I worried about a lot of things when I was pregnant. Would I have everything in my bag I needed? Did I have enough energy drinks and snacks? How on earth was the baby going to come out me? I also spent hours researching car seats looking for the safest one, but never once thought about my husband having to drive home potentially exhausted.
Britax asked 1000 Dads about their journey home and found 1 quarter couldn’t remember it, and 1 in 10 drove home after an hour or less of sleep.
Thinking back, we were quite lucky. Z was born at 530pm, my husband left the hospital at 9pm by himself, but at this point he had probably slept less than 7 hours in two nights and had a very draining day. I never even thought to tell him to get some coffee.
S was born at 11pm and we left the hospital at just after 2am, but in that time my hubby had been home and returned ( 20 minutes each way ) as we didn’t take the car seat ( we thought it was a false alarm ). He must have been pretty tired and very hungry as we hadn’t eaten. I remember getting home and him eating an Indian takeaway that we were supposed to have had with friends that evening and they had ordered anyway whilst babysitting Z.
H was a different story, she was born at home at 7am, no driving necessary.
How did you get home? and was the driver actually safe to drive you?
I have written this post because I found the research interesting, although I did review a Britax car seat recently.
luckily all of ours were born within daylight hours (around 9am,1pm & 6pm) so Matt had managed a full night’s sleep the night before…with S&H he never had to drive anywhere though as he stayed in the hospital with me for 2 nights, managing to get himself plenty of sleep in the reclining chair!
You were lucky, although so was I really, if I forget that I’d been in labour with Z for 3 days!!!!!
Our first son was born at 6.30pm after a 28 hour labour. Hubby came to the hospital early morning after a restless night. He left at about 8pm that night and had left a note to himself to wear his seatbelt as the compulsory seatbelt law came into force a couple of days before!
Child seats weren’t really popular in these days but we were determined to have one fitted. So the one and only time our first son went in a car without being straped in was his journey home from hospital. He was placed in his carry cot on the back seat.
Our second son was born early afternoon after a 12 hour labour so hubby had been up all night but made it safely home. L was put in a baby seat that we had fitted a day before he was born.
Its hard to believe how car seat laws have changed, isn’t it?
we dont have a car so after both of my births my mother in law drove us home
Probably the best idea!
Oooh, actually I think it was probably not good for Actually Daddy as he left hospital after an all nighter at around 8.30am. He had a lovely 3 days after that though, sleeping, shopping….