I love this photo because what I’m doing in this photo is a perfect metaphor for how I see my life as a Daddy.

My role is to stay close-by, offering words of encouragement and choosing my actions carefully so that I can nurture this young lady’s sense of self belief.

Every day I get to see it blossom a little more.

The world is a scary place and fear of failure grips all of us at one point or another… 

“What if I fall?”
“What if it doesn’t go to plan?”
“What if I’m not strong enough?”

For as long as I’m able to, I’ll be there to tell you this…

”Daddy believes in you.”

All you need to do is try.

I’ll always be proud. 
I’ll always reassure you if you get nervous.
I’ll always pick you up again if you fall.

This is Fatherhood.

Before this blog existed, we used to post all of our content (and still post the majority of it) on our Instagram account (Go follow us if you don’t already!).

402 posts and 12.4k followers later, we often get asked to about creating a ‘Day in the life’ article or video. I’ve thought about it for a while, but never quite managed to get around to it for one main reason: No two days are ever the same for us.

If you’re here from Instagram, you may or may not notice that I rarely post more than once to our grid per day; occasionally a little more through stories here and there and, depending on whether I’m feeling particularly inspired, I may even throw in a feel reels for good measure.

The point is, those images and videos are such a small snapshot into the many hours we spend together. They’re honest and reflective posts that try to share an insight into how we view the world and our experiences of coparenting, but they’re not all-encompassing.

So here goes… Last Saturday felt about as close to a typical day we could get, so I thought I’d share it.

That said, it was still pretty random.

Time to wake up

“Daddy!”… “Daaaaddy” … “Daaaaaaaaaddy!”…

06:25. Dazed and confused. I stir from my restful slumber to hear my darling child calling me from downstairs. I live in a townhouse and my bedroom is on the top floor, Evie’s bedroom is on the first.

I call back in a croaky voice, “Come upstairs sweetheart, we can have a snuggle and put the tele on”.

Silence for ten seconds or so; it feels like a lifetime.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddy! Come and get me!”.

The morning pilgrimage from my bed, down the stairs and into Evie’s room, just so she can clamber clumsily onto me, blanket in one hand me, drink in the other, ready to make the return trip.

Evie’s getting heavy; especially when my body is still half-asleep.

We set up base in my bed and have a cuddle and stick the TV on. I’ll usually try to steal a few extra winks, although I never get to more than four, let alone forty.

Breakfast

After we’ve relaxed in bed until what I consider a suitable time for breakfast (usually between 07:00 and 07:30), I’ll take Evie’s breakfast order.

You see, Hotel Daddy is a five star destination and, though I swore I’d never do it, Evie has somehow enrolled in the all-inclusive room service scheme.

Once I’ve taken the order, I’ll pop downstairs and get Evie her usual:

• Toast with a smattering of peanut butter or jam
• A children’s multi-vitamin sweet
• An ensemble of blueberries and diligently halved grapes
• An Innocent smoothie

This girl knows how to live.

I have a coffee.

Service is delivered on a highly masculine lap tray…Pink with unicorns, naturally.

Don’t judge me.

Digital Games

Evie really loves playing games on her iPad recently, she’s just gotten to an age that she can actually do it, which is really nice to watch.

People often talk about devices as the devil, but I believe if moderated and managed carefully, they’re an engaging way to teach your children how to solve problems.

Within half an hour we’d made ice cream, created pies, raced horses, collected Lego coins, given Barbie a makeover and tended to our dragon.

As a kid, some of my favourite memories with my Dad and two brothers were spent playing Mario Kart 64 or Goldeneye on the N64.

We joked, we strategised, we commanded, we conquered.

I appreciate this time with Evie because it’s a great opportunity to develop the way we communicate too.

The game itself doesn’t really matter. The important factor here is having a shared goal and talking together as we achieve it.

Evie and I giggled for ages today whilst she put chocolate icing on a cake that look remarkably like human excrement.

