Relationship After Baby

[MamaMiaOhDear]

I guess this is just a really open ended question/conversation starter, but what were your relationships like with your partner once you had children?

My baby is almost 8 months old and I'm looking for a little perspective or advice around shared experiences of this time in your lives.

Thank you x

Unfortunately your previous life has vanished. The only advice is to fashion a life focussed on your child but taking everyone else's needs into account.Thats not the same as "wants" but that s parenting for you.

@Cheesandcrackers thank you for the reply. We've been lucky that actually our baby is generally a pleasure to care for. I guess I'm just feeling very disconnected from my partner recently

@MamaMiaOhDear

Hi! My little one is turning 9 months and I can relate!

In what way do you feel disconnected from your partner?

It's difficult to fit everything and everyone's needs around the baby. Your baby becomes the main focus. I think what's helped me and my partner is communication no matter how big or small the issue is we talk about it and see what we can do to improve it.

It's not up to you to solely keep the relationship going. It's up to your partner too. By BiL has made a huge effort and does everything.
If you've got a manchild then it isn't going to work.

I have found my partner lost patience after about a year of me putting the baby first so we then disconnected. It was quite gradual but we recognised it very quickly. We are having counselling at the moment before it erodes things further. He does so much for us practically and financially but emotionally we have detached from each other a lot.

We have two children, 4 & 1, third on the way. Pre children we travelled lots, bought our first house, got married etc.

We have a date night/day every month and try to make time for ourselves even if it means to take a day off when both kids are at nursery, go for a walk, have a nice lunch, maybe see a show etc but I actually love my husband more since we've had children.

I have so much respect for who he is and what father he has become. Watching him love our children the way he does warms my heart as well as how the love is returned. I'm so proud of who he is and proud to call him my husband, so it's different but you've got to make it work for you x

Thanks for the replies. It's good to see different perspectives on things definitely.

It's not that we are arguing or being unkind to each other in any way, and my partner is really helpful around the house and with taking care of our baby.

Generally he will get home from work and we will play with/feed/bath the baby before her bedtime. Along with cook and clean up after dinner etc. We tend to either share these tasks out or do them together (mostly the baby play/bath time). We work really well together in the respect that household jobs and baby jobs don't need a discussion of who's doing what, we just each do our bit.

What it can feel like though lately is that we're just existing alongside one another whilst completing all these tasks.

I think part of it is that my partner works in a manual job and by the time we're done cleaning up in the evening he's tired so we don't really get much quality time. We have had one evening for a date night though since the baby arrived which was nice.

I absolutely love him and I know he's doing his best for us, he works hard and takes time to make sure we're happy.

I don’t think our life has really changed since having a baby. We still make time for each other, we split all care/load equally. We’ve just got a cleaner which helps. I’ve been very poorly recently and he’s done everything. We don’t have family near to rely on, but we have a good sleeper, so after 8pm our time is ours, so that helps a lot.