Let Fairy Non Bio know your thoughts on how a new baby can affect your relationships - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[AmeliaMumsnet]

As part of our partnership with Fairy Non Bio, we’ve produced our first ever Mumsnet Babies Podcast. There are ten episodes in the series and so far we’ve released five. Episode three is about relationships and you can listen to it here. Fairy Non Bio would like you to listen to the podcast whenever you can, and then discuss how having a new baby has impacted your relationships.

It’s difficult to imagine how much having a new baby can alter different relationship dynamics until it actually happens. With work schedules, sleeping patterns and responsibilities changing, you may feel that your relationship with your partner has drastically changed as you’re no longer each other’s ‘number one’, or even that your relationships with friends or family have been put under strain.

Fairy Non Bio would like to hear how your relationships have changed with the arrival of a new baby. Have you had any trouble with the expectations of your parents or in-laws? Maybe you’ve found that friends without children have been unsupportive of your new responsibilities? Or that a wedge has been driven between you and a close friend because of differing parenting styles? How have you and your DP navigated making sure you both have time for each other, and for yourselves while battling through the exhaustion and new parent fog?

Everyone who posts on the thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

If you want to rate the Mumsnet Babies Podcast, please go to the iTunes store and add a review!

Thanks, and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

Standard Insight Ts&Cs apply

We don't get as much time with our pre-kids friends as we used to but I've got a bunch of new 'mum friends' too now, we have a funny (very supportive) relationship as when we were just getting to know each other we were all going through the life changing event of having children!

As a couple we've found sharing out the night wakings fairly difficult and that's the source of most of our bickers.

I've always got on well with my in-laws but it's nice we now have a shared descendant to love, I think it's brought us closer.

my antenatal group was a lifesaver in the early days as we were all going through it together. the podcast is great in terms of being so dad focussed too. We very much went through the early days together learning to bath baby and even support each other with waking up for night feeds. I wish in-laws would have been more hands on because there were lots of promises about helping out which never fully materialised - other in laws were taking on regular childcare duties so my friends could go back to work but that was an option that was never available to me.

Our babies definitely brought us closer together and we now feel like a real family, however have much less time for each other than we did just as a couple

As a first time mum of a nine month old I've realised that having a baby won't just affect your relationship it will change it forever. Ultimately it's how you and your partner decide to approach these changes that determine your happiness as individuals and as a partnership.

For myself, I expected our little boy to bring us nothing but love and happiness and make our families even closer. Within a week my husband's cousin had upset me terribly by consistently telling me all the things I was doing 'wrong' (such as letting him sleep on me). My husband lost his temper with her and she's since refused to speak to anyone in the entire family. My grandfather felt rejected as he wasn't invited to the hospital (i decided parents only as I was unwell after losing a lot of blood) and threatened my dad when he told him my wishes mattered more than his feelings. He now has nothing to do with our entire family. Every week I have to bite my lip due to my parent in law's outdated views on various topics (feeding/ /sleeping).

In short, my husband and I have had many reasons to lose each other within all of this. However we make a promise to discuss our concerns when we're not with the baby and when we're not too tired and able to talk reasonably (I.e not after a bad night with our baby and first thing in the morning) we also ensure once a month we have a date night (even if it's just the cinema) and help each other around the house. I do his lunches and irnoning which he used to do but he gives the baby his bath and bottle before bed. We both help each other in our new routines so chores and responsibilities are shared. We also have 'me' time alone where he'lol watch football in peace or I'll have a hot bath.

Be kind to yourself and your partner.

I thought that we would would be in a serene baby bubble... dh, ds and me. I didn't count on the sheer exhaustion from having a baby that bf constantly and wouldn't take expressed milk despite me pumping regularly like Daisy the cow and trying every bottle and teat combo on the market. I also didn't count on my best birthday present (ever!) being a night away on my own in a local Holiday Inn Express to catch up on all the sleep I had missed in the previous eight months.
I thought my sex life would return quickly but what with baby weight and several bouts of mastitis that I would return to work before having sex.
On a positive, I didn't realise how much I loved or needed my mum and how much it brought us closer or how amazing some of my friends were who in the early days turned up for a coffee mid morning and stayed while I cried due to postnatal depression, helped me clean the house and enabled me to have a shower before midday

We still love each other as much or more but it's different as we don't have much time on our own together with two bad sleepers! Some more us time would be great!

Generally it has brought my Husband and I together and we now have much more patience and understanding of each other and how we solve problems and deal with pressure.

However having children ruined my relationship with my In Laws who went decidedly odd during my first pregnancy and got progressively worse once our first child was here - the relationship has never recovered and I doubt it ever will.

Friendships have also changed and having children has brought a whole new group of people into my life who are a great support, although older friendships also continue to be valued despite the fact that we are at different life stages currently.

Having children had a really positive impact on my relationship with my sister, which can be strained as we're such different people. We're united now in our love for the kids! It's not had such a good effect on my relationship with my dad, who was emotionally very distant with me, and very rarely got involved with us, in terms of playing, fun family time etc. I can see this repeating itself with my kids, which makes me sad and angry.

It changes many relationships. It brings more highs than lows but the lows are tough. Lack of sleep causes many arguments.

It can be very difficult when you've just had your first baby to maintain your relationship with your other half. Mine seemed to just leave me to it. He slept in a different room so the baby didn't disturb him and often went out after work and came back late etc. So I felt completely unsupported at a time when I needed him the most. But of course, he was still trying to adjust to it all and it didn't come easy. The best advice is to keep talking and find out what each other is feeling and try to understand and support each other.

I became closer to my immediate family and my friends who also have children but drifted away from my friends who do not yet have children.

You learn so much about each other's coping strategies and muddle your way through finding a path together. As time goes on the good cop / bad cop parent roles ebb and shift with the situation, once again working with each other's strengths and weaknesses ...every day is a school day!!

Unfortunately a newborn can affect a relationship in a negative way as i found from experience. The other half felt neglected and resentful and I felt exhausted and tearful. but things got better and we did it all again!

I remember going from being dh's favourite person to his joint favourite person was hard to hear that first week but now DD is my favourite person although he is a close second his jokes just aren't as good.
We don't do all the things we used to together and that's partly as we have no childcare options but also we are broke and tired now but we do have this amazing person we adore so much that bonds us forever and just the thought of her mischief puts a smile on both our faces mid argument.
I would struggle to do this without him even.

I found our relationship was affected but it was due to the post-natal depression rather than our new daughter. Forgetting the PND I feel that I love my husband more now than I did before Poppy. Watching him really getting stuck into daddy-mode which he seems a complete natural at is just amazing.

It does bring you closer together eventually but in the early days it's hard to comprehend how much things have to change. Our time together was pretty much wiped out at first, we felt exhausted but in time you learn to accept the changes and embrace them.

My relationship with my husband was cemented further because I realised how much he helped me and supported me when I wasnt feeling too good about myself. With regards to friends, my friendship groups changed dramatically because we no longer had anything in common

My relationship with my husband was cemented further because I realised how much he helped me and supported me when I wasnt feeling too good about myself. With regards to friends, my friendship groups changed dramatically because we no longer had anything in common