I'm scared of my first family Christmas

Hi Chris,

We have recently had our first baby, and so I’m looking forward to our first Christmas holiday together. But I have also heard a few horror stories! Any tips?

First Family Christmas

Chris says,

Hi First Family Christmas!

You’re right to be a little scared because a lot of couples say that their first Christmas as a new family was more difficult than they had expected. Couples often find themselves fighting more than usual, and that’s especially distressing as they were hoping for such a joyful time together.

A lot of that is just the stress of a first child, of course. You’re exhausted by your new responsibilities and your baby’s unpredictable needs The emotional closeness between you seems to have gone. And your sex life too. Christmas just makes everything worse.

Because Christmas adds yet more stress. Gift-buying, family meals and visits. Couples have less time for each other, and not enough to deal with the inevitable problems. So if bad feelings start to bubble up they get left to fester.

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Try not to disrupt the baby’s routine over the holiday. If things do go wrong between you and your husband, try to see each other’s point of view instead of criticising and blaming. Instead of being defensive and making accusations, accept each other’s needs.

Especially over anything to do with sex. Or to be more precise, the lack of it. A key reason things go wrong after a new baby is that you don’t have physical intimacy to fall back on when there are problems. So comforting and reassuring one another is much harder.

But what can you do? Be creative! Start experimenting, and build up a wide range of affectionate touches and caresses, so that while sex is difficult you have plenty to fall back on. You’ll quickly find that ‘gourmet affection’ is far more satisfying than you expect, and will add a whole new dimension to your sex life as things get back to normal!

All the best,

Chris