Dealing With Stress of a New Baby

Babies are super cute, soft, cuddly and they just melt your heart with the soft blink of their eyes or that unintentional smile. However, there is a dark side that no one tells you about bringing home your little darling and that is they come with an enormous amount of stress. Sleepless nights, unpredictable schedules, poopy diapers and constant attention can often times wreak havoc on a couple; as if our modern families aren’t complicated enough. Because everything is about the baby and initally, most of the responsibility of caring for the baby falls on one of you, when the excitement of the baby wears off, some couples find themselves estranged.

A month or so ago I remember one of the ladies on Momversation brought up this very topic. Heather Armstrong from Dooce chimed in by saying that when she and her husband first had children, it took them a while to develop that “tag team” dynamic. I thought that was a cute and appropriate way of putting it because you really do have to have some superb teamwork in order to handle a baby AND maintain your sanity and marriage.  Below are some things that my husband and I have learned as we work together to raise our little cutie, make time for the older boys, ourselves AND  each other.

1. Realize that you are experiencing a normal situation and it doesn’t mean that you can’t get back that lovin’ feeling.
2. If you’re missing your spouse, let him or her know that. I know that not eating or sleeping right can make you cranky and irritable all the time, so sometimes it just may good for your spouse to hear, “I miss you.”
3. If either of you are feeling overwhelmed, talk about it and work together to divide household chores and parenting duties.
4. Make sure both of you have time away from the baby for at least one hour per day (this is for my stay at home parents). You need that time to rejuvenate so that your body doesn’t completely shut down. Don’t cook or clean during this time (that is not a break)! Put your feet up, watch your favorite show, go visit a good friend or take a hot bubble bath by candle light.
5. After you put the baby to sleep, carve out 30 minutes of “grown up” time. Talk to each other, cuddle, have some dessert together or you may even have time for a “quickie.”
6. Realize that this too shall pass. This is just a phase in your lives. Remember, babies grow up, eventually sleep through the night and become less and less dependent on you. Try to keep this in mind and instead of being consumed by the stress, enjoy this sweet little baby while he or she is young.

Two New Additions to Our Blended Family

I am so proud of the huge strides that my blended family has made over the years. My ex and I and our spouses don’t always agree on everything, but we definitely co-parent well together. When disagreements arise, we either work together to reach some sort of compromise or we agree to disagree and move on. More importantly, we don’t stew over the disagreements and allow them to affect doing what’s best for our children. We have truly established what I like to call a synergistic foundation. We are separate parts of the whole who all work together for our children. We don’t intrude upon each others’ lives and have established a mutual respect for the roles that we respectively play in our son’s life.

Recently, we reached another milestone in our respective families; both my ex’s wife and I had beautiful babies who are only months apart. We have all always encouraged and fully supported the sibling relationships in our family. My ex and his wife have embraced my husband’s son (my son’s stepbrother) and my husband and I have embraced their son (my son’s half brother). And now, we have been super supportive of the newest additions to our blended family; a baby girl and a baby boy! To us, they are all just brothers and sister.

The most positive and beneficial result of all of this is the obvious joy that this has brought to my son. I’ve never wanted him to feel like he had to choose who he had to love, be it his parents or siblings and I am so grateful that he doesn’t have to. He truly loves us all and has a unique relationship with each of us. This is all because we have ALL worked together! No matter how difficult it gets at times (as I stated earlier, we don’t always agree), we clearly are all committed to making it work for our children. After all, when it’s all said and done and the parents leave this earth, our children will be left to spend Christmas, Thanksgiving and any other important occasion together. I am so glad that we’ve build a solid foundation for them to stand on in the future.

This is my personal testimony that it is possible to blend a family in a HEALTHY way! Stepmom doesn’t have to give up who she is, be anyone’s doormat or feel under appreciated. Ex-wife and stepmom don’t have to spend every waking moment together. Ex-wives don’t have to be territorial or intrusive. Ex-spouses don’t have to do weekly dinners or vacation together and no one has to hate each other or be manipulative. It is possible to have healthy remarriages AND co-parent well with both biological parents and step-parents. If you put the right ingredients into your family blender; respect, honesty, love, compromise (without totally compromising yourself) and acceptance, then your stepfamily can also evolve into a blended family. We are proof of that and I am so proud of us!