When you are a new parent you seem to have an unending list of new questions and none of them have answers. All of these worries can make both parents a little edgy and create friction that builds until a fight is inevitable. In the infant stages there have been three fights that happen more than any other in my own experience and my wife and I finally found a system that worked for us. Working together we can avoid these little fights that lead to bigger arguments and sometimes the silent treatment on both sides until you figure out your fighting about nothing.
I spoke about this lightly in an earlier post but I didn't get into how to avoid the fights and how to get out of the fight if you let yourselves slip into one. The first of these fights is a more common one its the oldest one I think as well and that is the "I woke up last time." fight. This seems at the time like not that big a deal but trust me it is. Even if nothing is said about at the time it is still lingering and waiting to pop. If it doesn't wait it will just blow up on you right then. This is from my point of view nothing to fight about. It does not matter who got up last time you as new parents are a team and have to share the load of parenthood and all the responsibilities that comes with it. I thought this a few times after we came home from the hospital and quickly realized that she had been carrying our baby for nine months and maybe that little bit of extra time I am up is not that big a deal. Now after a while that might start to slip out of sight and you may end up in this vary argument. To avoid this fight make a schedule with your partner and make sure you both agree on it that way you know either your on duty or your partner is on duty. So don't make a fuss when the baby needs a midnight bottle. If your both working parents like my wife and I then you need to work together at all times. Although this fight is very common it leads to the next fight which is who got more sleep.
I can remember when my daughter turned 8 months old she finally started to sleep through the night some. It seemed more frequent with my wife more so than myself. After looking at the situation I figured out I am fun dad and it is very hard for me to put her to sleep because we always play and I think that is what she expects from me at all times. I had to break that at night time by calming it down around 8pm or so and switching from running around and playing to coloring and reading. Even then it was still hard to get her to go to bed for the both of us. This caused a lack of sleep and made us both irritable. This led to the you do it you had more sleep fight. It can come in many forms it does not even have to be about the baby. We had to work on this as well because we worked to completely different shifts and we were never home at the same time. I get off of work at 6am and get home at 7am and sleep for a few hours and i am up so she can sleep before she has to go to work. Also when she and I sleep during the day before work the other is left all day long with our daughter. We just work together on everything and that is really the only way to do it. Now the being left alone all day with our daughter caused another little fight that led back to the others. The infamous " I changed the last diaper it is your turn or I been changing diapers all day I do not care you have to work tonight just change the diaper."
I said this leads back to other fights and this is why, I changed the last diaper , even though you got more sleep and I got up with the baby all night. That leads to other bigger fights, it is really a gateway fight LOL. If you think about this one it is a quick fix and not even worth the effort to fight about. How long does a diaper take to change like 3 minutes. Just do it and move on. LOL. I can't tell you how many times I and my wife changed diapers and if your a parent you know there are a lot of diapers to change. So the moral of this post is to try to help new parents avoid these small fights and maybe help the more experienced parents get a laugh or two at the memories. Having a baby is the most magical and exciting thing that has ever happened to me. I hope it is for you as well. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
I spoke about this lightly in an earlier post but I didn't get into how to avoid the fights and how to get out of the fight if you let yourselves slip into one. The first of these fights is a more common one its the oldest one I think as well and that is the "I woke up last time." fight. This seems at the time like not that big a deal but trust me it is. Even if nothing is said about at the time it is still lingering and waiting to pop. If it doesn't wait it will just blow up on you right then. This is from my point of view nothing to fight about. It does not matter who got up last time you as new parents are a team and have to share the load of parenthood and all the responsibilities that comes with it. I thought this a few times after we came home from the hospital and quickly realized that she had been carrying our baby for nine months and maybe that little bit of extra time I am up is not that big a deal. Now after a while that might start to slip out of sight and you may end up in this vary argument. To avoid this fight make a schedule with your partner and make sure you both agree on it that way you know either your on duty or your partner is on duty. So don't make a fuss when the baby needs a midnight bottle. If your both working parents like my wife and I then you need to work together at all times. Although this fight is very common it leads to the next fight which is who got more sleep.
I can remember when my daughter turned 8 months old she finally started to sleep through the night some. It seemed more frequent with my wife more so than myself. After looking at the situation I figured out I am fun dad and it is very hard for me to put her to sleep because we always play and I think that is what she expects from me at all times. I had to break that at night time by calming it down around 8pm or so and switching from running around and playing to coloring and reading. Even then it was still hard to get her to go to bed for the both of us. This caused a lack of sleep and made us both irritable. This led to the you do it you had more sleep fight. It can come in many forms it does not even have to be about the baby. We had to work on this as well because we worked to completely different shifts and we were never home at the same time. I get off of work at 6am and get home at 7am and sleep for a few hours and i am up so she can sleep before she has to go to work. Also when she and I sleep during the day before work the other is left all day long with our daughter. We just work together on everything and that is really the only way to do it. Now the being left alone all day with our daughter caused another little fight that led back to the others. The infamous " I changed the last diaper it is your turn or I been changing diapers all day I do not care you have to work tonight just change the diaper."
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