Are we all struggling to prioritize fun with our partners after having kids?
Because even though it's easier to crawl into bed and read every night, I don't want that to become our cycle. Sharing my experience and all of your recommendations for how to prioritize fun post kids
Ever since having our second child, my husband and I have struggled with prioritizing “fun” with each other. Life changes after kids, obviously, but this is something that we’re specifically still trying to adapt to and navigate 10 months out from having our second baby. With our first we made an effort to keep dates “regular” in a sense. I adapted a method that I found on TikTok from Rosie Piper that I loved: you chose a set amount of date nights a month that worked for you (for us it was 2) and half were “inside the house” dates that one of you was responsible for planning and half were “outside the house dates” that the other person was responsible for planning. Whoever wasn’t planning the date showed up blind and was surprised with the plans. Honestly, we loved it. It gave us a structure and it was a low enough lift that it seemed feasible. Something about having one kid versus two and living in the city versus the suburbs allowed us to get out of the house way more for time alone.
As soon as we moved to the suburbs I got pregnant (legitimately 2 weeks later) and our regular dates went out the door. As someone who just does not enjoy being pregnant and constantly felt like shit, dates were not a priority on my list. Then, enter postpartum. If you’ve been there, you know - dates are not really a reality. After that, honestly, life just kept getting in the way. We were busy, life was chaotic (and beautiful), we didn’t have a great sleeper so I was stressed about anyone else putting him down, work picked up, etc. You get the idea. I feel anyone who has experienced this phase of life can probably relate. The other week we went out to dinner just the two of us for my birthday and this topic came up: I feel like we don’t prioritize fun together anymore. We are good about having fun individually with our friends and collectively as a family, but we aren’t great at prioritizing it just the two of us. Especially lately, after the kids go down I am working for a good 2+ hours and fully occupied during the time that we once used to have as our time alone and we’ve felt the impact (if you can’t tell by the writing of this piece, I’m currently doing just this at 9PM on Sunday night). Also, I’m simply exhausted. There’s no getting around it: your girl is fucking tired. So, yes, even on nights when we could do something, I just want to lay in bed and read. I’m embarrassed to admit that, but it’s true. While I know it’s important to listen to your body, I also know it’s super easy for this to become a cycle and for the one-on-one time with your partner to completely take a back seat. For me, that’s not something I want; so here we are.
Our extremely honest and vulnerable conversation (my favorite) laid out how we both felt on this topic and left intending to make the time. I immediately put this in motion once we got home from our vacation and scheduled a date night for Saturday that next weekend.