Marriage after having a baby can be quite a different dynamic than in your spontaneous childfree days. It’s something Capsule reader Ashley found challenging after welcoming her first child with her husband – but, she discovered one thing that got their marriage back on track and helped everyone feel happier!
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As something that will hardly come as a shock or breaking news to anyone – having children can be a real test on your relationship.
There’s a lot you learn in a short amount of time about your spouse: how they really cope on nearly zero sleep. How willing they really are to share all the duties that come with having a baby. How patient they are. How selfless. How nurturing. How deep their love for you runs. How willing they are to work as a team with you. How they were shaped by their own childhood.
It’s… a lot.
There’s a lot Ashley was expecting – and a lot she was expecting to be surprised by. One thing she says that really surprised her, was how much she missed having those hours in the evening with her husband after dinner, when the world was their oyster (i.e. they could watch whatever on TV, waste hours trying to find something good they both wanted to watch, or just complain about their day to each other).
“Our daughter is not much of a sleeper,” says Ashley. “We have friends whose kids will wake at the same time each morning, no matter what, but she isn’t like that. She’ll generally sleep through the night now, but she’ll sleep for 10 hours almost to the dot.”
Ashley and her husband are not early birds. They love their sleep. So they were in the habit of getting their daughter down at 9 or 9.30pm, meaning they could sleep until 7-7.30am.
But this was causing some issues.
“I was getting no sleep,” says Ashley. “As much as I love my daughter, I NEEDED that time at the end of the day with my husband to chat, zone out and just be together the two of us. If we were getting her to bed at 9.30, we’d go to bed at about 10 and then we’d each just stay up scrolling on our phones or watching stuff because we just needed that wind down time.”
So, Ashley says there’s one thing they did that transformed their marriage: they prioritized the evenings as their time to connect together.
“I work reduced hours – I finish at 3pm (I know, I’m very lucky),” she says. “So three until seven pm in our house is family time. The focus is us as a family. I ensure that she is my focus and I’m spending engaged, quality time. Then, 7.30pm onwards is strictly relationship/our time.”
Ashley says that she and her husband each get a dedicated night each week that is “theirs” – so her husband always gets Tuesday nights to meet up with friends, go to the golf range, whatever, and then on Thursday nights, she can do the same, whether it’s meeting up with friends or just doing something for herself.
The other nights of the week are for couple time.
“We might have an ‘at home’ date night – or a go out date night if we have a sitter, but most often it just means we spend quality time together – I’ve spent that time with my daughter so there’s no guilt or anything, it’s just time to fill our cups.”
It means waking up earlier – at 5.30pm, but, since instigating it, they’ve been going to bed much earlier and overall getting more sleep. They also take turns being the one to get up early.
“It has been such a small change, really,” says Ashley, “but getting our child to bed earlier has been better for all of us. We’re all a lot happier. It’s totally transformed my marriage – I think we were starting to drift before, but now we’re in the best place our relationship has ever been.”