Bringing Baby Home: Maintaining a Strong Relationship in the Transition to Parenthood
December 6, 2022 By Kaitlin Moore, LPC
There are few things in life that will bring out the intense and varied emotions elicited by bringing home a baby! Fear, excitement, overwhelm, joy, sadness, isolation, contentment, and even jealousy are just a few of the many (often intense) emotions that new parents may experience. In the midst of this emotional roller coaster, research shows one of the best things you can do for yourself, and for your baby, is to maintain a strong relationship with your partner. Below are ten evidence-based strategies for maintaining a strong bond and building a solid foundation in those early days of parenthood:
1. Prioritize Effective Communication
There is a near-perfect correlation between relationship satisfaction and communication quality in a relationship. This means that one of the most important things you can do for your relationship is to practice and maintain effective communication habits. A critical first step in healthy communication is making sure that you understand what type of conversation your partner is trying to have when they come to you looking to talk about something; are they looking for instrumental support (e.g., help doing something or solving a problem) or emotional support (e.g., validation of their emotions and a space to process their thoughts and feelings)? Many important conversations in intimate relationships involve sharing thoughts and feelings about vulnerable topics, so responding with problem-solving can cause mutual frustration and may make your partner feel criticized. If you are looking to be more effective with emotionally-supportive conversations, a quick trick is to ensure you can articulate back to your partner what you just heard them say, and validate any feelings they have expressed, before checking whether they would like any instrumental support (e.g., “That sounds like a really stressful situation… I totally understand why you were feeling anxious after that meeting! Is there anything I can do to help?”).
2. Talk to Each Other Daily (And Not Just About the Baby)
Studies show parental talk time on non-logistical issues decreases dramatically after the birth of a child. Take time to share your world with your partner and to understand theirs. This can look like asking everyday questions, such as what they are working on, or have a stress-reducing, supportive conversation around the baby’s meltdown in the grocery store. In addition, finding ways to remind your partner of the things you admire about them, even (and especially if) they are small things. In this busy season of your life, let your partner know that you still notice them.
3. Turn Towards Each Other
Renowned relationship researchers John and Julie Gottman have studied how partners respond to social ‘bids’ from their significant others, and the implications for relational happiness. A social bid is simply any attempt to connect with your partner, and may be met with one of three responses: turning away (ignoring), turning against (lashing out/criticizing), or turning towards (giving attention/reciprocating). The Gottmans found that those with the happiest relationships turn towards their partner about 80% of the time that a social bid is made in the relationship. A bid can be big gesture (e.g., “can we please make up?”), or a small one (e.g., “whoa, that bird is huge!”). Paying attention to how your partner reaches out to you and responding in kind can help to make your partner feel seen and important.
4. Maintain a Friendship
Oftentimes, when you begin dating, it is easy to want to know everything about your partner – you stay up late asking question after question and feel insatiably eager to know everything about this person. As relationships become more seasoned, it is common to assume that we know everything there is to know about our partners, and so we often forget to continue asking questions. Then, when a baby comes home, it can be even harder to find the energy to maintain curiosity about our partners. This time of baby bonding, however, is the perfect time to use the new shared experience of parenthood to ask your partner questions! For example, you may want to look for opportunities to ask your partner questions about their childhood, the way they were parented, their feelings about becoming a parent, what small wins have been most meaningful to them since bringing baby home, their hopes and fears in this new phase, and their visions for the future. As one of my colleague’s mentors used to say to newlywed couples, “if you are in a committed relationship, you have committed to relate to one another on a sustained basis.” Long-term friendships at the heart of long-term relationships recognize that people change over time, and growing together takes a committed effort to understand your partner’s evolving identity, needs, and preferences. Keeping a friendship alive will mean that you both know you still have someone in your corner, and will make those late nights feel a little less daunting.
5. Keep Dating (Creatively)
Date nights have just become more difficult to pull off, and it is time to get creative. How you choose to do this will take some communication and negotiation. Some parents will be comfortable leaving a baby with family or close friends very early on, others will not. Take time to understand where both you and your partner are on this spectrum, and begin to set intentional and appropriate dates that work for you both. These dates may also look a little different, and that’s just fine. A date can happen during the daytime (meet for coffee or lunch) or at home with a romantic dinner on a picnic blanket while the baby sleeps. Let your partner know they are a priority by finding ways to spend one-on-one time with them, even when schedules are complicated. If carving out hours feels like a big ask at this point – try to start small. Try to slow down the little moments (a morning kiss, catching eye contact across the room, laughing together, morning snuggles, etc.) and savor your connection when and where you are able!
