Help for New Parents
“Being a parent has been the most joyful and the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” says Richard, a 37-year-old financial planner and proud father of 14-month-old Hannah. For his wife, Sharon, the shift into parenthood has felt even more dramatic: “It was like somebody took my whole world and gave it a good shake… and when the dust settled, nothing was as it had been before. You kind of have to start from scratch. You feel lost, and there’s no roadmap.”
The transition to parenthood is one of the most common and significant life changes adults experience. More than 90% of married couples eventually have children, yet the emotional experience of new parents is often minimized or overlooked. Books, websites and prenatal classes offer abundant advice on how to care for your baby, but very little guidance on ways to navigate your internal and relational changes and challenges.
Even expectant parents, who may feel well-prepared for labor and delivery, often find themselves unprepared for the profound changes that follow. Prenatal education typically focuses on birth itself, while offering very little about the weeks, months and years that follow. It is no wonder that many new parents, like Richard and Sharon, feel shocked, overwhelmed, or disoriented by this major life transition.
A new baby can bring immense joy, love and meaning. It can also introduce significant strain, particularly for the parent who takes on most of the caregiving. Sleep deprivation, breastfeeding challenges, reduced personal time, constant physical and emotional demands, and limited opportunities to connect as a couple can all contribute to irritability, exhaustion and a sense of losing the emotional connection.
When there is little support or the primary caregiver feels isolated, the emotional toll can be even greater. Mood can deteriorate, and some parents develop postpartum depression. Approximately 15% of new mothers experience depression within the first year after birth. This may come as a surprise to couples who believed that having a baby would strengthen their relationship or “complete” their family.
Some couples hope that a baby will “fix” their strained relationship. While some do experience a renewed sense of closeness, many find that the opposite occurs: the baby they deeply love introduces new pressures they hadn’t anticipated. Research consistently shows that relationship satisfaction often declines after the birth of a child.
This shift happens for many reasons, but one of the most powerful is simple: attention and energy to each other shifts to the baby. Before a baby arrives, partners can focus primarily on one another. After birth, the baby naturally becomes the center of attention—especially for the main caregiver, who is typically the mother. As a result, one or both partners may feel neglected, unimportant or emotionally distant.
Fathers often report feeling pushed aside as the mother becomes fully absorbed in caring for the baby. Mothers may feel that much of the affection and attention they used to receive has now shifted toward the child. These unmet emotional needs can lead to resentment, frustration and growing distance within the couple.
The situation can be further complicated by the common decrease in sexual desire many women experience postpartum. Fatigue, hormonal shifts and the physical recovery from childbirth all play a role. While this is normal, a partner’s sexual advances being declined can lead to feelings of rejection or inadequacy. This may create tension, irritability and an unhelpful cycle of disconnection.
The transition to parenthood is a powerful, beautiful and deeply challenging experience—emotionally, relationally, and individually. With the right support, couples can navigate this period with more understanding, compassion and teamwork.
If you’re in British Columbia and would like support during the transition to parenthood—whether individually, as a couple, or as new parents—please feel free to reach out.
If you’re finding the transition to parenthood more overwhelming than you expected, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Support can make a profound difference—for you, your wellbeing, and your relationship.
I invite you to reach out and book a session. Together, we can help you feel more grounded, connected, and confident as you step into this new chapter.
If you live in British Columbia and feeling overwhelmed by the transition to parenthood, specialized support is close by.
Reach out to Dr. Michal Regev today to book an appointment and receive experienced, compassionate perinatal counselling right here in Vancouver.
Parenthood doesn’t have to push you apart. With the right support, it can bring you closer and strengthen your partnership.
If you and your partner are feeling disconnected, I invite you to contact me and begin rebuilding a sense of teamwork and understanding.
If you want, I can integrate the chosen version directly into your edited draft or adjust the tone to match your website’s style even more closely.
(You can add your preferred contact details, or I can write a call-to-action section.)
ChatGPT version
My original version
“Being a parent has been the most joyful and the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my whole life,” says Richard, a 37- year-old financial planner and father of Hannah, a 14-month-old beautiful baby girl. For Sharon, Richard’s wife, the transition to parenthood is more dramatic: “It was like somebody took my whole world and gave it a real good shake…and when the dust settled…nothing was the way it had been before… you kinda had to start from scratch…you were lost and there was no map to follow.”
The transition to parenthood is one of the most common experiences in adult life. In fact, over 90% of married couples end up having children at some point in their lives. Maybe this is the reason why the experience of parents has been, at best, trivialized if not completely ignored. While there is an abundance of books and magazines full of advice on parenting, there is little that focuses on the experience of parents themselves and the processes that they go through.
Even expecting parents are not well prepared for the way their lives may change following the birth of their baby. Prenatal classes, for example, focus on labour and delivery, a process that takes approximately 24 hours of the couple’s lives. These classes, or any other education that expecting parents receive, fail to prepare couples for what is coming after the birth. Therefore, it is not surprising that many couples, like Richard and Sharon, are shocked and overwhelmed by the experience of the transition to parenthood.
A baby can bring a lot of joy and happiness to their parents. However, caring for a baby may put a significant strain on the parents, especially on the main caretaker. Lack of sleep, difficulties with breastfeeding, lack of time for self-care, little time to connect with their partner, frustrations with the baby’s routine or lack thereof can all contribute to exhaustion, irritability and a feeling of lack of control and of being overwhelmed.
When the main caretaker has no help or support, the situation may be worse; the parent’s mood may be adversely affected, and they can develop depression. In fact, around 15% of new mothers become depressed during the first year postpartum. A baby may enrich and challenge the couple relationship in ways they may not have anticipated. Many couples that have a good relationship believe that a baby will deepen and strengthen their relationship as well as make it more complete.
Some couples, whose relationship is distressed, believe that a baby will fix their relationship and make the problems go away. Indeed, some couple experience these positive changes in their relationship when they first have a baby, but many others feel that, more than anything else, the baby, who they absolutely love and adore, has put a strain on their relationship. In fact, research indicates that marital satisfaction drops significantly following the birth of a baby. Why is that? Most importantly, when a new baby arrives, a dramatic shift in the focus of attention and energy occurs. As a childless couple, the partners could direct a lot of their attention and energy toward one another.
However, when they become parents, they naturally invest in taking care of the baby. This is especially true for the main caretaker, which, in most cases, is the mother. As a result, one or both partners may feel neglected, unimportant or even unloved. Fathers often complain that their partners completely immerse themselves in taking care of the baby, to the point that they feel almost completely ignored. Similarly, some mothers feel that a lot of the love, pampering and attention that they used to get from their partner is now directed exclusively toward the baby.
These feelings may result in mutual resentment and emotional alienation. To make things worse, many postpartum women experience a marked decreased in sexual desire and interest that may last for a few months. It may be that fatigue and exhaustion are at least partially responsible for this phenomenon. Regardless of the reasons for the drop in desire, the reality is, that when a woman rejects her partner’s sexual advances, there is a good chance that her partner will feel rejected, unloved and frustrated and may become less cooperative and more irritable and impatient. These processes may start a vicious cycle that may take its toll on the relationship.
