How do you find time for sex when you'e a busy mom with young kids?
First, Sarah shares three mindset shifts, plus a bonus note on attitudes about motherhood:
1. You NEED to make time for your marriage. You don't find it, you make it. You need to make time for emotional connection with your husband, and also for sex. Ideally, you want both of them together, but if you only have time for one, consider prioritizing emotional connection first. Consider scheduling it, and have an attitude that accepts that preparation will make it better--just as Mass is scheduled, and entails many layers of preparation (the homily, music, flowers, usher plan, etc.).
2. Emotional connection is so important for making lovemaking meaningful and pleasurable. Women are designed to thrive sexually in an atmosphere of heart-to-heart connection with their husband, which includes that feeling of being truly known and seen.
3. Good lovemaking takes time: ideally, 15-60+ minutes per session. If you don't care about it feeling good and bonding, or you don't care about feeling mutual pleasure, you don't need much time. However, that is likely to lead to you, the wife, feeling left behind, used, and resentful. You will be more likely to see sex as just another chore to check off your list.
4. Motherhood does not have to mean you are frazzled and exhausted. That is not a sign that you are doing it right. It is incredibly demanding, but look for where you can bring in help and make space for more in your life than just caring for your kids. Make time to cultivate your mind, your friendships, your hobbies... and your idea of yourself as a lover, not just a mother.
That said, here are four ideas for making time for good lovemaking in marriage:
1. Weekend afternoon, during the little one's nap. Put on a movie and set out snacks for the bigger kids. Then, Mommy and Daddy go to their bedroom to have "a little nap."
2. Cereal Night. This is a weekday night in which you serve the easiest dinner possible--maybe even just cold cereal, in plastic bowls! Streamline the bedtime rooutine. Make it the simplest, easiest possible version of dinner and bedtime. Then, once the kids are in bed, Mom and Dad make a bee-line for their bedroom WITHOUT PICKING UP THEIR PHONES, laptop, or tablets first. (Those screens are "thieves in the night" that will steal your precious opportunities for emotional and sexual connection! They're a trap. Stay off, or an hour later you'll find yourselves scrolling or surfing, and then too tired to really have good lovemaking.)
3. Set Your Alarms for the Middle of the Night. Get in one solid sleep cycle, and set your alarm for 4 hours after your heads hit the pillow. Then, wake up, make love in the dead of night, and go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
4. Arrange Babysitting Just for Sex Time. You can do a babysitting swap with another couple with young kids, bring the kids to in-town parents for the evening, or have a babysitter over while you two go to a faraway part of the house to "do your taxes" or "have a business meeting." Get a white noise machine if you want to.
MORE RESOURCES
Free Enhancing Marital Intimacy Guide for Catholic Women: 9 Skills for Body, Mind, and Spirit (for married and engaged women)
Do you want to know what is allowed for Catholics in the bedroom? The "What's Allowed List" answers 20+ questions about what is licit and illicit. ($10)
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