Navigating New Parenthood: 5 Tips for Creating Boundaries

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As a family therapist, I consider boundaries to be a natural and essential part of all relationships. Boundaries are the invisible guidelines that direct the flow of communication, emotions, and connections during interactions between people within intimate and family relationships.

In her book Loving Bravely, Alexandra Solomon describes healthy boundaries as the meeting point where people come together to find a balance in which each person is both separate and connected. Essentially, if boundaries are healthy, a person can discuss (and maintain) their own ideas with another person who has divergent opinions. Additionally, a person won’t become activated, yet can be empathic, in the presence of someone having big emotions.

In this way, boundaries are not meant to be thought of as a means of pushing others away or cutting off relationships. Instead, boundaries can be thought of as giving opportunity to create a road map for how each person can feel most comfortable being in the relationship, so that the relationship can thrive.

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When a couple becomes parents, a new person enters into the family system and, consequently, these points of connection need to be reconsidered, reconfigured, and recommunicated. Now, not only are the parents responsible for developing and maintaining new boundaries with their own outside relationships (e.g., grandparents, siblings, friends), but they are also responsible for boundary-setting on behalf of their child.

Below are five tips for new parents for developing and maintaining boundaries:

• Start from a place of “we-ness”: With your co-parent, build a foundation of collaborating and communicating in a way that creates a sense of “we-ness.” When developing boundaries, you want to be a united front without having boundary-setting messages communicated as if they are coming from just one parent. Use language like “we decided” rather than “they” or “I” when communicating about boundaries.
• It’s your job as parents to set and maintain: Once you and your partner have decided on boundaries, it’s your job to communicate these with outside relationships. This gives other people the opportunity to respond to and manage their side of the boundary. For example, if you’ve communicated a postpartum visiting window from 5 to 7 p.m. to allow for visitors during a time before bedtime, and your relative calls to tell you they’re running late, this doesn’t mean you must adjust the visiting window to accommodate. Instead, you can again communicate the boundary (i.e., visiting window ends at 7 p.m.) and your relative can decide how to respond (e.g., arrive late and leave at 7 p.m., come on a different day, etc.).

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As your family’s developmental needs change, remember that you’ll be able to shift your boundaries both in what they are and in their flexibility. Using this example, as your baby ages, you will be able to be more flexible in when people visit and in shifting the time (i.e., boundary) to accommodate.

• Be clear and concise: It might feel uncomfortable to be direct with people about boundaries, particularly if this is an unfamiliar communication style, but it’s actually easier for everyone if you are direct while still being kind. As noted above, it allows for transparency so others can make decisions on how to respond.
• Ask for support without criticism: Parenting strategies can vary widely between households and across generations and are another form of boundary-setting (e.g., discipline, daily routines and structure, caregiver-child communication, etc.). If there are differences between your strategies and those of the important persons in your child’s life (e.g., grandparents), attempt to share information about the strategies you are trying to implement and directly ask the person to attempt to utilize your strategy as a means of serving as another arm to reinforce. The goal is to demonstrate your care for this relationship and desire for their caregiving help without being critical of their style. In this way, sharing information about the ways you are setting parenting boundaries will more likely be perceived as a request for their support rather than a perception of them doing something wrong by your standards.
• Fair, not equal: Finally, fairness isn’t about boundaries and relationships being the same. You might need to set different boundaries and have different conversations with the various people in your life, and that’s OK. Being fair as it relates to boundary-setting is about being respectful, clear, and intentional.