 5, 6.30am: Nappy needs changing again.
• Video 6, 8.20am: About to go to work after a sleepless night as a mother.
So how did Emma get on?
AFTER recovering from the shock of looking after a baby I got another surprise - I am actually a decent parent.
I achieved 91 per cent in my results - and even have the certificate to prove it!
I must point out that this was despite getting marked down for one incident of ‘rough handling’ in which my babysitter’s husband, Simon Angear - a fellow journalist who is old enough to know better - punched Elliot in the head ‘to see what it would do’.
I only missed one cuddle, one nappy change and had two instances when I didn’t support his head properly, so all in all I looked after him very well.
I’ll be honest though, it hasn’t changed my mind - I am in no rush to get pregnant!
Pupils praised after babycare course
• The Wyvern Community School pupils who took part in the course.
YOUNGSTERS at Wyvern Community School have just completed a babysitting course in which they had to take care of virtual babies.
The nine-week course included paediatric first aid training followed by a six-week training course covering areas such as play skills, basic childcare, safety and well-being, accident prevention and fire safety.
Girls from the school in Marchfields Way, Weston, also had to look after a virtual baby overnight to give them a taste of what looking after a young child really means.
Weston Youth Centre’s Suzanne Elliot said: “The commitment to the course has been amazing and all of those who took part did really well.
“Two of the girls took two babies home to simulate the problems the parent of twins would have to face. I think they found it hard when one baby stopped crying and then the other one started.”
Suzanne is hoping to expand the course in the next few years and move on from the babysitting course to more advanced baby care, such as helping youngsters who are drug dependent.
WYVERN pupil Chantelle Welling (pictured above) was one of the girls on the babysitting course.
While looking after one of the babies, she kept a diary of her sleepless night at home in Grasmere Drive:
• 8.10pm: I rang the school nurse, Tracey, because the baby wouldn’t wake, so we moved its neck and it started to cry so I rocked it and gave it a cuddle.
• 10.20pm: I went to put the baby down and she started crying. I think I put her neck back too far but I don’t know.
• 12.15am: The baby was fussing and was hungry so I gave her a bottle and changed her nappy. I then gave her a cuddle.
• 1am: The baby woke me up crying so I fed and burped her.
• 1.30am: The baby was fussing and hungry. I gave it a cuddle but it didn’t shut up. It keeps waking and then going back to sleep.
• 1.35am: The baby cries until I pick it up and then it shuts up. It also needed burping.
• 1.40am: The baby was crying again and needed lots of cuddles but as soon as I went to put it down again it started crying.
• 2am: The baby would not shut up and every time I went to put her down she kept waking up. She was being really fussy.
• 2.01am: The baby starts crying again so I rocked and cuddled her.
• 2.11am: The baby finally went to sleep! Hurrah!
• 3.45am: She woke me up crying again so I gave her another bottle.
• 4.11am: The baby cried again but there was nothing I could do to shut her up. Eventually she decides she wants a bottle and then goes into a fussy mood.
• 4.31am: I rocked and cuddled her lots but she just doesn’t want to go to sleep. Help!
• 4.40am: The baby needed a nappy change again but eventually it stopped crying and went to sleep.
• 8.30am: She needed another feed so I cradled her for a while and gave her a
bottle.
• 8.50am: She started crying again but I managed to get her off to sleep.
• 10.10am: I think I put her neck at a funny angle so I gave her a cuddle.
• 11.10am: She was hungry and needed burping and cuddles.
• 11.40am: I changed her nappy and gave her another cuddle.
• 1.50pm: This time when the baby cried she wouldn’t shut up. She was being very fussy and needed lots of cuddles. I finally managed to rock her to sleep.
• 2.30pm: The baby needed more cuddles and attention before falling back asleep.
• 4.35pm: She wanted even more cuddles and attention.
• 6.30pm: The baby started crying again and needed another cuddle so I rocked her until she went back to sleep.
Chantelle, aged 14, said: “I was really tired by the end of it but I did miss the baby once I gave it back.
“I definitely don’t want kids of my own but I would like to babysit, at least that way you can hand them back.”
Inspired advice close at hand
• Pictured: Parents and children at the launch of the booklet.
A NEW booklet has been launched to give advice to young parents in North Somerset.
Footsteps of Inspiration has been written by three young parents’ groups, Inspire, Amica and Footprints, to guide new mums and dads on what to expect from their new additions.
All the photographs in the booklet are of families living and experiencing life within North Somerset and members of all three groups put their suggestions for content and
layout forward.
The booklet, which was launched at the Puxton Park tourist attraction in Hewish, has a pull-out section, ‘Just for dads’, and also includes a directory list of handy phone numbers specific to the area.
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