[Aurornis]

> My wife and I share chores and swap out tasks evenly.

Having some give and take between parents makes such a big difference.

I think every time I’ve talked to friends who are new parents who complain about not having any free time ever, they eventually reveal some excessive rigidity in how they share the parenting load. Some parents try to have both parents involved in everything all the time. Some parents refuse to let the other parent handle a task like bedtime. Some parents let their kids get demanding about which parent does a task and they never push back on it. And of course some couples have one lazy parent who just doesn’t do the thing, leaving it to fall to the other parent.

There’s often a lightbulb moment when parents realize that there can be flexibility and trading back and forth between parents.

I once coached a young guy who was struggling at his job because his ~9 month old still wasn’t sleeping well. After some questions he revealed that both he and his wife were getting up with the baby every time and staying up together.

It took some convincing to break him of the notion that every interaction with the baby required two parents. Once they started staggering their sleep schedules and taking shifts during the night everything improved.