‘Poo pie’ was born.

Those little moments are the best (Why do children find ‘poo’ so hilarious?!).

Playroom fun

After I whizzed upstairs for a quick shower, we went to the playroom and lined up all of her Lego sets on the floor.

Promptly after setting them out all nicely, Evie changed her mind about playing with them and we started playing Mums and Dads instead.

…I then moved all of the Lego sets into the bathroom so we didn’t trip on them – such is the life of a parent.

Evie really shone as ‘Mummy’, though my role as ’Daddy’ felt a little type-cast if I’m honest. Nonetheless, I soldiered on, took my baby and put her in the trolly and took her to the play shop.

Evie embraced a duality of roles, opting to play as both Mummy in the play kitchen cooking dinner and shopkeeper.

I loaded the trolly with a lovely selection of wooden fruits and vegetables and went to pay. I was told sharply that I didn’t have enough food and that I needed to buy more (by either Mummy or the shopkeeper at this stage, it wasn’t clear).

I felt conflicted at this point as depending on the character, the behaviour was either highly believable maternal behaviour or wildly unacceptable customer service.

Nonetheless, we continued and, after our shopping trip, it was time for ‘the party’.

Evie, dolly and I played ‘Shut up and dance with me’ by Walk the Moon and danced in the playroom, across the landing and into Evie’s bedroom until the party ended…approximately three renditions of the song later.

McDonalds

As has become our alternating weekend custom since the pandemic struck, we hopped in the car and headed to McDonalds.

We always go through the “Drive Thru” (So American huh?), and Evie always has a chicken nugget Happy Meal. I grab something and then we drive around the corner and park up in the local retail park.

At this point, we usually wedge the iPad in the open glove box lid and watch Netflix together whilst we eat. Again, something I would have told you would never happen in a million years when I was a parent, but look…here we are.

Today we watched Ben and Holly.

It was also glorious.

Supermarket

As it was Mother’s Day yesterday, we decided to whizz to Tescos so we could buy ingredients to make Evie’s Mummy a chocolate cake.

I’m a big believer of making a fuss of your child’s other parent even if you are separated because it’s important they respect and value everything the other parent does for them.

I will be posting about this subject in more depth over the next few days.

Anyway, back to the shopping trip…

When you see people on Instagram, you don’t often see the mundane daily tasks that they have to do, right? It always makes me laugh. How boring Instagram would be if it was an accurate reflection of actual life instead of a carefully curated portfolio of amateur photography.

We find we what need in and amongst the chaos.

Evie loves to push the trolley. Fast.

Today she only rams one person and has three near misses.

Progress.

Cake Making

We make a chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream and just about every type of sprinkle you can think of.

Although I help Evie when she needs me to, I very much just give her instructions and leave her to it.

The kitchen is an absolute wreck by the time we’re finished and the cake decoration is, erm, very good for a four year old.

Eating Hail Stones

OK look, if you speak to most people I know, they’d tell you that I’m fairly impulsive in my decision-making.

It starts hammering down with hail so I do what seems like the obvious thing to do…

Open the patio doors, hold out my hand and catch some hail stones.

We eat them.

Evie finds this really funny, which of course…I find really funny.

We step up our game by sticking our open-mouthed faces out of the patio doors and trying to catch them on our tongues.

Yeah, I don’t know why we did it either, but it was fun.

Clothing Alterations

Shortly after we sample the sky’s finest falling balls of ice, Evie notices that she has a little hole near her shin on her pink tights.

I grab the hole and rip it to make it even bigger.

Evie stares at me, eyes wide and jaw on the floor.

“DADDY! You just BROKE my TIGHTS!”, she exclaims.

“Err, I think you’ll find you broke them. I just broke them more”, I reply.

Evie finds this so funny that I think she’s going to have an accident.

It’s amazing the fun you can have with the most innocuous little things. Evie takes her tights off and we precede to cut the feet off of them to make these weird-looking leggings.

