How to Date Your Partner After Having a Baby
My wife, Jess, and I were married for just shy of 13 years when we welcomed our first baby. We had been together since my wife was a teenager (she was 19 and I was 21)! We went through college, our first jobs, lots of clubbing (a minimum of 3 nights per week!), and tons of dates with each other in that time. We have always talked about everything. In fact, when we first started hanging out, we remarked how easy it was to talk to each other - it felt like we’d known each other for years. We’d both been the types to hold the “best friend” title high in the sky for our really long term friends (I’m talking elementary school), but somehow, neither of us could deny that we were so totally BFFs. That’s probably one of the subconscious reasons we waited to have kids, because we were a little scared that our super strong and easy connection would be different after a baby. But, hey, biology got us, and we jumped through all of the hoops a lesbian couple has to jump through in order to make a baby.
Here’s Jess and I right after we got married. We were childless for the first 13 years of our marriage and had plenty of time to run across grassy fields, carefree.
In terms of preparing for a baby dating-wise, we made the most of it. I think that’s one of the (few) advantages of having a baby as an LGBTQ couple is that you know without a doubt that you’re planning for a baby, and it’s not going to happen by accident, so you can have your last hoorah’s. My wife and I dated hardcore for the 6 months before we started the actual conception process, (which is the amount of time it took from the time we decided to have ta baby to the time we started our first IUI round. I talk more about this process in this blog post). We went on movie dates, which has always been our thing, seeing that we both work in the entertainment industry. We dined at all of the local restaurants around us and said yes to every happy hour or Sunday Funday excursion our non-parent friends invited us to. We took road trips to our favorite vacation spots. We enjoyed each other’s company. We relaxed. We cuddled and watched reruns of our favorite shows at home.
Me, Jess, and our dog enjoying a beach sunset on a road trip a month before we found out I was pregnant.
Right up until the birth of our child, we soaked in the time we had as a couple. During my 41 hours of labor, we danced to our favorite songs, watched our favorite kid’s movie (Hocus Pocus), and enjoyed our last moments as a two-some. We were well aware things would change, but like any soon-to-be-parents, we didn’t really know what we were in for until we were in it.
Once we officially joined the parents club and brought our baby home from the hospital, we were like ships passing in the night. It makes sense now, of course, that if one person is taking care of the baby, spending every waking moment tending to them, the other is sleeping, eating, showering, or laying on the bed looking up at the ceiling asking no one in particular, “when will this get easier?” (the good news - it will).
I loved our baby with all of my being from the moment she was born, but I couldn’t help but miss my wife - just the two of us. It didn’t help that we were at the beginning of the pandemic when we became parents, and even though we had planned on having help from our family and friends…we couldn’t! To say it threw a wrench in our plans is an understatement, and I can tell you firsthand that no baby prep book had a chapter on “how to become parents during a pandemic”. We had to figure out the rules for ourselves.
Our first family picture of the three of us. I gave birth at the beginning of the pandemic, which meant I had to wear a mask during labor and delivery.
We both had big smiles under those masks.
The other hard part that we were not expecting is that Jess got laid off from her freelance job due to the pandemic. She had only been contracted to work through May and then switch over to being a full time, stay at home parent, but lost the job the day the stay at home orders started in March 2020. We were thankful we were already planning for her to stop working when the baby arrived, but it was definitely a blow to our bank account.
All of this is to say, we understand firsthand that parenting is hard and things don’t always go as planned - in fact, it can sometimes feel like you have no control at all over your days, but one way to get through the hard parts is to connect with your partner, and that’s why making time for each other is something we realized was really important. So we want to share some ideas so that you can date your partner after baby arrives, even when there are obstacles in the way.
Wing it.
In the world of parenthood, you never truly know what’s going to happen at any given time. One day your baby may sleep on schedule exactly as planned and you feel like, hey, we’re getting somewhere, and then the next 17 days they have a totally erratic sleep pattern. While that’s completely normal, it can make it hard to plan anything at all, so keep reading for a few suggestions for spontaneous, do-it-while-you-can dates.
Have a late late night date.
In the first few weeks after our baby arrived, Jess would take the “late late” shift while I pumped. Sometimes, our baby would fall asleep, and Jess and I would realize we were starving (because it’s so easy to loose track of yourself with a newborn!). We would take advantage of having a sleeping baby and cook up some pancakes and bacon in our kitchen at 3:00 am. It reminded us of our pre-baby lives, going to a late night diner after a night out club hopping. It was really fun to talk over syrupy bites and greasy bacon and get lost in old memories, all while making new memories in a totally new chapter of our lives. We kept these little kitchen dates fairly short because we wanted to sleep before our baby woke up, of course. Even though those first weeks are hard and take a lot of adjusting, I look back so fondly on those little late late night dates. Those are some of the best memories I have with my partner.
Play 20 questions (that are not baby related).
One thing that I think is an easy trap to fall into when you only get fleeting moments with your partner is only talking shop - and by shop, I mean baby. “When was the last time we changed her diaper?” “Do we have any clean bottles?” “Did you do the baby’s laundry?” And while those things are obviously totally necessary to communicate about, you also need to ask about each other. Take a moment to connect with your partner. It sounds so simple, but when you’re hyper-focused on the new tiny human being in your life while sleep deprived, and running on fumes and adrenaline, it’s easy to lose track of everything else that matters.
Playing a good old game of 20 questions - or 5 questions if that’s all the time/energy you have - gives you the opportunity to set the baby-related questions aside, and remember who you’re in the trenches with. The key is, these questions have to be about your partner or you two as a couple (ideally, it’ll be a mixture of the two). I’ll give you 10 questions to start.
What is your favorite memory of us?
