Imagine you both continue your careers and your child is close to both of you? How to start out down this road?
Here are my top tips for new parents, based on my book, Baby’s Here! Who D0es What?
1. Don’t end up with one parent doing all the caring and the other doing all the earning unless you really cannot avoid it.
2. Both spend time alone with your baby. Both become competent and confident with him/her and learn your different parenting styles.
3. Mothers: put yourself first sometimes (and fathers – let them do this). Mothers who make the children such a big part of their lives that everything else is forgotten often become depressed.
4. Fathers: move mountains to get flexible work, even if it gives you only a few extra hours with your baby every week.
5. Talk and listen. Don’t just barge into the role you think is yours – find out if your partner is happy with what this means for them. Things will then feel fairer, you will be more loving and less stressed – which will also be good for your sex life.
6. Make time for each other and do things you used to do before you had children. A happy couple relationship means happier children.
7. Don’t feel guilty about working – nearly all mothers and fathers for all of human history have had to work.
8. If moving house could mean a smaller mortgage or more involved grandparents, think hard about it.
9. Each agree to do the one task around the house that the other likes least. If you can afford it, pay for some of the tasks to be done for you.
