Well This Is Difficult
Hi all and welcome to another monthly update post. Who’d have thought having a baby would be so difficult?! Oh you all did? Yeah so did I - but it still feels like you can never really be prepared for it. We’re now almost 6 weeks in to having Baby1322 and some things are easier while some are harder.
The general things we need to do to keep a baby alive are definitely easier. The benefits of repetition showing through there. It’s the “unexpected” that’s harder. Like for example he’s now going through a bit of a fussy phase, which means he’s not sleeping as well. Which means we’re not sleeping as well. Which means nothing gets done apart from trying to exist and survive.
Nevertheless I have started to do a bit more work again. Just a small amount each day to keep on top of things - mostly admin stuff. I haven’t gotten to the point of being able to create any content yet, which is slightly worrying, but the aim is to gradually increase my workload each week and transition from me being around all the time to help with the baby, to me having to take some time away. I’m lucky that I’m able to set my own hours in that respect, and gradually ramp things up over time, as opposed to having to go back to full time work after two weeks of paternity leave like is the norm. Although with things like shared parental leave being an option now I guess it’s possible to have more time for those who have normal jobs.
I think streams will be the hardest to get back to properly. I’ve been doing a 2-3 hour stream each Sunday for a few weeks now and it’s been going okay, but there are so many things that can ruin that. When I’m working off-stream on videos or whatever else I can choose when to do things during the day, or even across the week, to accommodate any unexpected happenings with Baby1322 (or even expected planned appointments). It doesn’t matter when I get things done, as long as they get done. Streams aren’t like that, and I’m finding it difficult to reconcile the idea that it might not be possible to go back to how it was. For all the talk of me being late, I think one of my strengths (overall but especially for streams) has been my consistency. Regular schedules that I stick to with specific plans and creating, then living up to, expectations regarding the content you’re likely to watch. I imagine I’ll eventually be able to get back to that but in these early days where everything is so up and down and changeable, I’m not quite sure how that’s ever going to be possible again. Probably just classic first time parent with a newborn worries, but they exist in my head all the same.
We’ll see how it goes and I’ll check in again next month as usual. Maybe I should look back on these posts in a few years and see how it all panned out. Hi future Broughy! Please don’t put yourself through this again :D If you already have, you’re an idiot - why on earth anyone would ever have multiple children is beyond me! I’m too rigid and unadaptable for all this!
At least April is what would normally be my off-season anyway. I’ll probably start to stress even more about it all when May comes around and I don’t have any more random races backlogged for YouTube! See you all then.
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Since September 2016 I’ve been posting updates exclusively for supporters to patreon.com/broughy1322, and later also for YouTube members via the community tab. Those posts have been brought over here for archival purposes, and going forward new updates will be released here two weeks after they’re first released for Patreon supporters and YouTube members. Feel free to subscribe on those platforms with the links above to get these posts as soon as they go live.
