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Making time for just us. We eat dinner together every night after LO goes to bed, watch tv and talk. Sometime we're dead tired, but stay up for several hours after LO goes to bed to have "us" time.

Letting others watch LO so we could still go on dates.

Just like that. LO was always our first priority, but at least once or twice a week we'd put off doing any housework while he was asleep to just spend quality time together. Or we'd do it together...throw a pile of clean laundry on the couch and sit and fold/put away together. It's a small, silly thing, but folding laundry is pretty mindless so we could focus on having a non-baby related conversation.

We baby wore a lot, so we'd take walks and talks and LO would fall asleep. We would meet up at restaurants for lunch or dinner, LO was an easy baby when we were out as long as she was fed and changed, she really loved being out.

We didn't really. We would talk when going out on walks but otherwise we knew that it was just a matter of time and we could get back to a new normal.

Babysitting!

It is hard. Most challenging thing we've gone through yet!! The hardest thing for me at the beginning was the lack of being able to be physically close - just sleeping next to each other or cuddling. It was the weirdest feeling, I felt so incredibly emotionally close to him but physically far. For him he felt like he was useless because he couldn't feed the baby, granted there are many other things he could help with. Then it went to figuring out time together and time for ourselves. I started going back to the gym when LO was 4 months and it helped tremendously!! i cherish that hour and a half to myself. It's like hitting the reset button Although its still far from perfect, it definitely gets better as our LO gets older.

Things we do to stay connected:
-go for walks
-cook dinner together when we can
-started taking puppy classes (something to focus on other than babe)

I promise you will find your groove!!

We make a point of getting out of the house even if it means sitting in a parking lot feeding E. Schedules be damned! And DH is just as sleep deprived as I am, so our together time seems to be us simultaneously praying that *this* time E will go to sleep and stay that way, lol!

But we are trying to make a point of catering to each other's sense of well being, even if that means: "You go out for a run/errand/shower/hour of "me" time" and I'll hold down the fort. We're going to do whatever it takes to stay happy and sane!!

@MrsMccarthy: Honestly, same here.

It was brutal and I am honestly surprised every day that our marriage survived it. We're still not 100% back to the way our relationship was before.

It's definitely a transition period and was a tough time! I think that similarly to how I'm not the same (mentally or physically!) as I was before LO, our marriage isn't either. It takes a little bit to get sorted out in terms of what can be like the "old days", what has to change, how you both want things to be.

I think the best thing you can do is communicate so that if one or both of you aren't happy with how things are, you can figure out some ways to make it better. Sometimes there isn't a concrete solution, but just talking about it and knowing that you're on the same page helps.

We did family walks each day after work, ate dinner together after LO was down, and tried to get out for a date night dinner once in awhile. Even just having a drink on our porch/deck was enough to change it up.

Eventually you'll settle into what's your new normal -- you just need to keep communicating so that you're both happy with what that turns out to be!

@hergreenapples: @zippylef: agreed!

@grizz: I think it's rough learning to balance. DH is so busy with work, he didn't really notice that I wasn't paying much attention to him. It gets easier as your LO gets older and can actually play by themselves and are on a regular sleep pattern. Hang in there! Hugs!

DH and I have never had much time together because of our opposite work schedules so we are used to it in a way. But I had a much more difficult time adjusting than he did. I felt like I haven't been getting enough time with him and I'm also jealous that he gets out of the house five days a week to go to work and get a break. Things aren't better because we are still not getting any time together alone but I'm sure it won't last forever.

We try to go on a date while our parents babysit once a month, and have since she was about 2 months old. We go to a movie before dinner, so we have the movie to talk about and don't just talk about the babe the whole time!

Family walks are great too, because she falls asleep and we can catch up.

It's been hard, but we are both consciously prioritizing it. And our babe won't sleep alone/without touching someone so we don't have time after she goes to bed

Maybe I'm a little delusional but I don't remember it being too bad. The only part that we struggled with was I slept on the couch for the first month (first due to my c-section it was too hard to get in and out of our high bed & then so I didn't wake DH up with the night wake ups) and we missed that connection so I moved back into the room after he said he didn't mind hearing me get up with the baby if that meant having his family in the room with him. I think we knew it was a phase that we would get over, and we did so we both took it with a grain of salt. We also always did dinner together every night.

Read the book "Babyproofing Your Marriage" - its laugh out loud funny. The authors have multiple children and they eloquently articulate the feelings men and women have when a baby comes along. Once you understand what your spouse is feeling, its much easier to figure out a way to strengthen your relationship.

When Dh was at work, I spent nap time doing everything around the house (i didn't often nap while the baby napped, but she was a good night sleeper, so once she dropped to 2x/night wake ups, i was ok, since i slept in with her) so that when DH got home, I gave him the baby, got some alone time for an hour, and then we could hang out. I'd prep simple meals at lunchtime so we really did have downtime in the evening. We would set the baby on the boppy between us on the couch (which she loved) or in her crib to play while we ate dinner--since she was born, we have had dinner together almost every night. Even if one of us has to hold her, we sit down and eat together. Now she can sit in her bumbo while we eat. Same with watching tv...now that she's older, she is more predictable, and yours will get that way, too! DH calls it "baby-daddy-mommy snuggle time"....so a lot of it is just being understanding that I can't give him 100% of my attention. And sometimes, I'm cleaning or running around like a mad woman and he comes up to me and says, "Stop. Give me a hug"......sometimes it's just about stopping what you're doing and taking a break for 5 seconds.

We also just snuggled in bed and would hang out on weekends. Since the baby was 6 weeks old, we got a babysitter and play in a softball league once a week. it did wonders for us to spend 20 min driving in the car together, an hour playing together, and then 20 min coming home. On bye weeks, we go out to dinner. Two hours once a week does so much, really.

But, really, I think we were just blessed with an easy baby that allowed us to spend time together.

LO isn't due until November, but there's one thing we do now to stay connected that I'd really like to try to keep going with the baby. Most nights we head up to bed a while before we actually want to go to sleep. We sit there and cuddle and snuggle up with the dog and talk, sometimes listen to music. It's our time to chill out. Now that the baby can hear, we've been doing story time sometimes too. It's really simple and only lasts a little while, but it really makes me feel connected to my family and I hope that even with a newborn we can have a few minutes most days like that.

We're still getting through it at 11 months old. It got better once LO started to STTN. My DH wanted sex almost as soon as LO was out in the world. With my body and recovery, it took a long time to want sex in addition to caring for a newborn. We also had to cope with issues from the outside (MIL) which got us into marriage counseling for 8 months. With counseling, sleep, sex, and dates we've slowly recovered from that. We're still working on balancing it as best we can.