Taking care of your relationships with others
Back to Pregnancy, Family and Mental Health: Resources and Support
If you have a partner talking with them about how you feel about becoming a parent can help you both get to know about each other’s hopes, fears, and expectations. It can get you off to a good start if you can think together about your ideas of how you want to care for your baby. Negotiating different ideas as much as possible in the early days can make it easier to feel able to support one another and sets up good teamwork for the rest of your baby’s life. Developing effective ways to manage your differences will protect your relationship from the natural stress that comes with moving from being a couple to being a parental couple.
It can be really helpful to find ways to strengthen your sense of teamwork, it may be that you have always been independent and tend to think in terms of I and Me. Being part of a parental couple means there are times the Me needs to become We. This is the same for all parental couples whether you are partners or not when a baby is shared there comes a need for teamwork.
Learning about ways to communicate effectively and reduce the risk of conflict can be a good way to build a healthy emotional culture for your baby. The following digital course can be a good way to get started with this. Parent guide for England (oneplusone.org.uk)
Please seek help if ever you are worried about the health of your relationships and fear that it may be abusive. Services can support you to think about a safe way forward for you and your family and explain ways to access support whatever direction this takes. For more information about domestic abuse services
www.gmp.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/daa/domestic-abuse/support-organisations/
The following app contains a lot of useful information and advice about staying safe in relationships. Bright Sky app | Hestia
If ever you feel at immediate risk due to domestic abuse call 999 – 55 and be directed straight to the police who will be alerted that you are calling due to domestic abuse. If you are not able to speak freely, they will try to support you to communicate with them in a safe way.
There are so many new things to learn when becoming a parent and it is okay to acknowledge that you need help to learn these. Try to speak with other parents and use their experiences to learn from, ask for demonstrations and tips. Look at the websites and apps listed on this webpage for more ideas of how to build your support team.