I didn't think I'd be the kind of dad who had opinions about nappies.

I have opinions about nappies.

I also have opinions about wake windows, the exact right time to start dinner relative to bedtime, and whether that last nappy was a full poo or just a threat.

Nobody warned me about the mental load. Not properly.

I knew there'd be less sleep. I'd mentally prepared for the chaos - the mess, the noise, the complete restructuring of a Saturday. What I didn't prepare for was the invisible spreadsheet. The one that lives in your head and never really closes. Nap times. Nappy changes. When she last actually went. Whether we're nearly out of size threes. What time to start dinner so it lands before the witching hour kicks in.

I took over the weekly shop during pregnancy and I'm still doing it now. At the time I thought: fine, this is my contribution. How hard can it be?

It is hard. Washing powder. Tea bags. The things that aren't weekly weekly but still need to happen or suddenly you've got no milk and no clean clothes and a baby who has opinions about both. I do this every week without complaint. I want that on record.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about becoming a dad: you spend a lot of time feeling like you've cracked it, right before you haven't.

I figured out the sleeper hold. That specific way of holding her - just so - that meant she'd drift off in about four minutes flat. I was quietly smug about it. Didn't say anything obviously, but internally? Very pleased with myself.

Two weeks later she decided she hated it. Just categorically. Done.

That's fatherhood in a nutshell, really. It's like when you finally crack your golf swing, you fix your drive and you think you've won the game. And then she decides she hates it. You're never fully on top of it you're just managing the gap between what you know and what's coming next.

My search history used to tell a very different story.

Pre-baby: Premier League tables. Tee off times. Trainers I was definitely not going to buy.

Now? "How many nappies does a newborn go through." "Can babies have water." "Why does she hate the pram." "Honey age limit baby." "Is that colour normal."

And, at 4am on a night I won't forget: "Can I suck out mastitis like snake venom to avoid going to hospital."

I want to be clear - I Googled this in good faith. I was trying to help. The answer, for anyone wondering, is no. You cannot. But I was running on no sleep and pure determination and sometimes that's what love looks like at 4am.

Night one was something else.

My wife had a long labour and then a C-section. By the time we got to the ward, she needed to rest, properly. So there I was. Hour twenty of no sleep. Filling in paperwork. Trying to remember what we'd actually agreed to name her. Trying to make sure my wife had everything she needed while also keeping a tiny new human alive.

Fragile, not breakable. That's what I'd tell myself now, about both of them. They were both going to be alright. I just didn't know that yet.

She's exclusively breastfed, which means there are moments where I'm genuinely a bit redundant. I'll try to settle her and I can feel it - the situation getting worse, not better, because what she wants is her mum and I am very much not that.

You learn to be useful in other ways. You make the coffee. You handle the nappy. You become a human white noise machine at 3am. You Google things at 4am that your pre-baby self would find alarming.

The moments that got me weren't the big ones.

It was when we took her out of the swaddle for the last time. She'd been this tiny little thing, all wrapped up like a flying squirrel and suddenly she was just... bigger. It hit harder than I expected.

First laugh. The first time she really looked at me - not through me, but at me.

I cried. Obviously I cried.

If I could go back to the night before she arrived and say one thing to myself, honestly?

Bring a jumper. I was freezing the entire way through the birth.

But beyond that - fragile, not breakable. For the baby. For your wife. For yourself, too. You're all going to figure this out. It's going to be loud and exhausting and occasionally you'll Google something genuinely deranged at 4am.

But you'll get the sleeper hold down. Even if only for a fortnight.

That counts.

To every dad with an invisible spreadsheet in their head and a search history they can never show anyone.