As CEO and founder of The Fifth Trimester and author of The Fifth Trimester: The Working Mom’s Guide to Style, Sanity, and Success After Baby, Lauren Smith Brody advances gender equality in the workforce through support for caregivers (she’s also a co-founder of the Chamber of Mothers, a national nonpartisan nonprofit focused on public policy for moms). All that is to say that Brody sees both the big-picture systems that need to change, and the individual moms who are just trying to get through their day.
Here, Brody shares her number-one tip for five of the biggest stress points for new working parents. Use them to help yourself–and evolve your employer.
1. “Why does finding childcare feel impossible?”
“When you’re a new working parent, many things feel like they're individual problems to be solved—and child care is at the top of the list,” says Brody, noting that childcare costs are up 36% in the last 10 years, and more than half of Americans live in a child care desert. “In reality, these problems are often the result of systems working against you—everywhere else in the industrialized world infant and toddler child care is heavily subsidized, for instance. Our norms aren’t normal! So please do not think you’re doing anything wrong if it’s hard to find good care.”
Brody also tells parents to make their child care decisions based primarily on their own emotional comfort. “When researchers reviewed a compendium of many studies done over 15 years, there were cases to be made for all types of care—nanny, daycare, family care. But the biggest predictor of a child's successful outcome was their parent’s emotional comfort with their child care. So, look for safety, obviously, but also look for convenience, peace of mind, and cultural fit. Those count!”
2. “How do I get the flexibility at work that I require?”
Parents have more leverage to ask for flexibility than ever before.
But for many new to the game, this may also be the first time they’ve ever had to negotiate these types of terms. “With stakes so high, it feels quite personal,” says Brody. “But 73% of workers care for someone in their lives. Flexibility is an everyone issue.”
And supporting caregivers is a very profitable business solution. Benefits and policies, like flexibility, for parents yield an ROI of 18x, Brody’s research shows. “So keep that business case front of mind; when you negotiate for anything in your job—whether it’s a raise or more flexibility—you're not just doing it for yourself, but also for those around you who can’t speak up for one reason or another, and for your employer’s bottom line.”
When you go to your employer to negotiate, you should come with a Plan A, as well as a Plan B. Brody suggests that you should try to anticipate the concerns your employer might have, and have the work-arounds in your back pocket, ready to go. You should also be very clear about the actual deliverables of your job. Maybe even write down your own job description and then make sure that whatever you’re proposing to your employer will satisfy their needs—or deliver even better results. Your goal is win-win.
3. “How do I handle feeling overwhelmed by my new mental load at home?”
Brody is a big proponent of making your mental load more visible to those around you. “There's research that shows that once you have a baby, you become responsible for over 300 new daily tasks—not to mention the thinking and planning that goes into these tasks,” she says. “It's a big shift and it makes sense that it might feel overwhelming.”
Brody says it's important to recognize that much of the thinking and planning for these tasks lives in your own head—and you have to make it visible. She recommends writing your tasks somewhere more public—like on a whiteboard or on your refrigerator. This isn’t to rub your partner’s nose in how much you’re doing, but to encourage a relationship that’s more equitable and results in less resentment. Another great read on the subject of marital equity: Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play.
Going back to work can also be a good opportunity for a couple to revisit how they’re dividing tasks—especially if one had a longer parental leave and more hands-on time mastering the at-home tasks. When you divide these tasks, it can also be helpful to make sure that the person isn't just taking on the task, but also taking on all the planning associated with it—from start to finish. For example, if you're in charge of dinner, you should also be the person who knows if you're about to run out of olive oil. That way, it's not just about the task you're doing, but all of the mental load of planning around it as well. Thanks to advancements in technology, there are also numerous tools—like Nanit—that are available to help lighten the mental load for new parents. As AI and technology improve, research does, too. More research means that making the right decisions for your baby is easier than ever—creating more downtime and less stress for new parents.
4. “How do I deal with sleeping and feeding when I’m headed back to work?”
Once again, Brody tells parents:
Do not feel personally guilty for challenges caused by systematic failures.
“Parents have a lot of anxiety, because the guidance they’re given—like having the baby sleep in your room for six months, or breastfeed for two years—doesn’t align at all with federal laws around paid leave and child care.” Brody says.
This is particularly true as it relates to your baby’s sleeping and eating schedule. “Good enough really has to be good enough,” she affirms. When Brody wrote her book and surveyed over 700 new moms, she didn’t just ask when their baby started sleeping through the night, but when parents, themselves, were able to sleep seven hours straight. The most common response was around seven months, which for most people is long after a return back to work. This means new parents are utterly exhausted for the first few months back on the job.
“Do everything you can to take turns with the wake-ups—preferably for two nights at a time—with your partner if you have one,” she says. “Practice all the sleep hygiene rules to make sure that whatever sleep you are getting is high quality. And at work—I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it works—try scheduling a higher-stress task, like a pitch call, for after lunch when you’d normally be sleepy. It gives you an adrenaline boost that helps.”
As for feeding, Brody’s first order of business for new parents: “Google the Pump Act! It protects your time and space to pump milk for your baby if you’re breastfeeding. And for your own mental health around feeding issues or anything else, check out the Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act, which extends until a year after birth and is enforceable. Meaning you can sue if it’s not honored, but better yet, educate your employer, keep your paycheck, get what you need, and make things better for everyone.”
5. “I feel out of touch from work. How do I jump back in?”
Depending on how long you've been out and the type of work you do, you may have some complicated feelings about who was covering which aspects of your job while you were away. Brody recommends treating reentry as if you’re starting a new job.
“Go person to person and desk to desk with one-on-one catch ups,” she says. “You might notice that you’ve outgrown certain aspects of your job, so it could feel natural to leave those responsibilities to those who were covering for you—and that’s okay!” These shifts might be a good opportunity to transition your role to something bigger. “The needs of new parents are also the needs of coworkers, which is why it's so important when we negotiate for things like flexibility,” she says. “We deal with everybody in mind, not just new parents. Ultimately, your employer will thank you for this.”
Whatever you stress, the best thing new parents can do is to go easy on themselves, but at the same time, become your own biggest advocate.
Whether it's at the workplace or in your marriage, resentment is toxic—and it’s imperative to get ahead of anything that might cause it. Preventing future resentment is an investment in not just your relationship and professional identity, but in for yourself and your family. All of these facets of your new life are interconnected, and caring for one one means caring for all of them.
