Say the jobs out loud
The baby will not arrive and discover that you have already agreed who does the 2am nappy. You have to say it while she can still sleep.
Raising Children treats pregnancy as a run of strong feeling for both of you. The relationship takes the weight better if you put time into it now, not after you are both wrecked. The method is unfancy.
Talk. Practise the skills. Spend actual time together.
Get help if the two of you are stuck.
The talk list is specific, which is useful, because men often offer a general promise to be supportive and then get surprised by a roster. Feelings about the pregnancy, including worry. Sex and intimacy, from her side and from yours, because they may not match.
Who bathes, dresses and settles the baby. How you feel about paid work coming back. Who does the unpaid pile, cleaning, washing, cooking, bills.
Where a couple still exists once a baby is in the house, and where each of you still exists alone. What kind of parent you want to be, including what you want to copy from your own parents and what you refuse to repeat. Values.
Rituals. People you want the child around.
Practical questions belong in the same conversation. Which classes. How the house gets ready.
Who is actually in your support crew. Money. Leave and flexible work.
Whether child care is something you are willing to use. Quitting smoking and alcohol is on that list too, for her and for you. None of this is one dinner.
It is a few plain talks before the third trimester eats the calendar.
Skills get named, which is almost embarrassing until you need them. Listening means you wait, you let her finish, you check you heard it. Problem solving means you define the problem before you defend yourself.
Conflict means respect, the other view, and a timeout that is a pause, not a disappearance. Acceptance means she is not you. A parenting team that can do those things is better for the child and, the page says, better for how satisfied you feel in the family.
That is not soft. That is fewer stupid wars.
Spend time on purpose. Sleep in. A film.
A meal out. Your people. A short trip if you can afford the leave.
You will not do those casually in the first months. The memory of them is not nostalgia. It is proof the relationship was a thing before it became a shift pattern.
Arguments can rise in pregnancy and still be ordinary. The flag is when you are fighting more than usual, dodging the subject, or sitting in anger and distance. Get help then.
Do not wait for a newborn to improve your communication. A counsellor is a tool. Use one while you can still hear a full sentence.
The birth is a bad moment to discover you never agreed the nights.
Source: Raising Children Network