The year after childbirth is not necessarily the hardest year of a marriage, but it is certainly one of the harder years of a marriage. Because once you give birth, every aspect of it will change.
First, the first year after childbirth, “difficult”
- The need to adapt to the challenges of new roles.
When a child is born, we immediately take on the identity role of “mother”.
The role is named, but there are still many challenges to be met.
For a woman giving birth for the first time, labor pains, body contortions, hormonal influences, rustiness in breastfeeding, lack of sleep and unfamiliarity with parenting skills may cause her to perceive her baby’s behavior negatively and easily doubt her ability to be a mother, making it difficult for her to adapt to her new role.
According to a survey in China, only 44.89% of new mothers adapt well to their role, and the incidence of postpartum depression is as high as 39.4%. This means that at least half of all women have a difficult time accepting their new role as a mother.
In addition to the physical exhaustion and rustiness of our parenting skills, we also have to deal with the fact that our time is almost entirely taken up by our children, a temporary “loss of self” that is easily magnified in the moment, causing endless anxiety and insecurity.
So often we hear someone say, “Gee, why should I have to take care of a little baby when I’m still a little baby myself? “
- Need to adapt to the new husband and wife together.
Before childbirth, couples can get along very freely, two people love to eat what they eat, love to play what they play, as long as they have no opinion of each other, lazy sleep for three days and nights can be.
Before childbirth, couples can get along romantically, as long as it’s not a working day, they can go out hand in hand, go on a quick trip, or surf everywhere at a movie stall.
Before childbirth, the couple can be very sweet, the wife’s mouth a pout, Mr. can come forward to kiss and hold high, Mr. computer on, the wife can also sit on the floor to play a few games with the game.
Before childbirth, couples can be very uneventful, early mornings have a long, long time, quietly waiting for the sunrise together, night also have a long, long time, you accompany me to brush up the drama I accompany you to chat.
But after childbirth, these contents at least in half a year, is basically not to enjoy.
What to eat and what to play has not been important, after all, meals do not necessarily have the time to eat a table together, often a crying child, we have to milk the child to go.
Lazy sleep simply can’t sleep, don’t say lazy sleep, is the whole sleep, couples in the child will not sleep before the whole sleep, don’t think about …… baby waking up in the night N times is common, followed by N times of feeding, burping, put to sleep, change diapers ……
Traveling, that can only be delusional, after all, we spend 24 hours either nursing or trying to put the baby to sleep.
The time we have to spend communicating with each other is spent discussing what to do if the baby spits up, what to do if the baby has eczema, what to do if the baby is still awake, and many other parenting issues.
3 The need to adjust to the shock of a new family structure.
Before childbirth, the couple may live alone in a set of married room, even if there and the older generation to live together, generally there is no conflict, at most, different habits let the elderly nag a few.
But after childbirth, most couples because of the postpartum work, child care staff shortage of reasons, must face and the older generation to live together, at this time, the new family structure, the impact is great.
Particularly in more traditional families, the attention of several generations is on the children. It’s only a matter of time before the older generation, if the boundaries are not obvious, intervenes in every aspect of the child’s life, from the smallest cuddle position to the child’s future investment in education, everything. If it’s a little harsher, the child cold hot crying knocked, all to blame the mother.
It’s just that now young couples also have their own ideas, children should be raised according to the book according to the science of feeding, early education and fun can not be left behind, but the older generation would rather believe in three aunts and six grannies, but also do not want to believe in letters authority, so one after another, two generations often erupt parenting contradictions. If you don’t give a hand, hold your head and hide into the cracks, then I’m afraid the relationship between husband and wife also to drop to the freezing point.
The worst thing is, if the in-laws and the mother-in-law accidentally get together, each of the three parties have their own childcare needs, no one obeys anyone, and they all think that their own way is the best for the child, that is called the world chaos.
It’s not easy to get along with such a family structure, and I’m afraid it’s not easy to be shushed.
- the need for a well-timed balance between parenthood and work.
