You’ve just been for your six week check up after having your baby. Now it looms: couples time!
The doctor has given you the green light to resume all regular activities. You are just getting used to having a baby around, not getting any sleep, feeding, what feels like, constantly. You decide, since you had to get dressed to go to the gynae, you may as well stay in those clothes until your partner gets home instead of wearing your usual yoga pants and over sized t-shirt you got at last year’s team building. You work it out in your head that after baby has a bath, he will fall asleep and you will be able to eat dinner with your husband and possibly even squeeze in some funky time before baby wakes up for his next feed.
Chaos all over
As soon as you take baby out the car, he throws up all over you, forcing you to change. He then won’t stop screaming because he is now hungry so you grab the nearest thing, which happens to be the extra large luminous green t-shirt your husband got in his last bike race pack. You change the baby, feed him and put him down to nap and then make a dash for the kitchen to make something a little more than fish fingers for dinner. Half way through frying the onions for the Rogan Josh the baby wakes, you run hoping to get the dummy back in before he wakes up properly. You are too late he is up, screaming. You rock and sing and beg then you smell dinner heading off where well-intentioned meals go to die! You are not giving up yet though. You order take out, tidy up with baby in his carrier, you even manage to shave your legs! It’s all looking good until your husband calls to say he is stuck in traffic which means you need to bath baby and get him ready for bed. You are still hopeful though. At least when your husband gets home you will be ready for action.
The baby decides to poo in the bath water, screams while he is getting dressed which is when your husband walks in. You ask him to heat the take away while you feed baby quickly. That “quickly” turns into a mammoth 45 minute feed. You put him down and go to eat dinner, only to find your husband passed out on the couch and your dinner cold! Instead of feeling disappointed you plop down next him and fall asleep too.
Sound familiar?
Newborns have the ability to turn even the most successful, well groomed person into a walking zombie dressed in yoga pants, tatty t-shirts with greasy hair. It often happens without you even realising it. As a new mom you are so consumed with just getting through the next hour that you don’t have the time or the energy to worry about what you are wearing or how you look.
There does come a time though when you have to make the time. It can feel like you don’t have any more to give your partner after giving everything you have to your baby. Making the time, however small it may be, for your partner is vital, not only for them but for you too.
The changes don’t have to be drastic, the smallest effort will go a long way to making you feel better.
We have a few tips and ideas you can try to bring your sexy back:
- Get changed and get out of the house. Even if you take out and outfit and 5 minutes before your husband arrives you quickly put it on. Track pants are comfortable but putting on a pair of jeans and a pretty top can make you feel even. Take the baby for a walk around the block, go and buy bread and milk or meet a friend for coffee. It doesn’t matter where you go, just go.
- Make time for your partner every day. Make the time to focus on each where you listen to each other, talk about your days, what you are battling with, what is working. Keep the communication channels open regularly.
- Start regular date night. It is not always easy leaving baby but you need to have some alone time with your partner. Date night doesn’t have to be at night, it could be a coffee date with your partner or breakfast on a Saturday morning while baby is with granny.
- Be spontaneous. Dates don’t have to be planned. Take advantage of nap time and grab a quick shower with your partner.
- It’s the small things that count the most. A kiss goodbye, a hand squeeze during dinner, going to bed at the same time. They may seem like small things but they can make a huge difference, they remind you both that you are more than parents; you are also lovers, partners and best friends.
It is not always easy and you do need to make the effort to make sure you and your partner stay connected but it is so beneficial to the well being of your family as whole. So go out today and bring sexy back to your relationship. – Laura-Kim le Roux (Harassed Mom blog)
