The bigger my family gets, the less time I seem to have for everyone to get their needed individual attention. I remember the days when it was just my husband and I; we had jobs and such but there was plenty of time to pay attention to one another and care for ourselves as well. When we had our son, we found that it was a little more challenging to get to spend alone time together, but it was still do-able... Then we added two more to the family all at once and it didn't seem like there was time for us to pay attention to one another, our son, or our new daughters, other than to meet everyones basic needs.
To me it is more important now than ever to make sure everyone gets their individual attention. For my son and I, we have had a bedtime routine that envolves me reading a story to him each night. Then tonight I had him come into the nursery for storytime, so that everyone could experience it together. We are going back to storytime at our local library for some one-on-one time starting on Thursday again to have our special time for a couple of weeks until Daddy goes back to school. Then he will have to share that time with his sisters as well. Sometimes I let him play with play-doh while I prepare dinner for the family and we talk while I cook and he plays which is nice too. If it's something simple that we are having for dinner, I try to let my son be involved in cooking too, which he really enjoys. For the girls it is a little harder to give them individual attention, so we usually end up doing group play, where I will get in the play-yard with them for 30-60 minutes in the evening and let them crawl all over me while I encourage them to walk :). I have found though with them, if you take one out of the play-yard and leave the other they tend to get very mad, so really the only one-on-one time they get for now is bathtime, but we are working on that to see what time we can fit in for them as well. Most importantly though, I have found that it is super important to get to spend quality time with my husband, so for the past week our goal has been to get all of our web-surfing done by 10:30 pm and go upstairs to watch some TV together and love on and cuddle with one another every night. We had both gotten used to being near one another without spending time together for way too long and it caused us to start drifting apart; we were just together and not spending real quality time with one another. We have learned though that if we want to stay as tightly connected as we were when we met, that we really need to focus on making sure the other person realizes that we do appreciate them and the things they do, and we need to do those special things that make the other person feel loved.
How do you divide your attention? What special things do you do with the individual members of your family?
To me it is more important now than ever to make sure everyone gets their individual attention. For my son and I, we have had a bedtime routine that envolves me reading a story to him each night. Then tonight I had him come into the nursery for storytime, so that everyone could experience it together. We are going back to storytime at our local library for some one-on-one time starting on Thursday again to have our special time for a couple of weeks until Daddy goes back to school. Then he will have to share that time with his sisters as well. Sometimes I let him play with play-doh while I prepare dinner for the family and we talk while I cook and he plays which is nice too. If it's something simple that we are having for dinner, I try to let my son be involved in cooking too, which he really enjoys. For the girls it is a little harder to give them individual attention, so we usually end up doing group play, where I will get in the play-yard with them for 30-60 minutes in the evening and let them crawl all over me while I encourage them to walk :). I have found though with them, if you take one out of the play-yard and leave the other they tend to get very mad, so really the only one-on-one time they get for now is bathtime, but we are working on that to see what time we can fit in for them as well. Most importantly though, I have found that it is super important to get to spend quality time with my husband, so for the past week our goal has been to get all of our web-surfing done by 10:30 pm and go upstairs to watch some TV together and love on and cuddle with one another every night. We had both gotten used to being near one another without spending time together for way too long and it caused us to start drifting apart; we were just together and not spending real quality time with one another. We have learned though that if we want to stay as tightly connected as we were when we met, that we really need to focus on making sure the other person realizes that we do appreciate them and the things they do, and we need to do those special things that make the other person feel loved.
How do you divide your attention? What special things do you do with the individual members of your family?
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