Having a baby can come with many new life stresses which can lead to a person's sex life falling to the wayside.
Many people find it hard to balance their new baby's needs with their own wants and desires.
However, sex educator Jenny Keane told Alive and Kicking with Clare McKenna that prioritising sex can boost the level of communication in a relationship.
“I always give these tips to parents who are maybe approaching parenthood for the first time, maybe they have several kids – it's the same tools that you can use,” she said.
“The first one is looking at making sex a priority – now, this doesn’t mean that you’re having penetrative sex, right? Sometimes that is off the table.
“But how do you make sex a priority? That looks at having really great sexual communication, or even just asking questions to you and your partner.
“When we make sex a priority, it looks like saying to each other, ‘Right, where is sex falling on your list of priorities right now in this moment?’”
Man and woman on the beach at sunset. Image: Anna Berkut / Alamy. 11 February 2016Ms Keane said that for parents, their baby or children will always be the number one priority, but it’s worth figuring out what comes after that.
“So, right in the very beginning [after having a baby], I remember my physical well-being was much more important,” she said.
“I was making time, when I did have a 20-minute break or whatever, to lie on the floor, to connect to my body, to do very small breathwork practices that supported my pelvic floor – and that was more important than connecting my partner.
“Then later on, I found myself getting really stressed because I was constantly trying to keep up with the laundry, I was getting my partner to keep up with the laundry.
“When we wrote our list of priorities, we both realised that the housework and the laundry was below connecting with each other.”
Connection to each other
According to Ms Keane, you don’t necessarily need to be having sex to keep still keep “sexual channels” with your partner open.
“[Me and my partner] were able to go, do you know what? Physical well-being is still really important, but actually our connection to each other is more important than the housework,” she said.
“So, instead of trying to clean the entire house, let’s sit down and have a 20-minute conversation where we’re really with each other when we’re present.
“Doing something like that makes it so, so simple to understand where you’re at – and what you’re also doing is you’re allowing that sexuality to still be alive between you because you are communicating about it.”
Ms Keane said she sees sexual education as crucial for allowing people to get in touch with their own bodies.
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Main image: A mother holds her baby on a park bench, Alamy.
