When will I get my relationship back?!

[Shleepymummy]

We have a newborn (4 weeks) and a toddler. The toddler sleeps through the night and goes to bed easily, but the newborn obviously isn’t at that stage yet. I really miss my husband, we are like passing ships in the night. He deals with toddler in evening whilst I do newborn feeding etc. I then go to bed around 8pm once the baby is fed and settled and my husband stays up with the baby to settle him if needed. I then see my husband the next morning before he goes to work. And repeat! I know it’s only been 4 weeks but I miss my relationship! Any ideas of when it gets better with the evenings and I can have some time back with my husband?!

When they leave home ... 🤣

This is life with two kids, duck.

It varies up and down over time I think.

Personally, I found spending time with my husband with a toddler and a newborn was ok, though I sacrificed sleep (ha, what sleep) for that.

We've had periods when we've been total ships in three nights, to others where we'd get most evenings get 8-12 uninterrupted.

They are 4&6 (neither sleep through right now but have done previously at times) and sometimes we get the 8-12, other nights we are both up and down and might have half an hour together.

Given you are going to bed at 8, you aren't going to get your evening back until either your baby sleeps better or you accept feeling knackered permanently. As to when your baby will sleep better, that's probably also going to be up and down for a very long time. My first slept great as a newborn, average from 6-12m, and at 6 going through phases of waking several times a night, along with others of sleeping through - once for a whole year. My second was an average newborn sleeper, but woke hourly from 6-18m, then a few times until sleeping through 2-2.5, then awake once or twice still at 4.

We were in a similar pattern to you as I would have time to myself / go to bed early after baby was asleep and husband would wait up with her until midnight or so then he had work next day. I found things got better about 6 months in and baby wasn't quite as dependent on us all the time. From that age she was sleeping upstairs from about 7pm rather than sleeping on us / in living room so we could have an evening back and watch TV etc, eat dinner together without holding baby etc. I found having that time helped massively.

it's a season, it won't last forever, doesn't mean it isn't hard at the time though so you have my sympathies.

This is called the room mate stage. It does pass.

It does pass, but you have to make an effort to not let the ‘room mates’ habits become engrained. That can be exacerbated by any resentments that build up.

It’s so hard but the sooner you can make an effort to regularly reconnect, the better (speaking from somewhat bitter experience here)

A while yet I'm afraid.
Your babys needs are more than you and DH's. And going forward it is hard with two young children. No downtime when the firs tis napping etc.

Our second is 18m and we still don't get time together really although family mealtimes and once the children are asleep but bedtime is not set and out little one can be up past 9 if he had a late nap.

Thanks all, sounds like the norm. I’m not
ready to give up a little rest yet so I think we will continue to be room mates until the newborn is a little older and has an earlier bedtime & sleeping longer stretches. Hopefully hubby will still wanna talk to me in a few weeks 😂

My eldest is older than yours but our baby is four months old now and we are starting to have evenings together again and I don't feel we need to talk at each other in snatched minutes here and there like we had been doing.

The first few weeks are totally about diving and conquering.

I found once the baby was also going to bed at 7pm we could have some evening time.

Is the toddler at nursery? If so we found lunch dates with the baby we’re good ways to connect as they’d usually sleep through it.