Read the Instructions

An Excerpt on relationships from Your Baby's Development

Becoming a Family

Traditionally there was a pattern to becoming a family. For previous generations courtship, which may have taken some time, was followed by engagement, marriage, and then couples would begin to have babies. Usually too at this point the woman would stop working and stay at home full-time to bring up the children. Having a baby outside this structure was a matter of deep shame, and most babies born ‘outside wedlock’ were put up for adoption. Couples who faced difficulties in their relationship were encouraged to work through these or even suppress or ignore them; divorce or separation was a much less acceptable solution.

While there is plenty that was wrong with such a scenario, particularly for women who often felt stifled and disempowered by the division of labour in the traditional nuclear family, as far as the children were concerned, there was much to commend it in that children’s physical and mental health, good behaviour and academic achievement all depend on a stable family background.

Nowadays the traditional family structure has changed immensely; the Millennium Cohort Study www.oneplusone.org.uk has found that only 60 percent of people are married when they become parents, 25 percent are cohabitating, and the other 15 per cent are a disparate group some of whom are separated or divorced, others are closely involved, others are ‘just friends’.

Having a baby puts an immense strain on a relationship, so if the couple are still getting to know each other, or are not particularly committed before they have a baby, they are less likely to be together a year after the baby is born (94 percent of married couples will still be together a year after the baby is born, 75 percent of cohabitating couples will still be together, but of those who were only ‘romantically involved’ before the baby arrived, 48 percent will no longer be together). Many couples cannot cope with consolidating their own relationships at the same time as taking on this new role of parent.

While 18-30 percent of couples feel their relationship improves after having a baby, for most of us, becoming parents puts a large strain on the relationship.

Relationships under pressure

Why is your relationship under strain when you have a baby?

Looking after a baby takes a lot of time, which means you have less time for each other.

You then communicate less with each other.

When you don’t communicate, misunderstandings arise.

Tiredness and lack of communication means less sex and less intimacy.

Couples often find themselves forced into traditional divisions of labour and feel resentful about this if this division was not made explicit.

Post-natal depression (mother or father) can impact on a relationship.

A ‘difficult’ baby exacerbates all these problems

The pressure of combining work and childcare adds to modern parents’ burdens, making life a juggling act with every moment accounted for and no time to relax and be together.

Interestingly, the Millennium Cohort Study found that mothers become disenchanted with the relationship during the first year after the baby’s birth, while for the father, disenchantment sets in during the second year of the baby’s life. However, the effect on the father feeling dissatisfied with his partner is that he becomes less involved with the baby, and this can generate a negative spiral in that the less involved he is with the baby the more the mother resents him; he picks up on this and feels even more unhappy with his partner, so he becomes ever more distanced from the baby, and so on.

Even though you will be tired and overworked in your baby’s first year, it is really important that you make time for each other, and that you keep the channels of communication open. Make a pact to regularly tell each other how you feel – it’s not enough to just talk about mundane things like whose turn it is to load the dishwasher – this is not the sort of communicating you need to do to keep the relationship alive.

Some suggestions:

Go for a walk together every Saturday afternoon with baby in a sling or pushchair and just talk.

Get a babysitter once a fortnight and get out of the house for a meal together. Babysitting circles are a good idea, where you take turns with other new parents to babysit. NCT may have a babysitting circle in your area, or you could form one from your antenatal classes. Ring 0870 444 8707 for your local branch.

Take turns to have a lie in on Sunday morning and recharge your batteries.

Ask your partner for what you need.

Don’t expect your partner to do everything in the same way you do, but be grateful to each other for the help.

Renowned for their self-improvement books, Teach Yourself has launched a parenting series to provide practical, realistic and flexible guides that allow you to use your own instincts and apply your own technique which makes you and you or family happy – instead of ending up wracked with guilt when you fail to follow a strict set of instructions.
Teach Yourself: Baby Development is a straightforward and easy to read guide.  Unlike the classic parenting tomes which dictate every waking minute of your baby’s time, this is a more general guide, but includes insights into your baby’s development which you may not have read about or thought about before. It is also worth a read for parents who already have one or more children as it looks at issues such as birth order, sibling relationships and parental involvement.

About the Author
Caroline Deacon is a psychologist and journalist and specialising in parenting issues, health and education,  for a variety of magazines, Caroline has written, edited and contributed to several books.