Most new parents know they will eventually have to cover their electrical so
Most new parents know they will eventually have to cover their electrical sockets and take other steps to baby-proof their home, but what they may not know is that it can be equally important to baby-proof their marriage.
In Babyproofing Your Marriage: How to Laugh More, Argue Less, and Communicate Better as Your Family Grows, authors Stacie Cockrell, Cathy O'Neill, and Julia Stone etch out a game plan for couples who want their marriage to stand the biggest, yet smallest, test of all -- a new baby.
"Baby-proofing your marriage is important because a happy marriage makes you happier individuals and that trickles down to how you parent your children, and where there is tension in the marriage or dissatisfaction, it can rub off on the kids," explains Julia Stone, a mother of two boys, aged 5 and 2 1/2, in Kennett Square, Pa.
No doubt about it, bringing home a baby can be stressful, says Scott Haltzman, MD, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University in Providence, R.I. and the author of The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever. "Predictability goes out the window, and it challenges the couple to make new rituals and new routines, but none can be written in stone because baby will dictate and even that will change every few weeks," he tells WebMD.
But following these 10 simple baby-proofing rules can help you keep your marriage solid while raising children.
