CheekyChicago

Since the baby’s arrival, you’ve never been happier (goodbye, belly; hello, feet!). Now you spend hours a day looking into your baby’s big brown eyes, fantasizing a future full of endless possibilities. With the smell of Desitin in the air and your Rockabye Baby CDs on rotation in the nursery – ever heard Led Zeppelin as a lullaby? – you shower your new bunny with daily declarations of love and affectionate adoration. A sense of calm washes over you, and you wonder aloud to no one in particular, ‘who knew life could really feel this complete?’

Then your husband clears his throat, and you realize he’s been standing in the doorway watching you smother the baby with your wet kisses for over an hour, while he’s been trying to talk to you about the handyman or the kitchen handles – you’re not sure and you don’t care. How long has he been standing there? Long enough to realize that he’s no longer the only person in your life who can put that big a smile on your happy, contented face.

Just like that: he’s been replaced.

Babies do funny things to people. If they’re not keeping you up at night, they’re sapping your emotional and physical energy completely dry during the day. As much fun as it is, being a parent is not easy work. You have to be on your game 24/7, and when the baby’s sleeping forget trying to catch up on sleep yourself – that’s a lie other new parents want you to believe – you have an entire house full of chores that need to get done, thank-you notes to write, people to call back, emails to respond to. And, oh yeah, there’s that other thing in your house that needs attention – your DOG.

When is there time for anything else?

The truth is, there isn’t. As a new parent, you’ll go days without showering, weeks without blow-drying your hair straight or getting a manicure, months before you realize you need a wax, and um stat. None of it matters anymore, though, once a new baby enters your life. Why do you think Juicy sweat suits were invented as mommy-uniforms? There isn’t one spare minute in the day to do anything other than the bare minimum to get by.

But everyone knows that life is not just about pleasing you anymore, however who’s taking care of your significant other, the person partly responsible for the poopy diapers piling up?

“Don’t forget who’s most important in your life,” my dad said to me right after the baby was born.

“I know whose number one – Preston is,” I said confidently, thinking I passed his pop quiz.

“No, Jay is the most important person in your life. Don’t you forget it, and don’t you ever let him forget it either,” he cautioned.

“Yeah, right, Dad,” I said with a nudge. As if anyone is more important than my baby.

But he wasn’t kidding. I was insulted by this at first, being his baby but obviously not his MVP. What’s the point of having kids if they’re not going to be your top priority? I actually asked my parents this once, when they didn’t want to take us to a Styx concert in the ‘80s. What can I say, I liked arguing my points, even as a pre-teen. (Needless to say, Styx was our first family rock show.) But his original point was this: your husband is the only person you have to lean on when things get really tough; he’s the person you need to make sure you’re taking care of – first, foremost, and forever.

It took a couple months for my dad’s lesson to sink as a new parent blinded by love, but somewhere between baths and projectile vomits of The Exorcist variety I looked at Jay in a whole new light. He’s the father of my child, after all, and a really good one at that. No matter how sleep deprived and crabby either one of us gets, we’re the only two people we can count on to get us through the rough patches of parenthood. My husband has become so in tune with my needs, in fact, that he volunteered to wake up in the middle of the night with Preston when we started sleep-training him last week – so I could get my sleep for work. And I returned the favor last weekend so he could finally get his.

If you’re a new parent, then you’re probably experiencing this too: sometimes our alliance feels more like a business partnership than an actual marriage, especially as we try to navigate our way through these first handful of months. When things start to get tough, and they will, try these five simple steps to ensure you keep the love alive in your marriage when it starts taking a backseat to the baby. Yes, even when you’re deliriously tired.

• Talk to each other. Open communication is key to the success of any marriage, but especially once the baby arrives – you’ll be feeling very overwhelmed with all the new responsibilities in your life, and juggling the old ones. If your partner knows how you feel and what you’re dealing with, it might help you get a free pass for crabby behavior.

• Designate times to be intimate. If you’re not ready to have sex after the baby, at least carve out some alone time for the two of you to cuddle in bed and watch a movie together. Turn off your cell phones; lose the laptops. The physical intimacy will eventually follow.

• Do at least one nice thing for your partner every day, whether it’s bringing him a cup of coffee in bed or folding his laundry without being asked. It goes a long way in making him appreciate you.

• Tell your husband you love him before you leave the house every day, and before you go to bed every night. He’s already feeling like the Other Man; at least let him know you still love him.

• This is an oldie but goodie: don’t go to bed mad. Life’s way too short. Resolve your issues, even if that means picking and choosing your battles and letting certain things slide to get a good night’s rest. You’re going to need it.

Sarah Preston Gorenstein is the managing editor of Playboy.com; a contributing editor of ‘Chicago Magazine’; and a freelance writer for Michigan Avenue Magazine, among others. Sarah is a former nightlife and dating columnist-turned-new mom of a perfect baby named Preston. Read about Sarah’s adventures in babyland here, and e-mail Sarah at spgorenstein@gmail.com for questions about baby gear, or just general advice. She’s full of it.