Former Blockheads and first-time parents Dale and Sophie couldn’t look more in love with their beautiful baby boy if they tried!
New dad Dale Vine is clearly a natural as he tenderly cradles his bundle of joy in his arms. And his lovely wife Sophie is glowing as she gazes at their little blessing – adorable 3-week-old baby Van.
“It really was love at first sight,” Sophie, 28, says of the moment Van arrived. “I just burst into tears… it was such an emotional time for us!”
When little Van Vine gives out a tiny cry, doting dad Dale, 33, scoops him up, looking like he’s been a dad forever already.
“I swear Dale wishes he could breastfeed and then he could do everything,” jokes Sophie.
As he blows raspberries on Van’s tummy and cheeks, a sheepish Dale reveals: “I don’t cry much, but I did cry when he came out.”
Dale continued: “It was as if he’d been with us for years. I tried to say something but I couldn’t get the words out.
“I just wanted to tell him how much I loved him and that he was perfect, but it came out as a blubbering mess!”
Their little man couldn’t have come at a better time, arriving like an early Christmas gift on December 19.
When it came to the delivery room Dale says: “Soph was such a trooper. She did it all naturally, right up to the end when she requested pain relief but it wasn’t ideal timing. She’d pretty much given birth without it by then.”
As the settle into the new experience of parenthood, Sophie’s late-night feeds are made a little easier with help from Dale, who credits their time together on The Block in 2012 for his parenting skills.
He says the hours they kept on the show were “pretty similar to this but it’s harder getting up every couple of hours and having a bit of sleep and doing it again rather than working all through the night”.
So can we expect a brother or sister for Van in the future?
“Soph would definitely like to have a bit of a clan – a few in the litter – but I’m happy with anything in between what we’ve got now… and four!”
See all the adorable pictures of baby Van and his stylishly designed new nursery only in Woman’s Day – on sale January 12th.
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