Let’s face it: In the first year of parenthood, it’s really easy for everything to fall on a birthing parent’s shoulders. If you’re the parent who gave birth, you are your baby’s safest, most familiar place in the world. Maybe you’re breastfeeding, which puts the majority (or even the full) responsibility of feeding squarely on you. And if you’re a mom in a heterosexual partnership, there are probably countless societal factors that put you in the position of default parent.
That’s certainly how it went for me in my first year of motherhood. As an exclusively breastfeeding stay-at-home mom to twins with a husband who was working long hours out of the home and traveling often for work, I was very much the primary parent… and that felt OK to me.
I was with our kids all day every day, handling every single feed and managing every piece of their schedule. In that first year of parenthood, it can almost feel easier to own it yourself, especially when so much naturally falls on you.
“In that first year of parenthood, it can almost feel easier to own it yourself, especially when so much naturally falls on you.”
But shortly after our twins turned 1, the pandemic came. Suddenly, my husband was working from home, I was breastfeeding less and taking on more freelance work, and we had much more time as a family—and we recalibrated the way we approached parenthood, domestic labor, and our partnership. The biggest change for us came from me handing over the morning shift.
How taking shifts changed our routine
I am not a morning person. My husband knows this about me, and immediately when he started working from home, he offered to let me sleep in while he took over our morning routine: I’d nurse the kids in bed, then go back to sleep (often just for an extra 20 minutes or so) while he got them dressed for the day.
This allowed me a few minutes to myself to wake up and shower in peace, and the shift was enormous. I’d head into each day feeling so much more rested, and having that time to take my morning shower knowing that my children were well taken care of allowed me to head into the day feeling so much more ready to take on whatever it threw at me.
This sounds like a sacrifice on my husband’s part and a win for me, but the reality is, it’s been a win-win for both of us. Having that dedicated time with our kids helped my husband deepen his bond with them. Five-plus years later, this is still our morning routine most days. Only now, the kids are getting themselves dressed while my husband whips up French toast, pancakes, waffles, or a big pot of oatmeal (always from scratch!).
Other parents finding better balance by taking shifts
And it sounds like my family isn’t the only one that operates this way. Recently, on Kylie Kelce’s podcast, Ed Sheeran shared his go-to advice with first-time dads.
“Always be the one that makes the breakfast in the morning,” he said. “Always be the one that gets up first, and let your partner have her lie in and do the breakfast. Also, that’s the time of the day that your kids are the least angry because they’re rested. And they wake up and it’s fun and you do all the morning tasks… It’s also an act of kindness, service, whatever, because your partner gets to have a lie-in. But also, you get the golden moments in the morning when your kids are calm and happy.”
I’m telling you: He’s on to something here. Because not only do kids (at least my kids!) cherish this time with their dad, but they also have the benefit of a mom who gets a few minutes to compose herself before tackling the day.
The benefits of shifting the default parent role
Like most moms, I am the default parent in my home. I’m a work-from-home mom who is often caring for kids while also filing deadlines. Even though my husband also works from home, my parenting responsibilities spill into every part of my life in a way they simply don’t for him.
I am the one who snuggles a child with one hand while typing emails with the other on their sick days. I’m the one who builds my career around their lives rather than saying “yes” to every opportunity without giving it a second thought. I hold down the fort when my husband travels for work. I’m the one who takes them to the majority of their appointments and activities. But handing off this one part of the day—knowing someone else is the default in that one area—has allowed me to reclaim time and identity for myself.
“Handing off this one part of the day—knowing someone else is the default in that one area—has allowed me to reclaim time and identity for myself.”
I feel more “me” when I have those moments to focus on myself, even if it’s just 15 minutes to get my morning shower in (and yes, that shower is frequently interrupted by a kid popping in with a question about their outfit, but it’s all good!). And when my husband travels for work, this tends to be the piece of our day where the routine feels the most disrupted.
Find what shifts work for your family
Having Dad—or the other parent—take over the morning shift isn’t going to work for every family. Some parents are out of the house already by then, and many other families have chaotic routines that require all hands on deck. But I would recommend a similar approach to other families, especially families in which one parent is the clear default (households with a stay-at-home parent may benefit from this most of all!).
That may mean handing off the bedtime routine to the non-default parent so their partner can squeeze in a long walk or a workout. It could mean having the non-default do school drop-offs or weekend mornings or evenings one night a week. It’s about what works for each individual family, and for mine, that happens to be having my husband own the morning routine.
Regardless of how you approach this, it makes a huge difference: Knowing that there’s a time of day where you can let someone else take the lead parent role, even if it is just for a half an hour or so, gives default parents a small pocket of time to claim for their own, to use as they please. And when you are the safety net for everything else, the value of that is enormous.
Zara Hanawalt, Contributing Writer
Zara is a twin mom and freelance journalist with over a decade of experience covering parenting, women’s health, and culture. In addition to The Everymom, she’s written for outlets like Vogue, Marie Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Parents, Shape, Motherly, The New York Times for Kids, What to Expect, and many others. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, cooking, travel, watching TV, and trying new restaurants.
