The measures we obtained soon after the birth showed the enormous range of responses to new parenthood (see Chapters 6 and 7). Some parents were finding their infants relatively easy to manage, and reported increased feelings of closeness and partnership with their spouses. Others reported a range of concerns, including difficulty in soothing the baby or “connecting” to it, loss of intimacy with the spouse, and a sense of restriction of general lifestyle. We were interested in whether this wide range of responses would still be evident four to five months later, when the parents had had more time to become attached to their babies and to develop routines for doing the chores and caring for the infant. At the final assessment, both transition and comparison couples again completed measures that evaluated their relationships and their psychological adjustment. In this chapter, we explore changes across the entire course of the study for each group. In addition, for the transition group, we look at the extent to which different couples struggled with new parenthood, and explore factors related to the ease of their transition.

PATTERNS OF CHANGE OVER TIME

As we noted in Chapter 7, our focus in this study was on tracking changes in spouses' psychological adjustment and marital relationships.