Do You Have Advice for Stress Relief for Parents?

“Do you have any advice or activities for stress relief for parents? My partner and I are feeling really drained under all this parental stress lately—bills, baby feedings, no sleep, our parents trying to butt in, overwhelming jobs, etc”

I totally get what you are going through. I encourage you to think of being a working parent as a challenge and like with any challenge, the more you break it down, the less daunting it becomes. You and your partner need to plan how you want your life as working parents to look like and find the resources you need to make it work. The important thing is for you both to feel that you are in control of your life.

Here Are Some Tips that You Will Find Helpful:

• What is your vision of working parenthood? Your vision might be: “To make partner in five years while being able to put the kids to bed every night”; “I don’t care much about my career, I just want to provide for my family while not missing a single school play”; “I would love to be a stay at home parent” or something completely different. However you want your life as a working parent to look like, is entirely valid. Just consider it carefully and make a plan to make it work. 

• To achieve your vision (whatever it is), you need to set boundaries. Boundaries are always important but more so when we become parents because our mental load drastically increases. Mental load is all the invisible work that we all do: organizing playdates, booking doctors’ appointments, buying Christmas present for teachers, remembering to get balloons for a birthday, or planning the week’s dinners. On their own, they seem like small tasks, but they all add up. You need to set up boundaries at home and at work. Boundaries are a form of self-respect and they allow us to manage our life and our relationships in a way that works for us.  How do boundaries at work look like? You may start to delegate a bit more, block off any meetings for a couple of hours a day to focus on deep work, or ask to work from home a couple of days a week. What about home? Put on the phone on silence during bath time, ask your parents not to visit during supper time because it is your time to be with the kids, or say no to a birthday party because you want to have a quiet Sunday at home. 

• Think long -term to stay in the game: sometimes, parents I work with, decide to leave their jobs, during crises. The child has the flu, they haven’t slept in five days, and they have a really important presentation. The situation feels too much, and they decide to quit. The decision is human, but we need to remind ourselves that we need to push through the rough patches, to get long-term payoffs. The child will only have the flu for a week, and you have always loved your job and want to progress in your career. This “short-term/long-term” thinking allows you to stay in the game and maintain your motivation. Keep reminding yourself: The tough part will be over soon, and my long-term payoff is coming.

• Create a strong co-parenting team: Parents who co-parent effectively are those who cooperate, support each other, confide and trust in each other, and who experience low conflict levels related to their children. However, it is not easy. Research tells us that 2/3 of couple report a decline in their relationship satisfaction after having a baby. It’s important to normalise the massive impact that having a child has on any couple. Having a kid is not a death sentence for the couple but it requires work. Couples who feel most connection and satisfaction in their relationship since becoming parents have something in common: they have created a sense of ‘we-ness’, sharing in the sights and lows of parenting. They know that their relationship needs love and attention. To achieve this, it is important that you have communicate with one another effectively. Whether this is coming together to make a game plan to tackle baby’s new sleep schedule or taking time and space to really hear about what an experience has been like for your partner. Make sure that you talk and listen. Also, make sure that you both feel that the labour is fairly distributed, otherwise your relationship may struggle. When couples feel that they are sharing the load fairly, the family does better. I explain here how to discuss and organize a fair share of the load. 

• Find your tribe: parenting was never meant to be done in isolation. When it says that it takes a village, it’s because it does! Don’t do it alone. Making time to see friends is not a luxury but a necessity. 

• Understand what really matters for your child: We are afraid of making mistakes because we think that with every decision we make, we can ruin our children’s lives. This is not the case: small decisions such as whether to co-sleep or not, breastfeed or not, send them to a co-ed or a single-sex school, do not matter much. What matters? the relationship that you have with your child. A strong, trusting, loving relationship is the stronger predictor of your child’s mental health and wellbeing. If you find yourself agonizing about every single aspect of your child’s development: let go. 

• Let go of the idea of perfection:  Let’s change the idea of being a perfect parent for the idea of being a good enough parent. The idea of the good enough parent was formulated by a psychologist called Donald Winnicott. It doesn’t mean neglecting a child, it means knowing that as parents we will get it wrong sometimes and this is also a natural part of being a parent. 

I hope this information is useful. I work with many parents in your same situation, if you want to discuss how I can support you, please get in touch.

These articles may also be helpful:

What Is Parental Burnout?

7 Myths About Parental Burnout?

How Does Parental Mental Health Affect a Child?

How to Deal with In-Laws: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Staying Connected as a Parent When You Become Parents

 I wish you and your family all the very best. 

Love, 

Ana

Dr Ana Aznar