Family Adventures

Your family - your partner, yourself, this baby, your older children, and your step-children - are a team. It's you and them together against the world in a way. As a team, you should develop a set of family goals and a code to go along with those goals. How do you want to live your lives together? What customs are important to you as a group? What sort of schedule do you wish to follow? What responsibilities do you have to one another? Obviously, if this baby is your first, it is up to your partner and yourself to set those goals initially. Once those issues have been addressed, it's easier to see yourself as a unit with a common interest.

Set family guidelines and stick to them. Yes, they will need to be updated as children grow and life changes, but the premise is always the same. If you are responsible toward one another, you teach responsibility and sensitivity which will reach out beyond the borders of your home.

Prioritize:
family
sharing the workload
rituals
mealtimes
individual time with each child
quality time together as a family
honoring commitments
parental relationship

If you and your partner spend quality time together - not just laundry duties and trips to the grocery store, but all out silly time, rolling down the grassy hill time, daily story time, family date night, with your baby, that baby will bond very closely with both parents (and siblings, too).

It makes for a happier, more secure little person, who will grow into a happier, more secure child. In turn, children who see themselves as cherished by their parents are more likely to choose to spend free time with family. They grow into teenagers who are willing to communicate with parents. They make better life choices all around.

It may seem like a stretch that spending time every day reading to a three month old can affect the child, teen, adult they will become, but it's not. If parents commit to their children, the benefits are immense.

Does your adventure include a lot of spectators?
Raising children is a spectator sport for some family members and close friends. Well-meaning and dedicated loved ones may be an ever present factor in your life - especially after the arrival much anticipated grandbabies, nieces/nephews, etc. How do you handle those constant drop-ins? The overly indulgent gifts? The lack of privacy?

Hopefully, with some sensitivity and humor. If you can't laugh about the $100 booties or the twenty five casseroles in your fridge, try to figure out how to make the most of the situation. You can invite people over for dinner and use up all the food that won't fit in your freezer. You can put those booties on the dog when it's cold out. When they're threadbare, show Granny you got her money's worth out of them (but don't tell her how). You can set up a standing babysitting night so you and your partner can get out as a couple. Wouldn't it be nice to know that anything you schedule on a Tuesday night (from dentist visits to gourmet dinner reservations) is already covered in terms of childcare?

Sometimes, it's necessary to make boundaries a little more concrete. Have Uncle Ozzie Overload? Pack up the baby, pick up a picnic lunch from your favorite delicatessen, meet your sweetie at a park and get out of the house. Ozzie can't barge in on you if you're not home.

Family is a wonderful thing, and surrounding your little one with many loving arms is a gift you can give your child. If you make your own happiness a priority, little things like a daily phone call from your mother-in-law to check on baby's diaper changes won't bother you, so be sure that your own needs are being met. That way everyone else's needs won't get you down. And yes, she does "need" to know about those diaper changes. At least, she believes she does.

Family adventures begin with a couple, and the couple's relationship is even more important now.
You hear so much about making the baby the center of your universe, and for many people it's true. But that's not the healthiest focus for a family. The family as a unit is the focal point, and what's at the heart of a family? The couple who chose to create that family.

Obviously, little people require a lot of time and attention. They will need you physically and emotionally, and that will take time away from activities and commitments you had prior to the blessed event. All that means is paying careful attention to making sure you get that mandatory quality couple nurturing you need, in addition to self nurturing time, which is equally important.

When baby makes three, or four, or more, the original twosome needs attention, too. Do not lose sight of your romantic relationship, of the commitments and promises you made to one another. Yes, many of those promises had to do with building a family, but what is the foundation of that family? You and your partner, as individuals and as a couple.

Happy children need happy parents, so:

Stay involved in activities which fulfill you personally.

Stay involved in activities which fulfill you as a couple.

Weekly date nights are a must.

Communicate your wants and needs and listen to your partner's wants and needs.

Be nurturing toward one another, as well as to your children.

No guilt, no worries, grown up time is part of being a good parent.
You will be better able to face the challenges of the day and more appreciative of the joys of the day if you feel complete, body, mind, and spirit.

Congratulations on your miraculous little one and for the well thought out plans you've made on how to raise your child. It truly is a most amazing journey, so enjoy every day of the adventure.