What you should talk about before the birth so that things are easier afterwards

The conversations that take the pressure off a relationship after the birth can hardly be had afterwards. Not because the insight is missing, but because the capacity is. If you argue on four hours of sleep, you are not negotiating, you are fighting. That is why pregnancy is the only window in which these seven points can be settled calmly.

This is the article I would most like to give every couple beforehand.

Why it is easier beforehand

Two findings make the difference clear.

First: the division of tasks that develops in the first weeks stays. In analyses of the German Family Panel pairfam, 47 per cent of couples shared the housework roughly equally before the birth, only 24 per cent afterwards, and three years later the figure was still there.

Second: according to a longitudinal study of 218 couples, the drop in relationship satisfaction hits hardest the very couples who were particularly satisfied beforehand. So getting on well beforehand does not help. Being prepared does.

Taken together, this means: most things are decided in a period in which nobody is in a state to decide anything. If you talk beforehand, you take a few years out of the hands of chance.

The seven conversations

Give yourselves twenty minutes for each. Not all in one evening.

1. The nights

This is the most important one, and the one most often left undiscussed.

Who gets up? Always the same person or taking turns? And if one of you is breastfeeding: does that automatically mean she also takes on everything else at night, or does the other take on the early morning in return?

The question behind it: how do we make sure that one of us regularly gets a full night’s sleep?

That sounds like organisation and is in fact the biggest lever of all, because almost everything else depends on sleep.

2. Responsibilities, not tasks

Not who changes nappies or who does the shopping. But which areas belong entirely to one person, including thinking ahead.

For example: doctor’s appointments and check-ups. Shopping and supplies. Laundry. Paperwork and applications. Keeping in touch with the family.

An area belongs to one person. That person then also decides how it is done. This is exactly the part that becomes difficult later and is easy to agree on now.

3. Who has to ask for time to themselves

In almost every couple a pattern develops in which one person asks for time to themselves and the other simply takes it. These roles form in the first weeks and often last for years.

So agree on something concrete now: each of you gets a fixed period every week that is not up for negotiation and that nobody has to say thank you for.

Two hours is enough. What matters is that nobody has to apply for it.

That includes the question of where the time is supposed to come from. Who takes over during that time? Are there grandparents nearby, is childcare an option, will you take turns? Clarifying this now is much easier than improvising later.

With a first child there is an added difficulty: you cannot yet know exactly what you will need as a mother. But you do know what does you good today, and that is the right starting point. You can adjust later.

4. Visitors

Underestimated, and one of the most common sources of conflict in the first weeks.

Who may come when? For how long? Do people let you know before they come? Who tells the families?

The rule that has proven itself: each of you talks to your own family. When it is about his parents, he does the talking. When it is about yours, you do. A great many conflicts during this time arise because someone has to sort out something that was not their job.

And a sentence you can agree on beforehand, so nobody has to improvise it:

“We’ll get in touch when we’re up to visitors. Please don’t come unannounced.”

5. Money

Who will earn less, for how long, and what that means for decisions.

The question that really lies behind it: does money remain shared money, even if one of us earns nothing for a year? And does the person who is at home then have to account for their own spending?

That is an uncomfortable conversation, and it prevents one of the most painful hurts of parental leave.

6. How we notice that it is getting too much

Agree on a signal. A word, a sentence, a gesture. It means: this is getting too much for me right now, I need twenty minutes.

Along with it, the agreement that in that moment the other does not ask questions and does not discuss, but takes over.

And, just as important: how do we notice that for one of us it is no longer just exhaustion? Agree that you may tell each other without it being an accusation, and that the next step is then a doctor’s appointment. This applies to both of you. Around one in ten fathers goes through a depressive phase in the first year after the birth, and for mothers the figures are 10 to 20 per cent, depending on the survey.

7. The twenty minutes

A fixed time each week in which nothing organisational is discussed. No appointments, no shopping, no arrangements.

That sounds like very little and is harder than it looks. At the same time, it is the only thing that keeps you from being nothing more than a small business after a year.

And its counterpart: ten minutes a week, on a fixed day, only for organisational matters. Then they have their place and do not push their way into every conversation.

And one topic that belongs on the table beforehand

This is the point most couples skip, and it often decides more than all seven conversations put together.

Whatever is already an issue today becomes a bigger one after the birth.

If your mother-in-law already plays a role now, she will play a bigger one in the first weeks after the birth. If you disagree about parenting before there is a child, you will disagree more loudly afterwards. If boundaries are a difficult topic in one of your families, they will stay difficult.

So sit down and write down what is weighing on you. Each of you separately first, then together.

And then go through the list. Some things can be clarified before they become urgent. That is the easier part.

With what cannot be clarified, it is about something else. There it is about developing a kind of acceptance and understanding for each other, so that the issue does not drive you apart later. Some couples manage this on their own, some need someone from outside.

But the most important thing at this point is not the individual topic. It is how you argue with each other.

A way of arguing that does not hold up before the birth will hold up even less afterwards. And it can hardly be changed on four hours of sleep. That is why many couples come to me before they become parents, and in my view that is the wisest time of all.

What you cannot settle beforehand

To keep it honest.

You will not know beforehand how it feels. You will make agreements that no longer fit after three weeks. And you will argue about things that are on no list.

That is fine. The purpose of these conversations is not to settle everything. It is that later you do not have to start from zero, but from “we had planned this differently, let’s adjust”.

That is a completely different starting point from an argument at two in the morning.

If he does not want to have the conversation

This happens often, usually not out of unwillingness, but because for many men planning before the birth feels abstract.

What helps: not everything at once. Start with what affects him personally, that is point 3 and point 5. Once he notices that these conversations are also about him and not just about a list of duties, he is more likely to join in with the rest.

And tell him why you want it:

“I don’t want to plan ahead because I’m scared. I want us not to have to guess afterwards.”

Where preparation is not enough

If there is already belittling, control or violence in your relationship, these are not issues that can be solved with agreements. A pregnancy does not usually improve situations like that.

The German helpline for women affected by violence (Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen) is available around the clock, free of charge and anonymously, on 116 016, even if you just want to sort out what is going on between you.

What I would like you to take away

Almost all the couples who sit with me after the birth got stuck at a point that could have been talked through in twenty minutes beforehand.

Not on the big question of whether they are right for each other. On the question of who gets up at night and who gets to sleep in for it.

Take those seven evenings. It is the best preparation I know, and it costs nothing.

Sources

• Dechant, A., Rost, H. & Schulz, F. (2014). Die Veränderung der Hausarbeitsteilung in Paarbeziehungen. Zeitschrift für Familienforschung, 26(2), 144 to 168.
• Doss, B. D., Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M. & Markman, H. J. (2009). The effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality: An 8-year prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(3), 601 to 619.
• Paulson, J. F. & Bazemore, S. D. (2010). Prenatal and postpartum depression in fathers and its association with maternal depression: A meta-analysis. JAMA, 303(19), 1961 to 1969.