6. Keep Intimacy
Hormones, the physical trauma of birth, breastfeeding, a changing body, and sleepless nights can all make it challenging to maintain prior levels of physical intimacy after childbirth. What John and Julie Gottman discovered is, while it can take couples up to three years after the birth of a child to return to baseline levels of physical intimacy, parents can still keep their intimacy going by doing two simple things: 1. If your partner is male-identifying, he may have a particular need to know you find him attractive, even if you are not interested in sexual intimacy right now. One man in their research commented, for example, that he could go a long time without sex as long as he knew he was still desired. For a female-identifying partner, having affectionate touch with no expectation of sex can keep the desire for intimacy alive, and make it more likely to reignite in time. Keep in mind these are broad generalities based in intimate partner research. The very best way to know what your partner would like is to ask.
7. Establish Rituals
We all grow up watching the adults around us interact with each other and with us. Through this observation, we develop our own expectations about what is “normal,” and how we wish to be treated in day-to-day interactions. These family-of-origin experiences can influence everything from how we want to greet each other and part from one another, to bedtime rituals, holiday traditions, and how you wish to be cared for when you are sick. Having discussions with your partner about the rituals of connection and care you wish to experience (and listening to your partner’s preferences) can lessen the misunderstandings and minor annoyances that pop up when, say, you want a cheerful good morning kiss and your partner simply wants to shuffle to the coffee machine to feel alive.
8. Dream About Your Future Together
It will be tempting to dream about the days where you aren’t changing a mountain of diapers, but, if you can, take time together to focus on the bigger picture. What are your goals as a family? What values do you want to pass down to your little one? What memories do you want to give your child? Spend time with your partner thinking about what “we” means and develop a plan for what your family will stand for. Not only will this draw the two of you closer together, but it will also help to define a family direction as you grow together.
9. Help Each Other (and not just with chores)
(Re)negotiating housework is an important part of this new journey; however, helping each other extends deeper than who does the dishes. We have all heard of the Golden Rule, to “treat others as you wish to be treated.” The most functional relationships take this one step further, and aim to live by the platinum rule – “treat others as they wish to be treated.” Does your partner need more sleep? Send them for an early bedtime. Do they need some alone time? Take the baby for a cuddle. Do they need more time for hobbies? Encourage their interests and offer to care for the child while they participate. Let them know what types of support would be most meaningful to you as well. Developing meaningful ways of supporting each other in this new phase will help you as individuals and as a unit.
10. Recognize the Importance of BOTH Parents and Define Your Own Roles
Many of us grew up watching fathers play the “buffoon” or the “cold disciplinarian” on television, reinforcing for many that childcare is what women (not men) naturally do right. This stereotype can leave one parent, often the father, feeling left out of the most meaningful and connected elements of raising a child and can leave the other parent (often the mother) feeling overburdened. Media often portrays rigidly gender-stereotyped representations of what it means to be a parent. While researchers have found some general gender-based differences in the roles that parents typically assume – for example, mothers have the tendency to help children develop verbally, while fathers encourage physical growth – these findings are descriptive, not prescriptive, and largely ignore the true spectrum of gender roles and identities that folks have. Furthermore, the research is clear that there is value in ALL of the tasks of parenting.
“Rough and tumble” play (developmentally appropriate “rough housing”) helps children to learn physical boundaries, which in turn allows for better social engagement as children grow. Reading and talking with children supports their language and social-emotional development. Snuggling and other forms of physical contact in early childhood support the development of the hippocampus, which is critical for both memory and self-regulation. Playing fosters the development of creativity, social skills, and executive functioning. Simply put, there are a lot of important roles to play as parents, and both parents (regardless of gender) are important to raising a child. You and your partner are in the best position to decide where your strengths and proclivities lie as parents, and to define the parenting roles and division of labor that makes the most sense for your family. One of the greatest predictors of a child’s emotional ability to connect and regulate is whether their parents maintain a warm and caring household. Your relationship with the child individually, as a unit, and your relationship together have profound impacts on your baby’s growth over time.
What Now?
We hope that these tips offer you some initial strategies for maintaining a strong bond in those precious, bleary-eyed weeks and months after your child is born! If you feel you need more support maintaining your bond through the transition to parenthood, you do not have to wait until you are in distress to see a relationship therapist. Many therapists not only enjoy but encourage couples to come in for “relationship enhancement” work to improve communication or bolster an already happy relationship during times of transition. We welcome you to contact us for more information on this, or to learn more about our Enhancing Parenthood group.
