Free Tip Tuesday- How sleep training can preserve the intimacy in your relationship.
Historically, bed times and age appropriate schedules not only provided parents with much needed sleep, they also served to preserve that sacred “adult” time.
It is not uncommon in recent times to see parents doing the opposite, using their children as a way to avoid spending quiet alone time with their spouse. It’s easy to let the martial relationship and consequently the intimacy go to the wayside when distractions of raising small children come into play.
But preserving that intimacy and sharing in those struggles is what makes a marriage stronger. It keeps your marriage from turning into a platonic partnership where fulfilling the other’s needs is a chore, a burden, an expected but un-ejoyable part of this newly re-defined relationship. Parenthood can re-define the relationship but it’s up you how it’s re-defined.
Becoming parents isn’t the end game for the marriage, it’s the beginning. There is a danger in letting parenting become an excuse for neglecting your relationship. Your kids will grow up. They will leave the nest and every issue you have created or ignored in your marriage will be right where you left it-waiting for you at home.
How sleep training can help
Sleep training will put everyone in your household on a great consistent schedule. There is no reason your baby, starting from 4 months of age can’t be on their way to sleeping through the night, every night. Babies thrive on schedules, and here is a little tip for all you parents out there- intimacy thrives when stress levels drop. Having a well-rested baby who sleeps through the night, every night, will drop those stress levels.
Sleep training and the relief it can provide for the whole family might also highlight underlying issues in the relationship. If you find yourself more apt to running errands, doing laundry or going out with friends with the new found spare time you have- question why you aren’t using that time to bond with your spouse. Does it have to be every night? No. But if you both find yourself choosing to alternate nights of going out without each other, if there becomes a score keeping mentality of “you went out so now I get to,” then you’ve got a problem.
Take this extra time and this new sense of being well-rested and have a date night at home. Turn off your phones, turn off the TV and talk to each other. Plan these date nights the way you would when you were dating; in advance and with some thought. Raising a little human together can intimately bond you and your partner in ways you never knew possible, take a deep breath and let it. Your spouse, marriage and children will thank you for it.
Unsure about how to get creative with date night? Stay tuned for next week’s free tip Tuesday- secrets to a great stay at home date night.