Becoming a parent isn’t easy
Firstly you have to think about how your life will be affected. It will alter the way you see yourself, how you spend time with your friends and family, your professional life and perhaps most significantly, your relationship with your partner.
Though some men care full-time for their children, mostly it’s the women who take time off. This means they have a more dramatic change of lifestyle and it rarely comes without feelings of self-doubt. She may ask herself: can I be a good enough mother? Will my body ever feel normal again? How do I feel about being dependent on my partner? Can I protect my baby from the dangers of the world? Will I ever have a life of my own again?
Talk anxieties through
If you’re experiencing this kind of insecurity, rest assured that it’s perfectly normal. Talking anxieties through with a friend, another mother, or with a counselor can help you to realize you’re not alone and everything will be okay.
Men have their anxieties too. Often they wonder: can I be a good enough father? How can I work full-time, help my partner, be with my child and still have time for me? What if I lose my job? My partner is so absorbed with the baby; will we ever be a normal couple again?
Again, these fears are perfectly natural and the more the two of you can discuss them, the easier it will be for you both to feel reassured.
Sacrifices
Inevitably, becoming a parent means making sacrifices. One or both of you may be making significant changes to your work pattern. For most couples, a baby is expensive and the need to earn an income can feel more of a necessity than ever before. The extra cost may mean that you have less money to spend on the little luxuries that both of you enjoyed. One of the biggest losses for most new parents is time.
Look after yourself!
As individuals you need to take responsibility for and look after your own needs. That means you need to pay attention to your health by ensuring that you still eat properly and exercise regularly. And you need to look after your emotional needs as well. That will mean different things to different people, but it will almost certainly include making time to relax, even if it’s just half an hour in the bath, visiting friends or simply talking on the telephone. Most couples manage to negotiate at least one evening a fortnight when they can do their own thing. If that’s difficult for you, then you should try to enlist the support of friends or family or a local babysitting circle. For potential babysitting resources, see below.
Making time to be a couple
This can be very difficult and you will need to be more flexible and more creative than ever before. All your time together will really count so it’s important that you grab that time to keep in touch with each other physically and emotionally.
For most new parents, resuming a regular sex life can seem impossible. On top of the lack of time and the general exhaustion that caring for the needs of a newborn 24/7 brings, there are also biological reasons why the sex drive is reduced. For the first few months, a woman’s hormones are pre-programmed for feeding and nurturing, not for making more babies. In fact, 80% of new mothers report lowered desire in the first months. The most important thing you need to remember during this time is to keep touching and showing physical affection, even if it doesn’t ‘go all the way’ for a while.
It can be difficult to keep the lines of communication open when the baby's crying and you’re both exhausted. But it’s the most important thing you can do to stop any minor issues becoming major problems. If you can, try to find at least one hour a week when you can talk through how things are going.