These Words from My Dad Which Helped Us as a New Parent

"I think I was just in survival mode for a year."

One-time Made In Chelsea personality Ryan Libbey expected to cope with the demands of fatherhood.

But the truth rapidly became "very different" to what he'd imagined.

Serious health problems during the birth resulted in his partner Louise admitted to hospital. All of a sudden he was thrust into acting as her primary caregiver as well as caring for their baby boy Leo.

"I handled every night time, every change… every stroll. The job of both mum and dad," Ryan stated.

After 11 months he became exhausted. That was when a talk with his own dad, on a park bench, that made him realise he needed help.

The straightforward words "You aren't in a healthy space. You require assistance. How can I help you?" created an opening for Ryan to talk openly, look for assistance and regain his footing.

His situation is commonplace, but seldom highlighted. While people is now more comfortable discussing the pressure on mothers and about postpartum depression, far less attention is paid about the challenges new fathers encounter.

Seeking help isn't a weakness to request support'

Ryan believes his struggles are part of a larger inability to communicate amongst men, who continue to absorb harmful notions of masculinity.

Men, he says, frequently believe they must be "the rock that just gets smashed and doesn't fall time and again."

"It isn't a show of weakness to request help. I failed to do that quick enough," he adds.

Clinical psychologist Dr Jill Domoney, a researcher focusing on mental health surrounding childbirth, notes men often don't want to acknowledge they're finding things difficult.

They can feel they are "not a legitimate person to be requesting help" - particularly in front of a mother and child - but she highlights their mental well-being is vitally important to the unit.

Ryan's chat with his dad gave him the chance to request a break - going on a couple of days abroad, away from the domestic setting, to gain perspective.

He came to see he had to make a adjustment to focus on his and his partner's emotions alongside the practical tasks of caring for a infant.

When he shared with Louise, he saw he'd missed "what she longed for" -holding her hand and listening to her.

Self-parenting

That epiphany has changed how Ryan views being a dad.

He's now composing Leo weekly letters about his feelings as a dad, which he aspires his son will look at as he matures.

Ryan hopes these will help his son to better grasp the language of emotional life and make sense of his parenting choices.

The idea of "reparenting" is something rapper and songwriter Professor Green - whose name is Stephen Manderson - has also experienced deeply since fathering his son Slimane, who is now four.

As a child Stephen did not have consistent male parenting. Despite having an "amazing" connection with his dad, profound emotional pain resulted in his father struggled to cope and was "in and out" of his life, complicating their connection.

Stephen says bottling up feelings resulted in him make "terrible actions" when he was younger to change how he was feeling, finding solace in drink and drugs as a way out from the hurt.

"You turn to substances that don't help," he says. "They can temporarily change how you feel, but they will in the end make things worse."

Advice for Coping as a New Dad

• Talk to someone - if you feel overwhelmed, tell a friend, your other half or a professional about your state of mind. It can help to ease the pressure and make you feel less isolated.
• Keep up your interests - keep doing the things that allowed you to feel like the person you were before the baby arrived. This might be playing sport, socialising or gaming.
• Look after the physical stuff - nutritious food, staying active and when you can, getting some sleep, all play a role in how your emotional health is coping.
• Meet other parents in the same boat - sharing their experiences, the difficult parts, and also the good ones, can help to put into perspective how you're experiencing things.
• Understand that asking for help isn't failing - taking care of your own well-being is the most effective way you can support your household.

When his father eventually died by suicide, Stephen understandably struggled to accept the loss, having had no contact with him for many years.

In his current role as a parent, Stephen's committed not to "repeat the pattern" with his boy and instead give the security and nurturing he lacked.

When his son starts to have a outburst, for example, they do "shaking the feelings out" together - expressing the emotions in a healthy way.

Each of Ryan and Stephen explain they have become more balanced, healthier men due to the fact that they acknowledged their issues, changed how they communicate, and taught themselves to control themselves for their children.

"I am now more capable of… sitting with things and dealing with things," states Stephen.

"I wrote that in a letter to Leo last week," Ryan says. "I wrote, sometimes I feel like my job is to teach and advise you how to behave, but actually, it's a two-way conversation. I'm learning an equal amount as you are through this experience."