Hellobee Boards

We didn't for a long time after our DD was born and it nearly broke us. Now, we make sure we make time for one another. Simple things like texting during the day or when we know we are going to be spending time together at night anyway making it known that we are intending to spend time with one another and truly try to connect. Hiring a baby sitter so we can get out alone also helped.

I will recommend the new Gottman Couple's Retreat boardgame. It comes from a more therapy centered place, but it was fun for us to play and asked questions that were interesting and helped us reconnect. It was somewhat expensive but I plan to use it for at home date nights fairly often!

Opinionated 2 year old + miscarriage last year + this pregnancy (I'm still sick at 25w in...) = we fail more days than not. But, like pp's said, we acknowledge and talk about it and know that it's temporary and will keep working on it! Life is hard sometimes!

This was us all winter. Just getting through the days, feeling like shit, and sleeping as much as we could so we could fight off the various bugs. Acknowledging it was big. When i had morning sickness, there really wasn't much to do, but he took care of me, i told him i appreciated it, and were both like "this stage shall pass". We both knew it was temporary and we both knew it sucked. Beyond that, when we could take advantage, we did something together. Even just taking E to the zoo one day was nice. We send her to MIL's once a month for an overnight and sleep in/have breakfast together. Cuddling in bed and talking a little before falling asleep is nice, too.

Lately, just sitting on the patio with a cold drink and letting E run around the back yard is sort of refreshing. Maybe just a change of scenery and being near each other, not watching tv or being on our phones helps. What about a picnic at the park?

It's a challenge to keep our relationship at its prekid level, we had a lot more time and lot less stress than we do now and that's okay, eventually it will change again.

For now, we do things that are very simple, like doing our errands together, as opposed to separately. It seems like it would be a waste of time, but it helps us to stay part of each other's lives.

@MrsH: Ooooo man I didn't know you had HG, that's a whole other ballgame of feeling like shit. I'm sorry I hope some fresh air helps. If anything, mentally

It's so hard.
DH lost his full time job when J turned 1 and we've been working opposite schedules ever since. So never mind that I barely see him but when we do see each other we want to do something as a family because that time is nonexistent.

@MrsH: Sigh, I can totally see that happening with us two if we somehow decide to have 2 under 2...

Also we pretty much agreed that we don't mean anything we say to each other when we're frustrated/sleep deprived, etc haha.

I think we try to show appreciation for one another, to know that we're still in this together. We text each other at home when I'm upstairs nursing DD to sleep or something and he's downstairs lol.

M travels. Right now I am home with a six week old alone for 3 nights, which is fine, but he travels a lot year round. So we have not been parents that long, but have been maximizing our together time since his schedule can be demanding. We really set weekend aside to spend time together. We don't make a lot of plans and just do whatever sounds fun or we are up to doing. I find that just taking the time to hug for a long time while making dinner or whatever makes me feel really close to him. We also text and send each other photos a lot. I also write him notes or text that I love and appriciate him. Also we prep multiple meals together at one time. We can made dinner one night, prep for the next night and make a breakfast cassorole in 30 minutes. We really enjoy cooking together. I just got him a new knife. I feel like we are both tired, but in a good place overall.

Our daycare offers a parents night out one Friday per month. Our LO loves it as it's an environment she's already comfortable in and it's sort of a free for all (they get access to the computers and watch a movie). They put all the kids in the "oldest" classroom so there are "new" toys. It's for up to 4 hours and in the grand scheme not terribly expensive. So we try to do this. She has a blast (the baby doesn't have a clue :)) and we get a kid free dinner and a little time to reconnect or do something kid free. One night was a quick dinner and furniture shopping. While it wasn't the most romantic thing ever, it was so much easier without the little with us.

@snowjewelz: I love what you said we are in this together

@MrsH: @mrbee: It is put together by John Gottman (who is a well known marriage counselor). Basically, the board is a secluded island and each spot you land will have you pick a card. Some have questions to ask one another, or yourself. Others have advice and others have steamy things that they tell you do to do your spouse to increase intimacy. We only played it once but really enjoyed it and liked the questions and things we were asked. I think we can play it easily 50 more times before we get through all of the questions. It was something that wasn't mindless that we could do together and really forced us to connect.

It's such a struggle! We were like that when B was one, it was a bad combo of clingy toddler who doesn't like to sleep, everyone being sick from him starting day care, and a very bad situation at DHs work. We're working our way back up to having more us time, but it's hard and it's all going to start over when our littlest one is born. At the moment the biggest thing is that B knows everyone is expected to sit at the dinner table, so he's stopped dragging me off to play and we can catch up over dinner. And then one day we both played hooky from work because it was DHs birthday - best day ever!!!

We're having a hard time with this too and LO is almost 1. It's kind of reassuring to know that I'm not the only one dealing with this.
Before LO was born, someone gave me a relationship CD and wrote me a nice long card about the importance of making your relationship with SO a top priority and if you don't have a strong base, your LO would pay the price. At the time I didn't really understand but now that baby is here, I totally do. However, I'm not sure how to go about improving our relationship. Exhaustion and life do get in the way. As a start, I was thinking of having DH and I take that 5 Love Languages test.

@tiramisu: Yesss the 5 love languages are bomb. We learned early on that DH needs lots of physical touch, lots of words of encouragement, and his family is really into expressing love through gifts. My family is totally opposite and we express love through acts of service so I'd get so annoyed that instead of helping me do the dishes or clean DH would bring me flowers and say mushy things. I'd be like YOU ARE ALL TALK! But once we figured it out we started being able to understand each other so much better. Now when DH washes the bottles without me asking I feel so happy and I'm like I LOVE YOU OMG YOU ARE THE BEST HUSBAND EVER and he feels like a star.

@gingerbebe: Hahaha the "You Are All Talk!!" comment totally cracked me up! Yes I think we really need to understand each other better. I definitely need to give DH more words of affirmation for starters.

That's a very good point of seeing things as if it strains your marriage it's not worth it. I give you credit your life sounds very busy! I remember those early days of pumping all night to increase supply. Boy was it rough. I'm glad things are better for you now and your relationship is doing great. I definitely will start on the test and book this weekend!