Evie puts them back on and then struts around the house in them for a good ten minutes before we eventually lose interest.

The remains of those tights are currently on one of Evie’s dollies; I’ve been instructed to keep them.

Santa’s Sleeping Bag

We have a double sleeping bag from when Rosie and I went camping last summer. You know, after the first lockdown when lockdown rules were partially lifted, but just before the next lockdown where they were reinstated.

Evie absolutely loves this sleeping bag for some reason.

We’re having a chilled five minutes when she decides she wants to get in the sleeping bag and lay on the sofa.

I oblige and help her find the entrance of the bag so she can slide her legs in.

Don’t ask me why, but I decide it would be funny to lift the sleeping bag vertically as close to the ceiling as possible.

Evie sinks to the bottom of it, lost deep in the darkness .

All I hear was Evie’s dirty little giggle as she dangles, suspended ever-so-slightly off the floor. That infectious laugh is a clear sign we’ve found a new game…So we got going.

Before long, the sleeping bag has become Santa’s toy sack and Evie has ‘snuck’ into it.

She hides patiently in there and until I come into the room, pick her up and swing her onto the sofa.

Laughter ensues and we reset.

The game lasts many rounds.

I love random games like that.

Shower Time

Evie has recently decided that she absolutely loves the shower in my en suite. Bath time is no more.

We cart a selection of Evie’s Barbies, an octopus sponge, shampoo, body wash, a fishing rod and a plastic poo upstairs.

The poo is from a game Evie got for Christmas called, ‘Fish for Floaters’.

The premise is fairly self-explanatory, but in case you’re in any doubt,.. You use the fishing rod to catch any floating plastic poo in the water.

Nice.

Evie usually asks for five more minutes at least five more times. Based on my recent post about living a more sustainable life, the length of time Evie spends in the shower will definitely need to be addressed.

She eventually emerges from the shower all red-faced and hot because she’s effectively created a little steam room over the course of the time she’s in there.

We towel her off, get pyjamas on and dry and brush hair.

Barbies

I give Evie another 10 minutes (which inevitably turns into 20) to play with her Barbies in the play room.

Evie often likes to say that Rosie and I are in ‘true love’ and that we’re going to ‘get married’ (A statement she finds hilarious).

Today, for the first time actually, she decided that her bride and groom Barbies would be Rosie and I and the children would be Evie, Tilly and Liza.

We get in our carriage and rode to the KidKraft Dolls House (You can read our detailed review here), where Evie put all of the girls to bed nicely in a bed each.

Daddy was left to sleep on a sofa with a good 40% of his body hanging over the end.

Typical.

Story Time

Reading is an incredibly important part of our routine when Evie is with me. We never skip story time.

Aside from the fact I get far too into telling the stories at bedtime, especially when it’s just me and Evie, I love story time because it’s our opportunity to not only have a cuddle, but to use our imagination and expand our vocabulary.

Well, Evie’s vocabulary (I don’t want to sound like I’ve got a big head, but I knew most of the words already).

I know right? Subtle brag.

Cuddles and TV

After Evie’s brushed her teeth, I usually let Evie watch one episode of something longer and one episode of something shorter as a little bonus.

On this evening, we finish with two episodes of Ben and Holly and two episodes of Hey Duggee (I have a shorter weekend with Evie because she’s going back to her Mum’s for Mother’s Day…so I want to make the most of our time together).

In writing this, I realise just how circular our daily routine is, which in many ways is lovely.

We make lots of time for cuddles and ‘chill out’ time in and amongst the total random madness that fills the rest of the day.

Bedtime

After the sleep negotiations have taken place and I’ve managed to talk Evie down from her stance of, ‘Sleep isn’t fun’, we always have a little chat about the day before sleep.

As she lays in her bed, I’ll usually stroke her hair and we’ll talk about all of the things that happened that day.

