Preparing for a Baby as a Couple: Who Will Carry What?

The short answer: before the baby comes, agree who will carry what: the nights, the house, the appointments and each family. A baby needs two parents who each know their role, settled behind a closed door.

Most couples prepare the nursery. Few prepare the week.

There is a list nobody writes: who gets up at three in the morning, who notices the nappies are running out, who remembers the vaccinations, who carries the worry when the baby will not stop crying. If you do not write it, it writes itself, in the first exhausted weeks, by whoever happens to be closest to the crying. And a year later, one of you may look at it and feel something close to betrayal.

My view is this. A baby does not only need two parents. It needs two parents who each know their role. The question I ask every family, “Is each of you doing your role?”, is easiest to answer well before the baby arrives, while you are both still rested enough to hear each other.

The dip that many couples share

This is not said to frighten you. It is said so that you are not surprised.

Across many studies, satisfaction in the couple relationship tends to dip after a baby arrives, more in the first year and a little more in the second. Researchers still debate how large the dip is, and couples without children show a small decline over time too (Bogdan, Turliuc & Candel 2022). But a dip is common enough that it may help to plan for it, the way you plan for sleepless nights.

In one small study of newlyweds who became parents, about two in three wives reported a drop in satisfaction, compared with about half of couples without a baby. Many of those drops were not noticed until a year after the birth (University of Washington, on Shapiro, Gottman & Carrère 2000).

A dip is not a verdict. It is a season, and seasons can be prepared for.

The wish behind the list

One finding is especially worth knowing before the birth. When parents’ hopes about who would do the baby work were not met afterwards, it went with lower satisfaction in the relationship and with how well they worked together with the baby (Khazan, McHale & Decourcey 2008).

Read that carefully. It was not only the amount of work. It was the gap between what each person hoped and what happened.

Which means the most protective conversation may not be about the work at all. It may be about the wishes. Spoken early, while you are both still rested enough to hear each other.

Sleep is part of the plan

In a large German study, mothers lost on average about an hour of sleep a night after a first baby, and fathers about thirteen minutes. The hardest stretch was the first three months (Richter and colleagues 2019).

Numbers like these are not a judgment on fathers. They describe what often happens when nothing is decided in advance, and the person feeding the baby simply becomes the person who is always awake. Deciding together how each adult will get some protected rest may matter more than any piece of equipment.

A conversation worth having this month

You do not need a perfect plan. You need a first draft, said aloud. Some questions to share over tea:

• When the baby cries at night, what do each of us hope will happen?
• Which jobs do I want to keep? Which am I afraid of ending up with alone?
• Who outside the two of us can really help, and with what exactly?
• How will we tell each other, kindly, when the plan is not working?

The last question may be the most important one. Every plan made before a baby will be changed by the baby. What protects you is not the plan. It is having a way back to the table.

Keep the two of you alive

Many couples pour everything into the baby and forget themselves. Then, a year or two later, they wonder why they cannot agree on anything. A family needs a shared goal and a shared responsibility, and it also needs the two adults to still be a couple: a meal together, a walk, a conversation that is not about nappies. Blame between husband and wife is the thing a home breathes in. Keep it out early.

And decide now where disagreements will go. Problems are settled behind a closed door. Your child, from the first months, should grow up in a home where the adults disagree in private and come out together.

Fathers and partners feel it too

Worry, low mood and exhaustion are not only the mother’s. A large review found that about one in ten fathers had depression during pregnancy or after the birth, most often three to six months after (Paulson & Bazemore 2010). The NHS says it plainly: “Fathers and partners can also have depression after having a baby” (NHS).

So the plan is not only about the baby’s needs. It is about two adults looking after each other.

Signs that need a doctor now

These lines are taken from official guidance, not rewritten.

The CDC lists urgent warning signs during pregnancy and in the year after delivery, including “Thoughts about harming yourself or your baby”, and advises: “Seek medical care immediately” (CDC, Hear Her). See the full list on that page.

The NHS says that depression and anxiety can start in pregnancy, and advises: “Be honest with your midwife, GP or any other healthcare professional” (NHS).

If there is immediate danger, call your local emergency number or go to the nearest emergency department now, and tell your doctor or midwife.

One small step

Tonight, sit together for fifteen minutes with two pieces of paper. On each, write a simple week: seven days, morning, afternoon, evening, night.

Without talking, each of you fills in what you imagine the first week with the baby will look like. Who is awake at night? Who cooks? Who answers the visitors? Who rests, and when?

Then swap the papers and read them in silence. Notice the gaps between the two pictures. Do not argue about them yet. Just circle the three places where your pictures are most different.

Tomorrow, talk only about those three circles. For each one, agree on a first draft, knowing it will change. And write down one sentence you can say to each other when the plan stops working: something kind and short, like “Can we look at the week again?”

That sentence may become the most useful tool you have in the first year.

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Next step

Draw your week before the baby draws it for you. Answer a few questions about how your days look now, and get a 7-day sheet to try together. My week map →

Sources

• Bogdan, I., Turliuc, M. N. & Candel, O. S. (2022). Transition to parenthood and marital satisfaction: a meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology. Article
• University of Washington (2000), on Shapiro, Gottman & Carrère. News release
• Khazan, I., McHale, J. P. & Decourcey, W. (2008). Violated wishes about division of childcare labor. Infant Mental Health Journal. Record
• Richter, D. and colleagues (2019). Sleep. WRAP record
• Paulson, J. F. & Bazemore, S. D. (2010). JAMA. Record
• NHS. Postnatal depression. nhs.uk
• NHS. Mental health in pregnancy. nhs.uk
• CDC. Hear Her: urgent maternal warning signs. cdc.gov