Be Well and Prosper
Couples encouraged to swap parenting roles for improved family wellbeing
A Melbourne paediatrician is encouraging couples to switch traditional parenting roles in a bid to boost family wellbeing.
Dr Daniel Golshevsky said fathers are typically really good at settling babies and by being more involved they can actually help newborns sleep throughout the night and minimise "deterioration" in older sibling's behaviour.
"We know there's a lot of evidence to support the fact that when fathers are more involved with the newborn, that baby is going to get closer to sleeping through the night earlier and that benefits the entire family," Dr Golshevsky told Today.
Dr Golshevsky said while breastfeeding is reserved for the mother, there is nothing else a dad can't do to help out.
"Dads convey a very strong message to a baby that they're not going to be fed, so they're going to have more luck settling them," he said.
Dr Golshevsky said there are also enormous benefits to the toddler when dad gets more hands on.
"The most common age for a toddler to become a sibling is around two or three, that happens to coincide with the biggest period of their frustration with emotion, disregulation, behaviour problems and a lack of autonomy," he said.
"There's this a very common, almost guaranteed scenario that when the baby turns three months, the toddler has a massive behaviour deterioration.
"We see it all the time and cross-parenting is a method to completely prevent that deterioration simply by having dads more involved and switching the assumption that it's the breastfeeding mother who has to do everything."
Mr Ben Lawless
Researcher