I think this five minutes is so crucial because it helps us both to focus in on just how much we did, as well how much we laughed.

This mindful practice of reflecting on the day is something I want to instil in Evie early on, particularly before she reaches her teenage years and life gets all-the-more confusing.

If Evie can take five minutes every day to just process and understand the day that went before, it’ll help her attack the next day with positivity, enthusiasm and appreciation.

I hope.

After our little chat, I give Evie a kiss and a cuddle and Evie scrabbles to think about anything and everything she can possibly ask me to prolong bedtime.

Today she asked me why the roof was on top of the house. I nearly fell for it before realising it was all part of her master plan to extend bedtime.

“Nunite sweetheart, love you.”

The next morning…

“Daaaaaaaaaaddy!”…

I picked Evie up from school today for the first time since before Christmas; based on how our shared timetable works, I hadn’t seen her since last Friday.

Although she seemed happy in and of herself and we had a little trip to buy some sweets, made a den in the living room and sat together and ate dinner, something just seemed a little off with her. 

When I said it was time to get her pyjamas on, Evie folded her arms, frowned at me and burst into tears. She seemed so uncharacteristically cross and upset over something so trivial. 

Of course it’s frustrating when your child is crying or having a tantrum, but fighting fire with fire just makes more flames. 

I’ve mentioned this book before, but ever since I read ‘How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk’ by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, my whole approach has changed. 

Something I try to do a lot more now is just…listen.

Once Evie was ready to talk, I acknowledged how she was feeling and let her tell me more as and when she was ready.

The issue wasn’t PJs at all. 

Evie felt sad this evening because shes didn’t want to go back to school – Not because she doesn’t like learning, but because she missed being at home after three months. She felt sad because she had been ‘waiting such a long time’ to see her Daddy and didn’t want to have to go back to school tomorrow morning. 

Hearing a four year old open up about their feelings is incredibly disarming, not least because it’s easy to ASSUME they’re just playing up because ‘they’re tired’ or ‘grumpy’ (I’m sure it had a part to play, but it wasn’t the root cause).

The big lesson I’ll take away from this evening is that we never give our children enough credit. If I let myself try to do Evie’s thinking for her and dismiss her strop as nothing more than ‘bad behaviour’, I wouldn’t have had that powerful insight into her little mind.

After some lovely cuddles and a little heart-to-heart about how it’s perfectly normal to feel like that, she cheered up and we had a went to bed a happy lady. 

It’s those little moments that mean the most. 

One quick message from me:
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There will never be a greater achievement in my life than my role as a Daddy. Watching my daughter enter this world and holding her tight against my chest moments later is something remember for the rest of my life – the moment I learned what true love was.

Today is International Women’s Day; a day that serves as a powerful reminder of not only how far women have come in the journey towards equality but, more importantly, how far society has to go.

It’s easy as a man to think we’ve addressed a lot of the issues and flaws in society, it’s part of the male-privilege challenge we need to overcome…but since having a daughter I see everything from entirely new perspective.

As my little girl grows up, I want her to experience a safe world that empowers her to be the person she wants to be and recognises her achievements fairly.

Although though the gender pay gap is closing, it still exists. Up until COVID-19 struck, women earned 83p for every £1 men were paid.

(Companies haven’t had to report on these figures since, so this could well have worsened.)

Although male-perpetuated sexual violence is becoming increasingly talked about and addressed since the rise of the #MeToo Movement, sadly it still exists. 1 in 3 women have been a victim of either an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

That’s beyond scary.

As humans, it’s time for us to work together and acknowledge the problem.

As men, we need to take a stand and wake up to the systemic flaws in the system and work harder to do our part to create a fairer world.

As fathers, we need to do everything we can to lead by example and help our daughters to believe in themselves and what they’re truly capable of.

On International Women’s Day, and every other day for that matter, I want my daughter to live the life she wants to live with all the same opportunities her male counterparts would have had.

