Q:My girlfriend and I had our first baby, a boy, four weeks ago. I promised myself that I would be more involved with parenting than my father was, but when I see my girlfriend with the baby, I am not sure what I can do to help. The two of them are together most of the time. They do not seem to need me. What can I do?
A:The most important person in your baby’s life right now is his mother. Apart from loving and caring for him, she has the stuff he needs for survival. She is his source of food.
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Something inside him knows that and he is not about to forgo easy access to his feeding times. The problem for your girlfriend is that the demands from a newborn baby can seem overwhelming.
She needs to be available to her baby most of the time, which can be tiring and frustrating.
Your most important responsibility is to support and encourage your girlfriend as much as you can. Lots of hugs and kindness will go a long way to helping her through this demanding stage in your baby’s life. The time will come for you to be more directly involved with your baby.
Dads used to be less involved with their infants. Life is different now. Many people are beginning to understand that dads can play a significant role in their babies’ lives.
Dads start becoming objects of attachment when their children are about three months old. Apparently this has a double effect, with studies showing both those dads and kids at about a year old registering higher scores on happiness scales than did children and dads who were not involved with each other at that age.
Children who had great relationships with their dads, starting at three months of age, were more alert to what was going on around them than were children whose fathers stayed in the background until their children were older.
In the long term, children who had good relationships with both their parents tended to fare better, making friends and becoming more confident.
Your time to start having your own special relationship with your son is only a few weeks away. You can play with him and soon start feeding him, bathing him and putting him to bed.
Remember that you and your girlfriend are in a partnership raising your son.
The more that the two of you can co-operate while you are raising him, the better off he’ll be.
Support your girlfriend as you gradually make your own way into your baby’s life and learn to work together.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
