Will baby number two be hard on my marriage?
It is tough to stay connected with your partner once you start to have children. Instead of having the luxury of devoting time to one another whenever the mood strikes, you have other people—tiny people—competing for your attention. And they have powerful strategies for ensuring that their wants and needs become top priority at any given time—like screaming and crying.
The good news is that you’ve already been down this path before as a couple. This time around, you’ll be more prepared for the realities of parenting a newborn and the toll that sleep deprivation can take on everything from your mood to your energy level to your libido.
Don’t assume, however, that because you’re old pros that you can handle this round on your own. Accept any and all offers of help. If friends and relatives want to come over and help you catch up on laundry, or they offer to drop off a few meals for you, that’s less time you have to spend on those chores and more time you can spend enjoying your kids and connecting with one another.
Think about what worked the first time—what you learned through the School of Hard Knocks—and apply that wisdom to your life this time around, too.
Be extra kind to your partner. You’re both struggling with sleep deprivation, increased responsibilities, and cascading emotions. One or both of you might even be battling something more serious than the blues: up to 3% of new fathers experience depression after their babies are born, with fathers whose partners are experiencing postpartum depression being at particular risk of experiencing problems with depression themselves.
Stay connected. Find little ways to stay connected as a couple during the postpartum period (a time when everything can seem strange, new, and unsettled) and as you begin to establish new routines as a couple with another child. Hold hands when you can, even if it’s only for 15 seconds. Text your partner a love note when inspiration strikes. Keep the spark alive, even if you haven’t had sex in weeks.
Share your hopes and dreams. If you have a strong vision of what you are working toward together (a strong family with happy, healthy kids and loving parents), you’ll find it easier to get through the long days and even longer nights of early parenthood. When you’re singing to the baby and your partner is reading to the toddler, you’ll feel a powerful connection to your partner, knowing that you’re both on the same page: that you both want the same happy tomorrows for your kids and for one another.
Stick with it and you’ll find those short moments can grow into longer, memorable ones.
I have never felt so exhausted in my life.
Ah, yes. There’s exhaustion—and then there’s the extreme exhaustion of early parenthood. And being tired is only the half of it. You’re forgetful, emotional, irritable, and you feel like a zombie. And your ability to figure out ways to problem-solve your way out of this sleep deprivation labyrinth are, well, non-existent.
That’s why you need other people to help problem-solve this one for you—parents who’ve been there, not-slept-through-that, and lived to tell. Here are five quick tips from veterans of the sleep deprivation trenches.
Embrace the mantra of all wise mamas: this too shall pass. And it will. It’s just hard to remember that right now.
Comments
I am a Biofeedback Practitioner and from the 7 years of working with families I have found that the problem of not sleeping is worse. I believe the reason for this has to do with Electro magnetic Radiation that comes from the wired and wi-fi technologies that are in our homes. i have been offering a line of products that will offer intervention and are patented and proven to work.
Thanks very much for the very wise feedback.
Mama in the City: I agree. Knowing that sleep deprivation is normal does make it easier to cope with. (If you think it’s a problem, then you feel pressured to try to find a solution, and that just makes life more stressful for you and your baby.)
Cruising: So true! You’re inspiring me to want to take a nap right now. (And my youngest is 13.)