It’s been my mission since Evie was a baby to raise a strong daughter; somebody who is smart, self-assured and proud of their own mind.

I’ll always be my little girl’s number one fan and will protect her at every chance I get, though if we get it right as a society, she won’t ever need me to.

We love what the good people over at Family Action do and we were featured in a guest post just before Christmas last year (You can see the article here).

As lockdown CONTINUES with seemingly no end in sight, they kindly reached out and asked us to share our perspective on what life is like as we try to establish the beginnings of our new ‘blended family between two households.

I loved writing this one because it gave us a platform to share some of things we’ve learned.

You can read it here!

Nobody’s perfect. It doesn’t matter how hard you try; you’re probably going to get it wrong sometimes. ⁣⁣⁣

If you’re anything like me, you’ll second guess yourself when you see how other people choose to bring up their children too. ⁣⁣⁣

Let’s stop just a minute. If you remember one thing today about good parenting, it’s that you can only try your best. ⁣⁣⁣

⁣⁣I try to stick to some rules when it comes to bringing up Evie. 

Full disclosure: I haven’t always been good at these, it’s taken a lot of practice and I’m STILL learning every day.

⁣⁣⁣Parenting is a journey, and using these rules is great for setting limits and making sure I can be the best possible role model for my little lady.

Read some of our most popular posts here:

– Low budget activities for kids: Cardboard laptop
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– In-Depth Review: KidKraft Majestic Mansion Dolls House

Be patient; they’re just testing boundaries⁣⁣⁣

I wanted to start with this one because trust me, if there’s one thing you’re going to need as a parent of young children, it’s patience! 

Most parents find that their darling little bundles of joys are incredibly skilful when it comes to testing your patience. Your child is growing and learning about the world around them. 

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that your little one just doesn’t quite understand how to interact with the world around them, so what you think is bad behaviour could be their little way of learning what is acceptable and what isn’t.  

I’ve certainly learned that in order to get good behaviour out of Evie, I need to be patient – very patient. 

The more patient I’ve been in terms of my parenting style, the better Evie responds to me. 

Struggling to be patient? Read this great article from EmpoweringParents.com.  

Use positive and supportive language⁣⁣⁣

When it comes to discipline, finding a balance can be tough. We all want to be relaxed parents, but after a stressful day, that all-important patience can start to dwindle. 

Using negative language, phrases like “Don’t do this”, “Stop doing that” can actually have a negative impact on your child’s behaviour too. 

In this great article from Parenting from the Heart Blog, Alana talks about how you can swap some common negative language for more positive ones: 

What I like about this approach, and try to take with Evie, is that you shift your focus toward teaching your child how they should behave, rather than chastising them for how they shouldn’t. 

Be tirelessly enthusiastic⁣⁣⁣

I’ve never been a big believer in speaking to your children in a different way to how you would speak to an adult. I’m never going to be one of those dads who speaks to his children in baby voices or uses silly words for things; it doesn’t help your child learn. 

With that in mind, something I will always do is show boundless enthusiasm towards Evie. It doesn’t matter what she’s telling me, I’ll always consciously make an effort to sound as interested and excited as possible, irrespective of the day I’ve had or how stressed I’m feeling. 

There’s a reason for that…

To me, good parenting skills come from the ability to build a great relationship with your child. I often see parents when we’re out on days out barking orders at their kids or only half listening and I imagine how that parent would feel if the same thing happened to them at work or when they’re talking to their friends. 

Single parenthood has really helped me to hone that skill. Since our traditional family life came to an end, it’s helped me to appreciate and cherish the time more than ever because I understand that our time together is always on a countdown until I have to take Evie back to her mum’s. 

Taking a step back even further, our children grow up so fast. The bottom line is that they won’t be little forever. As they grow older, they’re going to face more complex and challenging issues with school, relationships and work. 

I want Evie to be able to always come to me and know that  I’ll be enthusiastic and interested.

