Badly need relationship after baby advice!

[pradabooties]

Hi ladies.
So my fiancé and I have a 6 month old baby and I'm really fed up and upset by how disconnected I feel. We've been together about 8 years so of course things aren't "fiery" often anyway lol but our daughter is quite advanced and active and is a REAL hand full, 24/7. She's been crawling since 5 months and is always on the go, never happy to just sit or lay down ever - and has basically been that way since birth haha. Anyway, I used to get a break when she went to bed at night but ever since 4 months (yep 4 month sleep regression x teething) I put her to bed at 7pm and she proceeds to wake up EASILY 10 times before I go to bed at 9.30pm. My fiancé only has 2 nights off a week and lately we barely get any time together those nights because I'm constantly resettling the baby. I know it's all a part of parenthood but lately it's really getting to me. We don't get any quality time together at all and have only managed to be intimate at most once a month since she was born, which is very unusual for us and it bothers me. We both want to and he's very kind about it all but I find myself getting increasingly miserable about our lack of intimacy and the lack of time and attention we can spend on each other. Any tips for relationships when you have a very demanding Bub? I know she's likely to improve her sleep soon (hopefully!!!) but would love some advice on how to make sure my fiancé feels loved and how do you find time for intimacy? At this point seriously considering putting her in the jolly jumper for 10 mins hahah. Having someone babysit so we can go on a date isn't really possible at the moment as only my Mum could do it and she's very unwell and about to leave town for a while.

 

[laila 44]

Sorry you are feeling that way. The only way that DH and I resumed our regular life together after each baby was only when we sleep trained and our kids slept 7-8am without a peep. That left us with a lot of nice quality time together and we were very content. Obviously now I have a 5 week old so I'm back to feeling like you do until baby Sttn. At 6 months though you are in a nice place in terms of babies age it's just a question of sleep. I think once you resolve that resettling issue you'll see your quality time with DH will improve a lot xx

 

[MindUtopia]

Hang in there. I found that time from about 6 months until a bit over a year to be by far the hardest time as a parent and for our relationship. Our daughter was just old enough that she wasn't quite as demanding as when she had been 4 weeks and was up every 2 hours for a feed 24 hours a day, and my husband had long since returned to his normal work schedule and was even starting to have a normal social life again. While I was home full-time without much adult conversation and not able to go out and see friends in the evening or have a weekend away or just feel normal for a few hours. It was a really dark time for a few months and I just found it all very challenging.

As for intimacy, as in having sex, could you stay up a bit later in the evening? I can't remember if you said you were co-sleeping or not, but I know I found it hard to be intimate at all when we were co-sleeping (and we co-slept full-time for 2 years) because there was literally a kid in our room all the time pretty much. It meant doing it other places, which honestly took more effort that I really had in me most nights! Or it meant staying up a bit later until I knew she was settled in her room when she did start to sleep in her room. Beyond that, would he be willing to compromise about his schedule and make himself more available in the evenings? Your evenings will likely get easier sooner (well, ours did by about 10-11 months), but if he's not around, then you can't really focus on each other. Or if he was around a few nights a week to actually do bedtime and give you a break, that would be nice too. I know we had to get very specific about our schedules and I really had to ask my husband to make sure he was home and not working in the evenings (we're self-employed, so we usually work in the evenings after bedtime, but sucks for actually spending time with each other). Basically, he just had to change his schedule and be home more and give up on doing other things he might have wanted to do so that we could be alone together.

I should add, we have never sleep trained and that definitely wasn't an issue. I found there are always periods when things ebb and flow, and that age between 7-11 months was a particularly rough one for development. It was really about just getting through that and making sure we made time for each other.

 

[jessmke]

