In todays episode I am speaking to Mat, who is our first father on the podcast to Bowie, 3 and River 1. As mat reminds us, it is both flamingos that loose their pink during the early days of postpartum and is why i wanted this space to be about, and for, both mums and dads.  Following a homebirth with their first child they had a very slow and cosy early postpartum experience which Mat largely puts down to it being lockdown so they really nested and hunkered down and it helped to really enforce that all important rest. In the early days Mat talks about the difficulties of being a father when most babies are in the 4th trimester and only really want their mum. Going back to work for Mat was tough and he took holiday days to go back on a 4 day week and we talk about the inevitable and necessary element of work but how it is an ongoing conflict of being there earning money Vs being around to help with the family. While Mat admires and is inspired by those couples who truly co-parent, while this is not a reality for him at the moment he is constantly trying to do his part to feel like he is as close to that as possible and what that looks like for everyone is different but we talk about doing the night shifts as dads. We talk about making new friends or dad freinds and how that can be quite tricky if the father is the one to go back to work  Mat talks about how for postpartum 2.0 the main challenge was how to navigate both having special time with the newborn when there is an older sibling who needs lots of attention but also how to have special time with an older sibling when there is a newborn requiring all of their attention too.  It was reading Matresence by Lucy Jones - that Mat gained a deeper understanding of a mothers expereince and it has also given him and his wife Ellie an amazing channel of communication and a common language for their shared experience and he recommeneds this read to all fathers out there.