Becoming a parent is a massive upheaval in life. An adventure of an upheaval, of course it is, but still a huge life change. For the most part, this life change is focussed on us women. This makes sense of course, as it’s us that carry the baby for nine months, are often the ones that give up work and have to deal with making peace with our post-pregnancy bodies. But what about Dads? It’s also a massive upheaval for Dads too, and this can result in more life changes than are immediately obvious. For Mr Lighty, in particular, it has meant a new routine of having to pick Baby Lighty up from the childminders on the days that I work and be the parent in charge when I’m working from home. It’s meant totally nailing the bedtime routine. And it’s meant having to find his Dad style.

In many ways, Mr and Mrs Lighty are absolutely on the same page when it comes to parenting (phew!), with a few inevitable clashes along the way. But actually, when I say Dad style, I don’t just mean how we go about parenting Baby Lighty. I literally mean, Mr Lighty’s Dad style. Choosing clothes that let him run around after a toddler, but also feeling comfortable in his own skin and not just feeling like he’s just a Dad and solely a Dad.

I think it’s safe to say that in the past two and almost a half years, Baby Lighty has been our sole focus. And rightly so. But this has meant that at times, we’ve lost our way when it comes to the likes of healthy eating, exercising, and just generally looking after ourselves. When we were trying, and failing, to make Baby Lighty, we were so good at eating well. Spinach, nuts, plenty of fruit and veg; we really did try our hardest to make sure our bodies were at their best, ready to make a new little person. But then our goal was realised, and Baby Lighty arrived, and all of sudden we were grabbing meals on the go, learning how to eat things one handed with a crying baby in the other hand and generally putting Baby Lighty first and our needs second.

Things got a little better when we started to wean Baby Lighty, because we wanted him to eat well, but it’s only really been in the past couple of months that Mr Lighty and I have recognised that we ought to look after ourselves a little better. I was so pleased therefore when Mr Lighty recently took up running again. He used to be good at making sure he went for a run regularly, but as with so many other things when we become a parent, this has fallen by the wayside. But, little by little, I hope that we’ll change this. Mr Lighty has started running regularly again, and talking about dusting his bike down. We’ve also started trying to eat more healthily, buying healthy eating cookbooks and cutting down on sugar. Mrs Lighty has even – gulp! – cut sugar out of her tea!

Of course, along with looking after ourselves from the inside, a little boost that we can give ourselves is the clothes that we wear on the outside. We were recently lucky enough to have been sent some clothes from Jacamo for Mr Lighty to try out. Like many of us, as he’s got older, Mr Lighty is much more about the comfort, but he also wants to have a touch of style too. I think it’s safe to say that he got this with the clothes he was sent! Lovely dark navy blue polo shirts – which always look smarter than t-shirts – and a matching navy Harrington style jacket.

Mr Lighty often wants a smart polo shirt for those times that don’t quite warrant a shirt but need to be smarter than a t-shirt, and these really fit the bill. They fit well, and the first thing he said was that they were super comfy too. Important when you’re the Dad of a toddler, of course!

He’s always struggled with finding jackets which are practical, fashionable and comfortable at the same time, and yet in this jacket we’ve found exactly that. Perfect for the warmer autumn days we’ve been having of late, especially when we’re out and about with Baby Lighty! Of all the clothes, he said that he felt that he could go out and feel confident about what he was wearing, but also know that they were comfortable enough for every day Dad duties.

So maybe we’re finding our feet with our parenting style. Maybe we’re still trying to find our way when it comes to looking after ourselves as parents a bit better. But at least if we can find clothes that make us feel better about ourselves, when it comes to finding our Mum and Dad style, that’s half the battle won!

Disclaimer: please note, we were sent these items of clothing in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are our own.

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