Although there are good and bad workplaces, we can’t deny that the workplace environment is not very friendly to pregnant women, and there is a lot of hidden discrimination.
Once we announce the good news that we are pregnant, promotion and salary increase is basically no part of the job transfer is not a reduction in salary even if it is Amitabha.
Before the postpartum maternity leave is over, you may receive a phone call urging you to return to work, and when you return to the workplace, what follows may be endless overtime.
Before childbirth, naturally, it doesn’t matter, if you are hopelessly promoted, you can jump ship, and you can always take your place when you need to go on overtime business trips, but after childbirth, we will find that we can’t be supermen in the workplace.
In the daytime, we struggle in the workplace, while hiding in the bathroom to carry breast milk; at night, we hold the baby in one hand to feed him and put him to sleep with English children’s songs in our mouths, and the other hand has to be fast on the keyboard.
Is it hard? — “Too Southern! “
But on the left side, we dare not give up our jobs because of the rising price of diapers and milk powder; on the right side, we can’t ignore our children.
So late at night when no one is around, we always ponder the question: how to get both the fish and the bear’s paw?
Second, it’s not that “hard” to be prepared.
If you are not prepared, you are not. With this principle in mind, we can actually alleviate many of the “difficulties” of the coming year by being prepared beforehand.
1) Prepare sufficient funds for all aspects.
Money can’t solve all problems, but it can solve many. If you have enough money, it will definitely help you in many ways.
Whether it’s postpartum care, baby items, a sudden drop in income or a sudden job loss that comes with maternity leave, that money can go some way to easing our anxiety and help us get through the toughest times.
Taking a step back, not having to struggle with money can also reduce a lot of conflict between couples, in-laws and daughters-in-law, even if the money ends up untouched, it can be directly transferred to fund future children’s education, so why not?
- Adjusting our mindset and accepting the gap.
After the birth of the child, the main body of care and attention of all in the family will generally turn to the child, Mr. and other family members will certainly have some degree of attention to us, we just need to be prepared and accept the fallout.
After all, we will likewise be preoccupied with the children and the decline in attention to Mr. and other family members. If they’re all taking care of the kids, we should be stealing a few laughs, because that means we’re sharing the burden of childcare a lot.
Of course, it’s also important to communicate more with your family. It is also important to talk to your family about your needs to be cared for after the birth, so that your family will understand and do their best.
(3) Whether it’s work or childcare, look ahead.
It is not necessary to strive for perfection, no one can really do both.
The only thing we need to do is to do our best at work and go with the flow in parenting.
The focus of each person’s life is different. Some people love their work, some are passionate about family life. Likewise, a person will have different leanings at different stages of life, sometimes a little more work and sometimes a little more family. How we focus depends on our own needs in that present moment.
So we don’t have to force ourselves to be particularly good at work and parenting all at the same time. Life is a long journey, in which there is still a long way to go in terms of career development and child-rearing development.
- sometimes you have to give yourself a little chicken soup.
While it’s true that the first year postpartum is a bit difficult, I can assure you as someone who has been there, those hardships are only temporary.
Once we adjust to motherhood, adjust our mindset, find our new niche when we return to the workforce, and begin to become skilled in parenting, all the gloom will pass.
In the hardest times, always remind yourself that time will bring what you want – it’s chicken soup and it’s the truth.
Now that my baby has been born for over two years, there were tough times in the first year postpartum, but I can barely remember them now.
I don’t know if it’s just my forgetfulness or a mother’s natural tendency to forget the pain and hardships of childbirth because of her child’s cute face.
Before I gave birth, I asked my mom, why do you want me to have a baby when you’ve been through so much pain?
My mom replied that after giving birth and watching you grow up, I don’t remember ever being in pain again.
It seems that now my mom and I have become the same.
There are hardships and pains, but the good news is that I have helpful teammates and two sets of parents who love us dearly, so the hardships and pains are insignificant.
Don’t worry about the hard, choose, be ready, and do it!
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