Dadding It!: Landmark Moments in Your Life as a Father… and How to Survive Them

Bestselling parenting author Rob Kemp (The Expectant Dad's Survival Guide) delivers the ultimate guide to navigating your child's life milestones (0 months to 50 years) and offers advice on how fathers can best play a lasting, impactful or at least vaguely useful role in it. Kids don't come with an instruction manual. (Not that most men would read one if they did). Instead they're shaped by life-forming milestones and learn-as-they-go mistakes which you, as modern, responsible fathers must be there to help them deal with, solve or at least advise upon pretty much from their birth until you've drawn your last breath. This book will give you a head's up on all the defining moments you are guaranteed to experience as a parent. It'll warn you when your life is going to take a change of course, how your child is going to influence the choices you make and give you some practical, knowing, sanity saving methods of dealing with them. Each moment is headlined with a common scenario that dads have encountered down through generations – but will still come as a shock to you for the first time. And for every milestone moment, landmark action or parenting task to perform there's a sound advice and strategic solutions to help you cope and even discover the purported 'joys' of parenthood…

Table of Contents:
Introduction The early years: Milestone 1 Love at first sight 2 Holding your baby for the first time 3 Driving your baby home 4 Baby acknowledges that 'you're the daddy' 5 Feeding time 6 Getting your baby's name right 7 First baby transporter 8 Building a nursery 9 The baby visitors 10 First public nappy change 11 Taking baby out on your own 12 Raising baby's head 13 Father and baby bonding sessions 14 Baby vomits on you 15 First decent night's sleep 16 Making a splash at bath time 17 Baby finds what you've been hiding 18 Baby gets 'sign language' 19 Baby gets to grips with you 20 When you hear yourself speaking in months 21 First night out together without your baby 22 Having a conversation that isn't about your baby 23 Baby starts to talk… almost 24 Having sex again 25 Baby teeth 26 Baby pressures on marital relationship 27 Baby responds to its own name 28 First photos of your baby 29 Transition to solids 30 First steps 31 Taking baby to a pub 32 Moments of panic The toddler years: Milestones 33–52 33 Path to potty training 34 Time for baby number two? 35 Fit to father more kids? 36 Doctor Dad – at-a-glance guide to child illnesses 37 Writing a will – who should raise your kids if you die? 38 First-time first aid 39 Kids' party time 40 First-time tantrums 41 First time on a plane 42 Reading to your child 43 Choosing your first family pet 44 Finding out that your kid's a fussy eater 45 Child tortures family pet 46 Family member dies 47 First time you put your kid on a bike 48 Screening a babysitter 49 Panic that you're not cutting it as a parent 50 Making more time for your kids 51 Auditing your essential dad skills 52 Requesting flexible working time The school years: Milestones 53 Dad's first day at the school gate 54 Getting to know your kid's friends 55 Helping them overcome shyness 56 Your kid swears for the first time 57 Using and perfecting your dad joke repertoire 58 First time at the match 59 Question time 60 Picking pocket money 61 Your kid makes the school team 62 Civil war among siblings 63 Your kid's first phone 64 Dad's race exposes the dad bod 65 Summer holiday survival 66 Dealing with the school bully 67 Parents' evening and feigning an interest in your kid's education 68 Child gets a bad school report 69 Exposed to something nasty online 13 facts on how dads do things differently The teenager years: Milestones 70 Kid dresses 'inappropriately' 71 Having 'a chat'. Serious talk time 72 Kid starts coming home late 73 Issues around body image 74 Putting it all down to hormones 75 Dads and teenage misbehaviour 76 Kid is struggling at school 77 Kid comes home drunk 78 First stand-up row with your teenager 79 Fixing your kid's 'laziness' 80 First time as the dad taxi 81 Hosting a teenage party 82 Kid caught doing drugs 83 Giving them careers advice 84 Having to punish your teenager 85 Parental differences 86 Meeting your teenager's 'special one 87 Musical differences 88 Political awakening 89 In the eyes of the law 90 Teaching your teen to drive 91 Funding student lifestyles 92 Further education: a father's role 93 Their gap year of discovery 94 Sending your kid off to work 95 Child takes over the family business 96 Fond farewell 97 Dealing with the empty nest 98 Rediscovering life after the kids have left 99 Boomerang kid comes back 100 Establishing boundaries with your adult kids 101 Dad's midlife crisis 102 Giving them away… 103 From good father to Godfather 104 Dad becomes Grandad Father ahead Acknowledgements Useful resources for dads Source credits Index About the author

About the Author :
Rob Kemp is a UK-based writer specialising in fatherhood, masculinity and health & fitness, and the bestselling author of The Expectant Dad's Survival Guide, and The New Dad's Survival Guide. His latest book, The Good Guys: 50 Heroes Who Changed The World With Kindness is the bestselling boys book on Amazon. He wrote them after his own experiences as a new dad. He regularly contributes fatherhood-focused features to a variety of publications and websites including the Telegraph, Boots Parenting, Amazon Parents, the Guardian, Sainsbury's Fresh Ideas, DaddiLife (as @expectantdad), The DadClub, and Little London. He has spoken at parenting events including the Mumsnet event BumpFest. His work for Men's Health magazine has been syndicated throughout the world and he's made many radio and TV appearances speaking on men's issues and parenting topics.