Women get most of the attention after giving birth, but we forget that new dads are often just as stressed. In trying to understand why more parents are stopping at one child, German and Canadian researchers are speculating that this may be because some couples become unhappy after the birth of their first baby.
Cape Town based clinical psychologist Mireille Landman explains that ‘becoming a parent is a life crises in which basic, irreversible decisive changes occur. This transition means making major adjustments which take time and work to accept. Most parents, across the spectrum, find the adjustments to parenthood in the early months often unrewarding and emotionally and physically draining’.
Some of the adjustments Landman lists are:
• Accepting responsibility for the life of another human being
• Learning to tolerate difficult, negative emotions provoked by the baby e.g. non-stop crying
• Learning to tolerate the frustrations, doubts, failures and disappointments that go hand-in-hand with parenting
• New demands and expectations from their partner, family and others
• A change in relationships with one’s parents
• Dealing with exhaustion, loss of independence, loss of affirmation and recognition that may have come from job satisfaction
• The added stress of multi-tasking
• Accepting a new identity – from couple to mom, dad, family.
Coping with these challenges:
Bonding with the baby: When there are no after-birth complications, baby should be left with the mother, skin-to-skin for the first ‘magic hour’, with dad to help.
Un-intrusive support from family and friends, is essential.
Couples need to be open and honest with one another and to talk about how they are feeling and what their needs and expectations are.
Take one day at a time during the first six weeks of adjustment to parenthood.
My survival technique when my children were growing up was ‘It doesn’t matter.’ It wasn’t always easy to stick to especially on occasions like the time mercurochrome spilled over the new carpet spread like fresh blood from a wound! I had to remind myself that the world was not going to stop spinning when things went wrong. When we learn to deal with little problems when our children are small, we cope with much bigger problems when they are grown up.