Hi ladies.
So my fiancé and I have a 6 month old baby and I'm really fed up and upset by how disconnected I feel. We've been together about 8 years so of course things aren't "fiery" often anyway lol but our daughter is quite advanced and active and is a REAL hand full, 24/7. She's been crawling since 5 months and is always on the go, never happy to just sit or lay down ever - and has basically been that way since birth haha. Anyway, I used to get a break when she went to bed at night but ever since 4 months (yep 4 month sleep regression x teething) I put her to bed at 7pm and she proceeds to wake up EASILY 10 times before I go to bed at 9.30pm. My fiancé only has 2 nights off a week and lately we barely get any time together those nights because I'm constantly resettling the baby. I know it's all a part of parenthood but lately it's really getting to me. We don't get any quality time together at all and have only managed to be intimate at most once a month since she was born, which is very unusual for us and it bothers me. We both want to and he's very kind about it all but I find myself getting increasingly miserable about our lack of intimacy and the lack of time and attention we can spend on each other. Any tips for relationships when you have a very demanding Bub? I know she's likely to improve her sleep soon (hopefully!!!) but would love some advice on how to make sure my fiancé feels loved and how do you find time for intimacy? At this point seriously considering putting her in the jolly jumper for 10 mins hahah. Having someone babysit so we can go on a date isn't really possible at the moment as only my Mum could do it and she's very unwell and about to leave town for a while.

I feel like you just wrote about my life! We are exactly the same, an extremely active baby who takes up pretty much all of my time since I am on maternity leave and breastfeeding. We manage to have sex about once a month when she happens to have a few nights where she only wakes a couple of times, but other than that she is awake so frequently at night that I am absolutely exhausted and the last thing on my mind is sex. I want to want to be more intimate with my fiancé, but I just can't bring myself to muster the energy. I feel like as soon as we get a few days reprieve with her sleep she then starts teething or pulling herself to standing or something happens to disturb her sleep again. I made a post last week about how I figured out why my DD was waking so much and once I solved those problems we were finally getting some decent sleep. Well that last four days and then she started teething again and has been up every 45-60 min all night for the last two nights unless I give her Tylenol which then allows her to get 2 hours of sleep at a time. My fiancé understands and is pretty equally exhausted, but I do miss the way things used to be with us. We don't have anyone who we would feel comfortable having babysit for us so we are just waiting it out and keep telling ourselves (and each other!) that things will get better. We are planning to try for baby #2 in September but at this rate I don't see how that is going to happen!

 

[loeylo]

I also feel the same. My lo is nearly 9 months, sleeps through the night, but doesn't sleep til 10-11pm. I'm back at work (although on 6.5 weeks holiday) and we are still rarely dtd.

What helps us is just chilling together on the sofa each night, giving each other a back/foot rub, and being intimate in non sexualsituations. It helps keep the spark alive.

We also take any opportunity for childcare, even if it is for someone to look after her for 10 mins in our house so we can blitz some cleaning.

I'm hoping it does he easier!

 

[Amygdala]

Would you have someone who could look after her for a couple of hours during the day? A friend or a relative or maybe even a paid babysitter? Daytime dates are a lot less hassle to organise and even an hour of quality time for just the two of you can make a big difference. If you really cannot find someone to take the baby, put her in her pushchair or car seat (depending on where she's more likely to nap) and go for a walk or drive! None of that helps with physical intimacy of course but having regular opportunities to reconnect this way makes a huge difference. For the physical stuff, I suggest choosing the time she's most likely to be out for a while (and if that's Saturday afternoon nap time, then so be it) and making an effort to use that time well. I know it seems like there are a million things that are higher up on your to do list but a little effort will really pay off in relaxation and closeness in your relationship.

 

[Witchrose]

"At this point seriously considering putting her in the jolly jumper for 10 mins."

That's exactly what I would do if I were in your shoes!

Seriously, I believe in respecting the emotional and physical needs of all members of the family as best as possible. Not a darn thing wrong with having your child amuse herself while you and your partner have some much needed alone time.

 

[kvolm2016]

If you haven't already, now would be a good time to have a really honest conversation between you and fiance about what each of you needs physically and emotionally. Once you become parents it is challenging to continue to make your relationship a priority. So if you can figure out what really matters to each of you then you can concentrate on finding ways to meet those specific needs.

 

[shirlls]

Although it might not seem like it just now it won't be like this forever xx a baby totally changes the dynamics of your relationship with your partner so its only natural to feel like you are about things having 'slowed down' since bubs arrived.

Talk to your partner and be open about how you are feeling, and maybe try to make some time at some point for just the two of you, it doesn't have to be sex but just time for the two of you alone even if its just short. Grab as many moments as you can until things settle down. It might not be ideal but it does help. I have a 4 year old son and twin daughters who are 18 mints so as you can imagine I struggle with this too, it's all about readjusting and making sure you make time for yourselves, there are some things like housework, etc that can wait for half a hour or a hour, etc.