What was the first thing you thought/noticed about me when we met?
If we could go anywhere right now, where would you want to go?
When you were a kid, did you ever think about who you would marry in the future? Am I anything like that?
What’s your favorite picture of us?
What’s the best dream you’ve had lately?
When was the last time you laughed really hard, and what was it about?
What do you think we’ll be doing 10 years from now?
What’s one thing you would like me to do for you tomorrow?
How did you feel the first time I told you, “I love you?”
One important thing to note is that it doesn’t matter if you already know what your partner is going to say. This is the first time you may be asking this question post-baby, and your perspectives on life will have inevitably changed since you became parents. What I’m always amazed about still is how often my wife and I talk about a memory and it feels so different now that we are parents. There is something magical in becoming parents, and I notice all the time that everything holds a different meaning to me now than it ever did before. Movies, places, memories - I get to experience them through the lens of parenthood now. It’s rare to have the pure opportunity to experience life through a different lens, and this is a great way to feel those butterflies of falling in love with your partner all over again. So even if you know exactly what your partner is going to say, let them say it and take it in.
Go to a Movie (in your living room).
Before baby, my wife and I literally went to the movie theater three weekends per month minimum. We watched anything and everything, got a large popcorn and drink, and enjoyed. Movies are something we both love (we’re screenwriters) and nothing brings us more happiness and writing inspiration than watching them. But after the baby came (during a pandemic, no less), we totally and completely stopped going. But we didn’t stop watching movies all together - we just set up our own cozy home theater in our living room. The key to having a movie date with your partner after baby arrives is to not have high expectations of getting through the entire movie in one sitting. I remember once getting our baby down for the night and getting ready to begin a movie. Jess posted on Facebook to let everyone know what we were about to watch (I can’t remember what it is right now because mom brain is real). Well, before the opening credits were even completed, baby was up and crying. She wanted milk. I went and gave her a bottle, and twenty minutes later, rejoined Jess on the couch and pressed play. Ten minutes after that, baby was up again. Jess went this time. I paused it. She came back 15 minutes later, and we continued the movie. Five minutes later, baby was up again. Keep in mind we were watching a brand new movie that we were both really excited to see. This could have been really frustrating, but we remembered that dating is different after parenthood. We got a little time to watch a tiny bit of a movie, eat some popcorn…annnd take care of our baby. It took a hilarious 4 nights to get through the movie (that turned out not to be that good. lol). But what I remember is how we made a game out of it, made our popcorn, and took what we could get.
Plan it.
Parenting requires the ability to adapt. So while I find you need to be spontaneous and make dates happen at the drop of a hat, it is also helpful to schedule your dates. I know it sounds contradictory, but more than one thing can be true at once! You can never be too prepared as a parent, and here are some ways to plan dates with your significant other after you become parents.
Get a babysitter.
Being true pandemic parents, we didn’t have any childcare for a whole year after our daughter was born. Because my wife is immunocompromised, we didn’t want to risk having anyone come over. The thought of Jess getting sick was scary, the thought of our baby getting sick was scarier, and the thought of being on my own if Jess had to quarantine for 14 days literally made me panic at the thought.
It was just before our baby’s first birthday that we had my mother-in-law come to finally meet her granddaughter, and, wow, was it amazing to have a third person there to help with cooking, cleaning, and totally fawning over our baby. But that first year…? It was just the two of us on baby duty 24/7. You better believe that when our MIL arrived, we planned out a few date nights! Part of the reason we planned was because 1) I was exclusively pumping and needed to pump on a schedule and make sure we had enough milk for the baby before the date 2) we wanted options in case baby didn’t agree to our date night and 3) we weren’t sure we were ready to leave the house without the baby yet! We had one plan to go out to dinner, a second plan to order in for dinner through DoorDash, and a third plan to order dessert (also through DoorDash) and enjoy some chocolate cake, some wine, and a board game at our kitchen table. Planning helped us not be disappointed when the big date night came and our baby was not having it (see number 2 above). We knew there was no way we were going to be able to leave the house for dinner. Thankfully, our daughter graciously allowed us to order dinner and enjoy it on our patio while her Nana gleefully tended to her every need just a few 100 feet away. We set out candles and got each other flowers, and talked and ate delicious food. We purposefully got dressed up (and showered!) and really treated it like a big event, just like we used to do before the baby.
We each love getting and giving flowers. Here’s a romantic “first date” after baby scene.
Here we are all dressed up and enjoying our first date with a babysitter.
Set a recurring calendar event.
My wife and I tried over and over to set a standing date night for Saturday nights, and we were let down almost every Saturday. Our daughter always napped during the day on a pretty consistent schedule, but for the first 18 months of her life, it was always a mystery what time she would go to bed for the night, especially on the weekends. We had the same bedtime routine at the same time every night, but sometimes she fell asleep after 10 minutes, and other times after 2 hours. We found that on weekends, she was so excited her moms played with her all day that she seemed to have FOMO at bedtime and stayed up late.
The one true Saturday night date night Jess and I have had since our daughter was born. And yes, it was as dreamy and delicious as it looks!
We kind of gave up on our dream of date nights, until one day, something clicked. Our daughter started daycare and Jess and I had Fridays during our lunch hour to ourselves. We started going to lunch together most Fridays and realized…this is our weekly “date night!” We got to eat and talk baby-free and work-free for a whole hour. So if you’re struggling with what your date nights used to look like, remember that dates can happen anytime…just drop the word “night”, and treat breakfast, lunch, or anytime of the day as a time you can set aside for you and your spouse to date after parenthood.
We hope we’ve inspired you to connect with your partner and that you get at least a 5 minute date in this week! Cheers!