Listen, don’t lecture⁣⁣⁣

By the time most of us come to having children, we’re lucky enough to have been on this earth rather a few years. I’ve now had almost 32 of them and in that time I’ve made many, many mistakes that have helped me to become the person I am today. 

We have to be able to allow our children to do the same. If Evie is anything like me, which she certainly is this far, all that’ll happen if I was to slip into ‘naggy parent’ mode is that she’d push back and do exactly the opposite of what I’d told her to. 

Children need to be able to learn and, even if there are behaviour problems, they need to be able to express their feelings so that you can guide them supportively rather than dictate.

Be consistent ⁣⁣⁣

There are very few aspects of life in general in that don’t benefit from consistency. Whether it’s training at the gym, performing at work, keeping in touch with friends – You name it, people just like reliability. 

I harp on about consistency all the time when it comes to parenting because nothing is more crucial when young people are learning the boundaries than knowing what the expected outcome is. 

For example, imagine if day to day you’re nice and calm when your little one decides they don’t want to eat their dinner, but one day you’re in a bad mood and lose your temper, they won’t understand. 

Likewise, if you have rules in place at home and you sometimes relent on them, they’ll always try their luck. A good example of this might be bedtime – If your child cries when you put them down to bed one night and you go to get them, they will no doubt try it again another night to get the same response…just in case. 

Shower them with love ⁣⁣⁣

As parents, we all want our children to feel as safe, secure and loved as possible, right? Having a solid foundation helps to instil a sense of confidence in our children, as well as a feeling of self-belief. 

I don’t know about you, but I certainly love to feel loved and I want Evie to feel that too. 

There are so many ways you can show your child some love, but I think this great article explains it far better than I can. 

Create clear rules and expectations⁣

I covered this a little earlier when I talked about the importance of consistency. Setting very clear rules and boundaries is crucial if you want to help your child develop into a well-rounded little human. 

Very often you’ll see parents swerve on a pendulum between either trying to be their child’s best friend or being the military disciplinarian. We’re all guilty of making mistakes on that front – I certainly have. 

You can look at rule setting in terms of 5 Cs: Clarity, consistency, communication, caring and creation. 

You can read this great article from Psych Central for more detail here, but in summary: 

Clarity
Being clear when you set rules, limits and boundaries for your children

Consistency
As we talked about earlier, being predictable in your response so your child knows what to expect

Communication
Talk about the reason why certain rules are in place to help them to understand

Caring
Use positive language and reinforcement to encourage good behaviours

Creation:
Encourage your child to feel that they have a responsibility for their own behaviour

Don’t take things personally ⁣⁣⁣

Trust me, there will be times when your child is downright brutal. Don’t take it to heart, they just haven’t learned how to filter out their thoughts yet. 

As they grow, it’s our job to teach them the social skills to be able to realise that saying, “You look really fat today” probably isn’t a good idea in the long run.

Show rather than tell ⁣⁣⁣

Effective parenting is about demonstrating how to behave, rather than telling. One of the greatest gifts for me about raising a child is getting to be the person who teaches Evie how the world around her works by spending time with her. 

There’s a great quote by John C. Maxwell that says, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way”. 

As a parent, it’s time you take the lead.

Celebrate effort, not just success⁣⁣⁣

In life, we’re not always going to win. To be honest, that’s not even the important part – The effort is what counts. Fear of failure is something we learn as we get older and become more mindful of silly feelings like embarrassment or pride. 

The beautiful thing about children is that they don’t have any of those problems because they haven’t learned them yet. 

If they fall, they get back up and try again and if they make a mistake, they move on. 

I believe that embracing and learning from mistakes is the secret sauce to success in everything you do. 

Nothing is more damaging to a person than holding on to the past, dwelling on mistakes and being bitter about what should have happened. 

I believe in encouraging children to embrace their mistakes and move on. It teaches them resilience, which is great for their mental health.

⁣Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post! If you think I missed anything, drop a comment below and let me know! 

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