Sometimes it is important to take a step back from your busy parenting life and remember to nurture your romantic relationship. After all the family unit started with just you two. It is easy to lose each other in the midst of dirty nappies, night feeds and tantrums. Taking some time to reconnect and bring it back to basics is really healthy. 

• The routine you’ve had going for weeks now has completely gone out the window. The very schedule you have based the entire night on has gone pear-shaped. Your child knows you’ve got plans and they’ve done everything in their power to stop it from happening.
• You will have approximately seven and a half minutes to get ready. Gone are the days of tan and fake eyelashes. You’re hooked up to a breast pump using blusher as eyeshadow. 
• You are barely out of the garden before one of you says something “naughty”. Sorry but we’re right aren’t we?
• You’ll take a selfie and upload it to social media. It will more than likely involve the words “kids free” or “off duty”. 
• You will eat your food at the speed of light. You want to enjoy it and savour it but it’s just what you are used to these days. Onlookers might be horrified but you’re too up close and personal with your pasta to notice. 
• One drink in and you are both yawning. You joke about the fact that the story the other person was telling wasn’t that boring. The fatigue struggle is real.
• At some stage, you are huddled in a corner scrolling through photographs of the baby you have made together. It doesn’t matter that you have both seen the photos and more than likely took them, here you are in a dimly lit pub oohing and aaghing like you’ve never seen them before.
• You will WhatsApp the babysitter too soon and let the other parent know that “she’s typing”.
• There will almost certainly be a late night trip to an ATM (and usually via the taxi home). Securing the babysitter was a miracle in itself. You hadn’t quite considered how you would pay her.
• You’ll have a very unsexy conversation about the pros and cons of having sex when the babysitter goes home. In the end, sleep usually wins and you’re both happy with the decision.