Best Way to Manage Your Life as a New Parent

You may not believe it at the time of the your new arrival, but there is life after baby! You and your partner will eventually adjust to being a threesome, though the adjustment may take several weeks or even longer. Having a new baby in your family is a wonderful time, as you and your child mesh together and get to know each other. Watching your child develop becomes one of your greatest pleasures, and you delight in all that he does. Undoubtedly, your baby adds whole new dimensions to your life. You also learn a lot about yourself as a parent, perhaps even discovering strengths and talents you didn’t know you had. These are the positives.

On the other hand, the relationship between you and your partner will inevitably change during this phase of your lives. Following are the main challenges facing new parents:

• Lack of sleep. A new baby is lovable, but he doesn’t live his life by the clock. He cries when he wants to cry, plays when he wants to play, and fills his diaper whenever he feels like it. Your baby’s schedule almost certainly clashes with your own at first.
• • Loss of privacy. Your new baby is only one of several intru­sions into your life. Other intrusions include planned and unplanned visits from friends and relatives, and phone calls inquiring after the welfare of parents and baby.
• Reduced disposable income. Alongside the addition of an extra mouth to feed, more clothes to buy, and extra furni­ture, there is the fact that women usually stop earning for at least a couple of months when the baby is born. This means less money to go around.
• Reduced social life. Your new baby takes up a lot of your time, and by necessity, you’ll spend less time going out with your friends than you did before. And when you do go out, you may not have the same level of energy as your did before the baby.

• Responsibility of parenthood. Parenting has lots of pluses, but it also brings responsibility. Knowing that you are the one who has to care for this helpless, dependent little baby can make you feel pressured.
• Lower sex drive. Few things are more likely to drive passion from the bedroom than the sound of a crying baby. Add in a higher level of tiredness, and it is a small wonder that new parents often struggle to reestablish their sex life.

Fortunately, with careful planning, all of these challenges can be overcome so that you and your partner can rediscover yourselves as individual adults, not just as your baby’s parents. Perhaps the most important step to take in this new phase of your life is to have honest and candid communication with each other. You will do no harm by admitting to your partner that you are exhausted, that you are afraid you are less than per­fect as a parent, that you lack confidence in your ability to cope. Concealing negative feelings will not make them go away. Make time for these discussions—you’ll be so busy that you will have no free moments unless you specifically plan them.

Be prepared to accept help and support from friends and relatives—you don’t have to make yourself a martyr. If someone reliable offers to care for your baby for a short time in order to give you a break, grab the chance when you can. Use this time for a rest, or for relaxation. You deserve it.

Parents with a new baby often find a plentiful supply of advice showered upon them from well-meaning experienced adults who have clear ideas on matters of child care. Listen to this advice, but then make up your own mind. Remember that what works for somebody else’s child may not work for yours. You are the parent now, so it’s up to you to make decisions independently.

Within a few weeks after the baby is born, you and your partner will begin to reestablish a social life, though it won’t be the same as before. Make time to go out together, if only for an hour or so. Don’t expect these times to be wonderful—chances are that you both may be tense and unable to relax—but make an effort to get out anyway. And within a few months you will have also resumed your sex life. If you still feel stressed and down long after your baby is born, professional counseling might be useful.

Rebuilding your life after the baby arrives is hard work. Yet it’s worth the effort. As long as you avoid the temptation to become a slave to routine, to become an individual who responds only to the baby’s needs and not to your own, then you’ll quickly see light at the end of the tunnel. Family life with three is so much more satisfying than family life with two, espe­cially once the initial adjustment process has passed.