When my daughter was born, my wife and I would take turns caring for her through the night. She pumped breast milk so I had access to food as needed on my nights, and she could breastfeed directly on her nights.
It soon became clear that our daughter preferred direct breastfeeding to the bottle, but I was much better at calming her and getting her back to sleep. The result was that I ended up covering my wife’s nights more frequently because she was otherwise at home with the baby all day while I was at work and felt like she needed the break. I was also “used” to sleep deprivation from the past years when I was working full-time while also going to college full-time, and she would stay home and watch TV, read, or paint.
I was constantly exhausted for the first 6 months, until she was mostly able to sleep through most nights. I would regularly apologize to my coworkers for my reduced cognitive ability because I didn’t get any sleep the previous night or two, and my boss would express how he didn’t understand how I was still vertical. Thankfully they were all very understanding and accommodating, and I was at least still able to get most of my work done to our standard of quality, albeit much more slowly than usual.
I didn’t have time, opportunity, or energy to even consider the prospect of intimacy at that time, so I absolutely sympathize with new mothers with absentee partners that have normal levels of energy and libido.
When my daughter was born, my wife and I would take turns caring for her through the night. She pumped breast milk so I had access to food as needed on my nights, and she could breastfeed directly on her nights.
It soon became clear that our daughter preferred direct breastfeeding to the bottle, but I was much better at calming her and getting her back to sleep. The result was that I ended up covering my wife’s nights more frequently because she was otherwise at home with the baby all day while I was at work and felt like she needed the break. I was also “used” to sleep deprivation from the past years when I was working full-time while also going to college full-time, and she would stay home and watch TV, read, or paint.
I was constantly exhausted for the first 6 months, until she was mostly able to sleep through most nights. I would regularly apologize to my coworkers for my reduced cognitive ability because I didn’t get any sleep the previous night or two, and my boss would express how he didn’t understand how I was still vertical. Thankfully they were all very understanding and accommodating, and I was at least still able to get most of my work done to our standard of quality, albeit much more slowly than usual.
I didn’t have time, opportunity, or energy to even consider the prospect of intimacy at that time, so I absolutely sympathize with new mothers with absentee partners that have normal levels of energy and libido.