5 Things Every Partnership Needs to Know in the First Few Months With a Baby

From the Rattled podcast episode “I Wanted to Be a Different Kind of Dad” with Aymann Ismail.

3 min read

Truth-bomb: The first few months with a new baby can be one of the hardest stretches a partnership will ever go through. You are sleep-deprived, your bodies are changing, and your roles are shifting - and somehow, continuing to be kind to your partner feels especially challenging.

On a recent podcast episode, I talked with Aymann Ismail about the small things that helped his partnership after baby - and I turned it into 5 usable-today tips. You’ll see, nothing here is about perfect communication or grand gestures. They are small mindset shifts and moves that, over time, change everything about how you and your partner move through this season together.

Here are the five.

1. Sometimes bad things happen and it's nobody's fault

My son said this to me once and it has stuck with me ever since. When something disappointing or surprising or hard happens, most of us have an instinct: find the fault. Either we turn it inward - what is wrong with me - or we turn it outward - what is wrong with my partner.

There is something genuinely powerful about being able to say, out loud, sometimes disappointing things happen and it is nobody's fault. The moment you say that, something shifts. You are no longer on opposite teams. You can still be upset. You can still talk about what did not go the way you hoped. But you are doing it on the same team.

In the early months of parenthood, when so much is hard and so little is anyone's fault, this single sentence can change the temperature of an entire conversation.

2. If you care enough to say something about it, now it's your job

This is a piece of advice from Aymaan's that I think about constantly. The rule is simple: if you care enough about how something is done to comment on it, you also care enough to own it.

Don't like the way your partner is diapering? Do you care enough to make it your job? Then say something, and take it on. If not, jot it down for yourself and let it go. Do you care, in my case, about how the dishwasher is loaded? Great - then say something and take ownership of it.

This one piece of guidance can quietly resolve a huge percentage of the small, simmering resentments that build up in the early months. It turns vague criticism into clear ownership, which is almost always better for both partners.

3. Start journaling - even if you never have before

Parenthood brings up an enormous volume of feelings. And our default move, when a big feeling shows up, is to convert it instantly into something to say to our partner. Usually an accusation - and usually something we will regret thirty seconds later.

Journaling, even a few sentences, inserts time between the feeling and the action. You are not pushing the feeling away. You are giving it a place to land so you can reflect and make a decision from there - before it becomes a sentence aimed at the person next to you.

You do not need a beautiful notebook or a daily practice. You just need a few minutes, somewhere, to write down what you are actually feeling. That small gap between feeling and action almost always leads to better outcomes.

4. Protect the parts of you that mattered before the baby

It will not look exactly the same as it did before. That is okay. But think about the parts of yourself that mattered to you before becoming a parent - the friendships, the hobbies, the work, the workouts, the quiet time, the creative life - and ask whether there are ways to keep those parts of you alive, even in a smaller form.

When we abandon those parts of ourselves completely, the loss does not stay quiet. It usually comes out sideways, as resentment toward our partner. Keeping a piece of who you were is not selfish. It is one of the most important things you can do for your relationship.

5. Treat feelings as information

When a feeling is strong, the temptation is to tell ourselves the story about why that feeling is wrong or why it makes us a bad person. A more useful question is: what data is in here?

Feelings can be confusing to decipher. The way they express themselves in thoughts and words is not always exactly right. But if you can pause and tell yourself, hold on, this feeling is information, you start to learn more about yourself - and about your partner. Maybe you’re not doing parenthood wrong - maybe parenthood feels this hard because it is this hard. And maybe your partner isn’t just being difficult - maybe they are upset because they want to feel useful. Maybe they want to feel seen. Maybe they are scared.

Treating feelings as information, in yourself and in your partner, is one of the most generous things you can bring into a partnership, especially in a season this raw.

The thread that runs through all five

Notice what these five have in common: they are not about fixing your partner. They are about creating a little bit of space - between feeling and action, between thought and accusation, between who you were and who you are becoming - so that you can keep being on the same team.

Listen to the full episode

For more on this, listen to the full episode with Aymann Ismail, and explore more resources for parents at GoodInside.com

And a quick note

One of the things I'm proudest of about the Good Inside app is that it's finally a parenting resource that actually takes into account that you - the parent - are a whole person. Yes, the app helps you with the baby stuff, the tantrum stuff, the lying stuff, the defiance stuff, the puberty stuff, the social media stuff. All of it.

One of the things we're proudest of about Good Inside Baby is that yes, we cover feeding and sleep and solids - but we also focus on parental mental health, coping skills, and partnership communication. Because the early months are about so much more than what's happening with your baby. They're about what's happening with you. Check it out here - it's the best investment you can make in your family this year.

Introduction
1. Sometimes bad things happen and it's nobody's fault
2. If you care enough to say something about it, now it's your job
3. Start journaling - even if you never have before
4. Protect the parts of you that mattered before the baby
5. Treat feelings as information
The thread that runs through all five
Listen to the full episode
And a quick note

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