Partners In Parenting: How To Parent As A Team
When you bring your sweet newborn baby home from the hospital, so much changes, including your sleep. The feedings, night wakes, house chores, and everything in between can often leave mom feeling depleted, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Sometimes, dad doesn’t know how he can help and be a supportive partner during this transition.
Raising children as a team is about working together, greeting on a shared approach to parenting and household responsibilities, making decisions together, and supporting each other. This blog post is going to give you tools and ideas on how you can work together and take on this phase of life as a team. I’m here for you!
Tackling Feedings & Night Wakes Together
First, let’s talk about feedings and night wakings. Newborn babies will need to feed at least every 2-3 hours in the middle of the night - some babies feed more. It’s an adjustment for any new parent and much better to handle if you are doing it as a team. Sleep deprivation of new parents is linked directly to postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety. That’s where these ideas can be so helpful not only for Mom to get more rest, but for the mental state and well-being of the entire family unit.
If mom is breastfeeding, Dad may feel a little bit helpless or clueless about what he can do to pitch in and help mom and baby. First, remember that nobody can read you mind, and it’s necessary for both of you to vocalize your needs.
Here are some things that Dad can do to help with feedings.
BOTTLE FED | If the baby is bottle fed, parents can take on night shifts so Dad can do some of the middle of the night feedings. For example, maybe Mom takes on the 9pm - 2am shift and Dad takes on the 2am - 7am shift. This will ensure that each parent is getting some quality rest every night.
BREASTFED | If the baby is breastfeeding, Dad can still help with night feeds. He can change the diaper, bring the baby directly to Mom for feeding, burp the baby, and put the baby back to sleep. Not only is this helpful to Mom, but the partners will develop a deeper sense of teamwork by doing this together.
Try These Ideas to Parent Together
If Mom is handling many of the night wakings, Dad could wake early with the baby to let mom sleep in. He could also take the kids out of the house on an outing during the weekend to let Mom take a nap. It’s all about learning what will work best for your family, and it is important that both partners feel good about the arrangement.
Beyond helping in the middle of the night, it’s going to be important that each parent feels they have time for self care.
Let her take a bath or a shower (uninterrupted) and allow her to take as long as she would like.
Ensure that Mom eats enough, which helps with milk production, and make her snacks and meals.
Many new parents will doubt themselves and wonder if they are doing anything right. Encourage each other through saying things like “You’re a great Dad. Thanks for all your help.” or “I’m so proud of you. You’re an incredible Mom to our baby.”
Dividing Household Responsibilities
When you first bring home a new baby, you will find that completing household tasks and chores like cooking dinner becomes much harder! In families where one partner manages most of the household tasks before the baby arrives, this may no longer be sustainable.
The book Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) and matching card deck is a phenomenal tool to help partners divide and communicate about household responsibilities in advance.
The adaptable card deck will help you balance the work needed to keep your household humming. Here’s how it works:
Sit with your partner for an hour when you're relaxed and feeling good (food and drink help!).
Lay out all the task cards, choose only the ones that apply to your family, and take turns deciding which tasks you'll own completely.
Claim your Unicorn Space cards, which allow you time and space to develop and pursue activities and skills that bring you joy--whether it's learning a new language, playing music, or training for a marathon.
Conclusion
I hope this blog post gives you a direction on how you can work together with your partner to tackle this new transition in your family. I know what it’s like to be a sleep-deprived mom. My second son would wake numerous times each night, and being a breastfed baby, we always resorted to nursing back to sleep. I was depleted. The good news - it doesn’t have to be like this for you.
If you want more information about setting a solid sleep foundation for your newborn, download a copy of my FREE Newborn Sleep Guide here.
Sleep easy,
Yasmin Johnston
Your Pediatric Sleep Consultant
