{"id":1347,"date":"2026-08-10T14:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/having-a-baby-throws-time-management-into-chaos-here-are-five-important-lessons-for-new-parents\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:38:11","slug":"having-a-baby-throws-time-management-into-chaos-here-are-five-important-lessons-for-new-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/having-a-baby-throws-time-management-into-chaos-here-are-five-important-lessons-for-new-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Having a baby throws time management into chaos \u2013 here are five important lessons for new parents"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span> Anna Grant\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parents are told to treasure every moment: \u201cIt goes by in the blink of an eye!\u201d Yet for many, the early months of parenthood do not feel fast so much as relentless<\/a>: a blur of feedings, worries and appointments in which time seems to belong to everyone but the parents themselves.<\/p>\n

How do we find balance when every minute is already spoken for? This is the question at the heart of my research. Over years of fieldwork in Toronto\u2019s wealthiest and most disadvantaged neighbourhoods, I interviewed more than 200 people and surveyed over 1,000, among them first-time parents. I develop these findings in Timeless<\/a>, my forthcoming book.<\/p>\n

Parenthood eats everyone\u2019s hours, but it takes different bites depending on the size of your bank account. What both rich and poor make clear is that time balance is not a matter of accumulating free hours. After all, no one can hoard more than 24 hours in one day. <\/p>\n

Everyone has what I call a \u201ctemporal goldilocks zone\u201d<\/a>, where free time and obligated time is \u201cjust right\u201d. New parents, thrown out of the goldilocks zone seemingly overnight, have a great deal to teach us about finding the way back in.<\/p>\n

Five lessons are worth passing on:<\/p>\n

1. Sync, don\u2019t impose, schedules<\/h2>\n

New parents quickly discovered that a newborn cannot be scheduled into submission. The ones who fared best stop trying to impose a rigid schedule. As Agnes* put it, her baby \u201cis more in tune with his body than we are\u201d, so she learned to \u201cgo with the flow\u201d rather than enforce a predetermined regime.<\/p>\n

Agnes is on to something. My research suggests that wellbeing depends less on how many free hours we have than on how well our rhythms align with the people we share our lives with. Control is the professional reflex, but with a newborn, coordination wins. Ask not \u201chow can I get more time?\u201d but \u201cwhose rhythms am I out of step with, and how do we realign?\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Maintaining your sense of self requires time<\/h2>\n

Parents across class lines described old identities dissolving into feedings and laundry. The ones who adjusted best deliberately merged their pre-baby selves with parenthood \u2013 holding on to friendships with non-parents, nourishing hobbies, keeping a cherished ritual.<\/p>\n

As Jonah, a new father, succinctly put it: \u201cIf a person or a thing matters to you, you\u2019ll make time.\u201d If time signals appreciation, then your schedule is a ledger of love. A small, regular investment in the person you were before becoming a parent is not selfish. It is what allows you to return to your loved ones with patience and presence.<\/p>\n

3. An hour bought is not an hour saved<\/h2>\n

Thanks to economists<\/a>, we know time can be bought: through takeaways, nannies and cleaners, for example. Yet even with paid help, many privileged parents in my study remained time poor: outsourced hours were refilled with email and the labour of keeping up appearances. Unless the purchased hours are defended, money spent on help merely subsidises other people\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

Less privileged participants, meanwhile, could not afford to buy time to the same extent. Instead, they paid with time for everything, and their health absorbed the overdraft.<\/p>\n

Both groups underscore the same imperative: treat time with care. If you manage to \u201cfree up\u201d an hour, use it deliberately. Guard your sleep and meals the way you guard your baby\u2019s. Health sacrificed now is a loan taken out against your future time, repaid with interest.<\/p>\n

\n \"A
\n Trying to make time for it all.<\/span>
\n Drazen Zigic\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

4. Share time to make time<\/h2>\n

Time, as astute social scientists argue, is a \u201cnetwork good<\/a>\u201d: its value depends on being able to share it with others. Parenthood tests this. <\/p>\n

Deema, home alone with her daughter, said everyone would adore her baby, \u201cbut no one is here to help me\u201d. This feeling of isolation despite having visitors can have a profound effect on new parents. You can, however, create time for yourself from shared time: ask trusted visitors to hold the baby while you shower, to bring something needed. People who care about you want to help; sometimes they just need to be told how.<\/p>\n

Building community can go hand-in-hand with finding more time. One place where this is evident is in what I call shared \u201ctemporal sanctuaries\u201d \u2013 parks, community centres, libraries \u2013 spaces where the tyranny of clock time recedes. Communal repose is itself a form of repair, restoring the wellbeing that time poverty erodes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Feeling requires time<\/h2>\n

Emotional life is time consuming. To fully experience the joys, surprises and worries of parenthood, you must identify feelings, let them crest and settle, and weave them into your story. Many people are simply too busy to feel. When every minute is spoken for, emotions are deferred. Time poverty<\/a>, in this sense, produces a poverty of feeling: a dulling of sorrow and joy alike. <\/p>\n

Protect small pockets of unclaimed time \u2013 not for productivity, but for feeling \u2013 and trust that this will repay you in hours.<\/p>\n

This is why, in the end, time is not money but love. Love is both what time is for and where time comes from. The idle hours you share with others and the quiet moments you keep for yourself are not lost time. They are the very substance of it.<\/p>\n

*All names have been changed<\/em><\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Bor\u00f3ka B\u00f3 receives funding from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna Grant\/Shutterstock Parents are told to treasure every moment: \u201cIt goes by in the blink of an eye!\u201d Yet for many, the early months of parenthood do not feel fast so much as relentless: a blur of feedings, worries and appointments in which time seems to belong to everyone but the parents themselves. How do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}