What being the parent of a new baby is like: revision of an instrument.

Revision of the self-report instrument, What Being the Parent of a New Baby Is Like (WPL), is reported. The WPL, developed to examine parents' perceptions of themselves as parents and of the parenting experience with young infants, was revised by improving its two subscales, Success (renamed Evaluation) and Centrality, and adding a third subscale, Life Change. With a sample of mothers of healthy infants, all three subscales of the revised instrument, WPL-R, had acceptable levels of internal consistency at 7, 30, and 90 days postpartum, and stability across administrations. Parity differences were demonstrated for all three subscales at 7 days and for Centrality at 30 days. Factor analysis identified item clusters consistent with the three subscales. With improved subscales affording a more comprehensive assessment of maternal experience, the WPL-R is a better instrument for evaluation of maternal adaptation than the WPL.