Top 6 Problems for New Parents

Raising a son or daughter is, in itself, a challenge. If we add inexperience to this, the result can produce a high psychological exhaustion.

Therefore, in this article we will see a summary of the problems new parents often encounter and that they can get emotionally overwhelmed.

• Related article: "Types of stress and their triggers"

The most common problems in new parents

Although the fact of having a child is not something extraordinary statistically speaking, it is still an experience as intense as, in most cases, demanding. Knowing how to keep up with the tasks to be done to offer the little one everything he needs is not easy.

These are the most frequent forms of discomfort in fathers and mothers who must adapt to the need to raise children for the first time.

1. Stress and fatigue

Fatigue is very common in first-time parents trying to adjust to the pace of raising and educating a child (in combination with other responsibilities), and this It also has a reflection on the state of mind. To this discomfort is added stress, born from that dynamic in which parents get used to being always alert in order to support and protect their son or daughter. As we will see, both stress and fatigue produce a chain effect that fuels the appearance of other problems.

2. Lack of sleep

Facing the challenge of motherhood or fatherhood for the first time is something that you absorb from the first moment, which implies that If the use of time is not optimized, the hours that should be dedicated to deep sleep are affected. For example, the backlog of tasks can cause us to go to sleep late, and even if technically we go to bed when it plays, the activation of our brain prevents us from falling asleep in a way suitable.

3. Fear of doing it wrong

The fear of the possibility of harming our son or daughter is another source of psychological wear and tear to take into account. Now, although the idea that children are physically and psychologically delicate is justified in many cases, in others it is based on myths and unfounded fears. For this reason, it is important to be well informed and have supervision in matters of upbringing and support for the development of children.

4. Lack of sexual desire

The mixture of fatigue and lack of time can take a toll on the sexual life of the couple, which is often displaced by day-to-day emergencies.

5. Different educational styles

Differences in values ​​and priorities when raising a son or daughter can lead to discussions that you have to know how to handle. It is important that this situation does not turn into a fight of egos.

• You may be interested in: "The 6 stages of childhood (physical and mental development)"

6. Asymmetries in the distribution of household chores

Differences in handling household responsibilities can easily arise in couples with little experience. raising children; at the beginning it is difficult to have a global vision of everything that needs to be done and to reach a point of equilibrium of the effort that both must make.

To do?

Cognitive behavioral therapy It has proven to be an effective tool in overcoming the problems we have just seen. It is a very useful type of psychological intervention to adapt to the challenges that come our way throughout life, both from the establishment of new patterns of behavior as from the creation of new ways of interpreting reality and managing emotions.

From weekly sessions, fathers and mothers who have problems adapting to their role in the face of a first child are developing skills to manage emotions, dialogue and consensus building, time management and setting goals and priorities, as well as psychologically enhancing life habits healthy.

Are you looking for psychological assistance?

If you are interested in having the professional support of a psychologist, I invite you to contact me. My name is Tomás Santa Cecilia and I am an expert psychologist in the cognitive-behavioral intervention model; I work helping individuals and professionals both in person (in my office in Madrid) and online by video call.

Bibliographic references:

• Berk, L. AND. (2012). Infants and children: Prenatal through middle childhood (7 ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
• Blasi, C.H.; Bjorklund, David F. (2003). Evolutionary Developmental Psychology: A New Tool for Better Understanding Human Ontogeny. Human Development. 46(5): 259 - 281.
• Snowman, J. (1997). Educational Psychology: What Do We Teach, What Should We Teach? Educational Psychology, 9, pp. 151 - 169.