If you are not a single mom by conviction, but there are two of you, taken a conscious decision to have a baby – the duties and responsibilities should be defined and the preferences – expressed.
Also, you’d have to discuss – what particular changes have happened within your personalities and attitude to each other. It often happens so, that the mother, expecting her baby for 9 months, wouldn’t let the father close to participating in taking care of the baby. “The father can be anything, but the mother”, they say.
But the task of the woman in order not to ruin the relationship of the man and wife after the birth of the child (a stressful event for the woman’s body and soul) is to share what she thinks is typically her role in a family and give a fine half of those joys and sorrows to the husband.
Many families encounter a problem when the wife, stepping in a new role of the mother – becomes the mother to her husband as well. BUT THE MAN IN THE FAMILY NEEDS TO BE RECOGNISED AS AN ADULT! Undertaking the role of the elder baby, the man starts to experience true childish jealousy of the smaller child.
“The mother pays him too much attention; she is willing to satisfy all the needs of the smaller ones. She buys him toys, she kisses and hugs him all the time. What about me? I was the first one, and she was totally mine.”
To avoid such a situation, you’d have to keep up with the role of husband and wife and there are tips that will help you to go through the first year of parenting without major loss of the nerve cells.
The man has the same right to hold the baby, take night shifts to the baby, show affection to the baby the baby is also his, not the mother’s only.
The man has the right to take decisions – the schedule of the child, nutrition, bathing procedures. As long as it doesn’t contradict common sense – the father can take his own, independent decisions, whenever the mother is not available.
The father should understand that what the woman has survived, going through childbirth – is a huge challenge for the body and mind and has to perform the whole assistance during the first two months, providing all the necessary to help his wife to restore not only physically, but also mentally.
Get informed. You both have to get new practical and theoretical information on the new status you have acquired and the information about the baby itself.
Do not let your closest relatives interfere in your family with their annoying tip on how to bring up the baby: it is totally on you, and the memories of your mother may be different from the present reality! Old-school parenting dealt with the other environment and you have to consider your own opinion. Luckily, with the era of information you have a chance to get competent, reliable answers to most of your questions on parenting.
Treat each other as equals – the wife doesn’t know more than the husband. And the husband, being cool-headed, may be of help in a difficult situation, like colic or teething in baby, when the wife is losing patience, trying to calm the baby down.
Give your wife at least one day a week for having her things done, mind her business and even be alone. If she’s breastfeeding – consider pumping and provide her with the feeling that there’s nothing bad that may actually happen, while she’s absent. You are the father!
The new parents must be interchangeable in bringing the baby up. Not said, you have to deny the male and the female features, but staying close and equal, considering the interests of each other in the new circumstances will lead to the development of a healthy relationship in the family, where the spouses should stay lovers, who share the joys and sorrows. And only this attitude may let you avoid the situation, where the abandoned, deprived of the duties man becomes the elder child in the family. This also leads to the mal-perception of sexual roles.
The man, who does not become a guarantee of security, the provider and the protector, no longer attracts the woman. Even though she might mean not so obvious things under protection. Protection is also the recognition of the woman in the role of the mother in front of the elder members of the family and friends. The Man should build up a castle, where his wife is a princess. But never let a dragon inside.
The first year of parenting – is the hardest. It is a routine, where everybody may get tired – the father at work, the mother – at home. Set yourself happy hours: twice a week go out together. Once – with a baby and once as a couple, leaving your baby with someone you highly trust. The baby is not where your life ends and that one of the babies begins. Wish you luck and joy of parenting.
Born in Belarus, 1985, a pedagogue and family psychologist, mother. Taking part in procedures of social adaptation of the foster children in new families. Since 2015 is a chief editor of the motherhow.com project, selecting the best and up-to-date material for those, who are planning, expecting, and already having babies.