My wife is about to give birth and, aside from my excitement about the arrival of our third child, I'm thinking about the future of my life in the bedroom. Having been through two other post-partum periods, I'm experienced with my wife's need to physically heal and deal with the demands of infant care and feeding. I'm a veteran of the important process of emotionally recovering from carrying the child and adjusting to the level of unselfishness required of motherhood.
Now, I'm also aware that I should give up much of myself to help nurture and feed the baby while juggling the management of the older kids. I've done it and will willingly do it again. I'm a team player and I do love bonding with my babies. But I'm in a near state of panic about losing my nookie for the foreseeable future.
I can hear the groans (no pun intended -- well, maybe it's intended) from the women out there who are already anticipating the whining about a guy's physical needs. Married ladies -- in fact, much of the female population -- are veterans of lines like, "Baby, I can't help it if I need it more often than you;" or "Really, it will only take a few minutes;" and "I can't help wanting it 'cause you're one hot mama."In truth, though, I know that following the baby's birth, I will survive the first six-to-eight weeks without much physical contact. But what will happen to my bedroom life for the next year and beyond?
Once again, based on experience, I realize that my wife, like many other women out there, has an interest in using the bed for something more than sleep (though that would be nice, too) and breastfeeding. So, without further foreplay, here is some insight for women who'd like to return to intimacy with the father of their children.
- Beat the Stress Factor
What remains absolutely true is that guys usually take about 0.5 seconds to become excited and they get randy when they're tense. A lot of women take longer to feel in the mood and have little interest in physical affection when they're stressed. Considering the fact that pressures build to all-time highs in a household full of kids, the lady in the picture can raise the likelihood of more than a kiss goodnight by using one magical trick: communication. Rather than be surprised and put off when the hubby jumps you as soon as the kids go to sleep for the night, a woman should try calling her partner in the middle of the day and tell her husband she loves him and his body.
Give him a kiss before you sit down to dinner. Then, before you watch TV, do bills, or slog through more work, try slightly more intense overtures to get things going. Your man will have no problem reading the signs that you want some action, and he will also understand the pace you need. You certainly should suggest to him some quid pro quo by asking him to do the phone calling and slow seduction, but modeling the behavior increases the chances he will do it. Once it gets past 9pm or so, your chances are pretty slim. Exhaustion saps the energy of just about anyone, especially an overworked mom like you. So, start earlier if you want to get in before you feel like closing the shop for the night.
- Back to Dating
You know all that courting you did when you were first dating? Well, children act like little reset buttons that send you back to the beginning of your relationship. That's why, when your guy tries to get spontaneous, you often respond with, "Not so fast, mister. We hardly know each other." Actually, after working and wrangling children, you may look at your partner like a stranger. To keep things more familiar, try talking on the phone, email, or IM two or three times in a given day, especially a day you're hoping to end rolling around in the sheets. The advice to talk more is really applicable to anything in your relationship, but it truly works here. When you talk, cover the kid category as usual, but also mix in some grown-up stuff about movies, current events, how good he looked when you last saw him in the morning -- all the things you used to chat about when you were dating. In this way, you can slip right back into each other's romantic graces.
Copyright 2007 Modern Mom, LLC. All rights reserved.
2 |
