It is undeniable that adding a baby to your family is a big step in your relationship. Many times couples assume the natural next step after marriage is to have children. While this may make sense for some couples, it may not always be the right next step for every couple. If you’re wondering if you and your partner are ready to have a baby, this blog post is for you. There are so many things to consider with your partner that will help ease the transition into parenthood together. Let’s face it. You and your partner will essentially work as a team when you have a baby. It will test how well you communicate, hold each other accountable, share responsibilities and how patient you are with each other.
Many couples have said that getting a pet first is a great first “test” as a couple before considering having a baby. While it is true that having a pet together will showcase how you two will step up to share responsibilities, it is not close to the stress and pressure of having a baby. If you already have a pet together, you likely have already observed qualities in your partner that leads you to conclude they would be a great parent and partner to have a child with, or not. But there are important decisions to discuss when it comes to having a child together that aren’t necessary when sharing responsibilities over a pet.
To ensure a smooth transition into parenthood, it’s important that you and your partner are on the same page in regards to key decisions like your personal finances, parenting styles, priorities and values beforehand. While there may be differences in how you approach parenting to some extent, the following questions will help you and your partner understand each other better and thereby be a more supporting partner for each other when those challenging situations arise.
5 Topics and Questions to Consider with Your Partner
- Parenting approach: What is our parenting approach? What are our hot buttons (triggers)? A lot of times, the way we were parented is the way we will parent our children. Once you become a parent, you may begin to notice some of your childhood trauma resurface. If your parents were hard on you about creating a mess, you may also be notice yourself being tough on your child when they make a mess. And if you were emotionally manipulated as a child through guilt, you may also use the same tactics to get your child to do what you want them to. This is not to say that we can’t deviate from our parent’s parenting style if we are aware and take action to change our conditioning, but it’s more likely that we will resort to what we know and what we’ve observed in our own childhood. All of this is to say that, defining your parenting approach and setting parameters around what you both are okay with earlier on, will go a long way. How do you want to raise your child? What type of disciplining approach are you comfortable with (ie. time-outs, threats, yelling, hitting, etc.)?
- Finances: How much will we financially support our child? Are we willing to pay them through private school and/or college? What about purchasing their first car? What’s our view on this? Finances is an important topic that you and your partner will need to agree on, especially once you add in a family member. There will be additional costs to consider once your little one arrives so having a budget and an agreement on how financial decisions will be made is important. On a high level, it will be key that you both are on the same page when it comes to how much you will financially support your child. Will you pay them through college? Will you put them through private school? While this may feel like a lifetime from now to think about, it will spark discussions about your overall philosophy and approach to financially supporting your child which is key in preparing for your transition into parenthood.
- Values: What are the top three values we want to instill in our child(ren)? What are the most important qualities we want our children to have? By now, you and your partner hopefully have an idea of what your values are and there should be some alignment between your values. For instance, my values are family, growth, compassion and adventure. My husband’s values are rooted in family, adventure and loyalty. We both have shared values of family and adventure. And before having a baby, we discussed what type of qualities we wanted in our kids. We both had similar answers. We wanted our child to just be an overall kind human being who treated people with kindness. Other qualities we want our child to have are confidence, resilience, curiosity, and generosity. This values exercise can be fun for you and partner to dive into so you can both reflect and consider in yourself what type of qualities you possess.
- **Love language: What is your love language? What is your partner’s love language?**Understanding each other’s love language is important, because it will show up in how we love our children and it’s a way of communicating with your partner to demonstrate your appreciation for one other. I highly recommend reading the book The 5 Love Languages to understand in detail the 5 different love languages and take the free quiz with your partner so you both can identify your top love languages. Once you do, it will be helpful in how you two interact as partners and eventually as parents to your child. My husband and I continue to reference back to our love languages ‘til this day. I often tell my husband when I feel unappreciated by him due to his lack of words of affirmation, which is one of my top love languages. My husband’s top love languages are acts of service and quality time, so I will intentionally look for opportunities to do something for him like cook him his favorite meal or plan an activity together. The love language is a tool to help you and your partner by reflecting on what’s lacking in your relationship and how you can fill each other’s love buckets. Additionally, the love language will be a framework to identify how your child likes to feel loved. Whether it’s quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, gifts or affection, you’ll be challenged by the different ways to show your child how much you love them by understanding how they want to be loved!
- Setting boundaries with grandparents + family members: How often are you comfortable with family visits? What are you willing to tolerate or not tolerate when it comes to each other’s families? Now, this is a loaded question because every situation is different depending on how close you and your partner are to your family. However, it is important to discuss with your partner how frequent and close you want to be with each of your families, especially once you introduce a new member to your family. When you have a baby, you’re not just becoming a mom or dad, you’re also making someone a grandparent, auntie, uncle or cousin. Expect that once you have a baby, your family will likely want to come over for frequent visits (maybe more than you would like) to support you through the most important transition of your life. If you have family nearby who are eager to help you, consider yourself lucky! This is a great benefit to living close to family. But with it comes its own challenge and layer of stress as you navigate familial ties and set boundaries.
Preparing your relationship before having a baby is important because your relationship will evolve once you have a baby. The last thing you want is to take out your stress on each other once baby arrives. So having a game plan in place will go a long way. Understanding each other and practicing clear and honest communication will be key to tackling the challenges of parenthood together. While you prepare for the newborn phase, there will other specific questions to consider like:
- Who will take the night shifts?
- How much additional support will you two need?
- What responsibilities will each of you take on? Ie. washing breast pump parts, changing diapers, bathing, etc.
Not all of these questions will need to be answered before baby arrives but having a general plan can be helpful. Besides the obvious that you will have less time for each other, you both will also be challenged emotionally, physically and mentally. Having a strong foundation to begin with is key in building a strong supportive partnership that will be reflected in how you approach parenthood. You will be each other’s strongest support and advocate so it’s great to start establishing the habits and communication methods you will practice as parents.
