COLUMBUS, Ohio – A father’s involvement with their newborns depends on how ready mom is for parenthood, according to researchers from Ohio State University.
Even fathers who show the most parenting skills were more involved than other fathers with their infants at three months of age, but only if the mothers showed lower levels of intuitive parenting, the new study said.
Intuitive parenting involves subtle, “non-conscious” behaviors like cooing and making eye contact with the baby. They have been shown to stimulate and engage infants, said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, lead author of the study, published in a recent issue of the Infant Mental Health Journal.
While it may seem that fathers who are better at positive parenting would be more engaged with their infants, that is not always true, Schoppe-Sullivan said.
“A lot of the father’s involvement depends on what is going on with the mom, at least in the first few months after birth. If the mother is especially well-prepared for parenthood, there may be fewer opportunities for the father to be involved,” said Schoppe-Sullivan, who is a professor of human sciences at OSU.
Results of the study of 182 couples through the New Parents Project showed that fathers’ positive engagement increased as their intuitive parenting increased, but only when the mothers showed lower levels of intuitive parenting.
Schoppe-Sullivan noted that this study involved highly educated, dual-earner couples and few in which the mother would be staying at home full-time.
Fathers might take a more active role later, said study co-author Lauren Altenburger, a graduate student at Ohio State.
“Mothers may be more involved right after birth, whereas fathers may become more involved later on,” she said.
In general, mothers showed higher levels of intuitive parenting than fathers did, but the findings also showed a lot of overlap and families where the fathers were more intuitive than the mothers.
The researchers found that intuitive parenting levels were related in couples: When mothers were highly intuitive, the fathers tended to be, too.