When our daughter was small and we had unresolved night awakenings I would ask our local contact Mom for her magical solutions. Her first response was always “How’s your couch time?” BTW this is a common response from all GFI alumni, be prepared….

Ok I’ve Gotta admit when our baby was an infant I found this question pretty annoying, I mean really she doesn’t know when we’re doing “couch time”, right?

Here’s a refresher on the “Couch time” idea, if you need it.

Once we have kids its our natural tendency to place all our free time and affection upon them. They are just so crazy cute! And we’ve all done the work to get them asleep at a a reasonable hour so we’ll catch up with our spouse then. Hmmmm…..

Actually, babies and children need a structured time during their day when they see Mom and Dad lovingly communicating and not focusing all their attention on baby. It provides a sense of security on their world which mostly consists of YOU and Your spouse. (If you haven’t taken GKGW I highly recommend this lesson by Gary Ezzo, it was moving for me.)

Here’s the how-to. We put our daughter on a blanket near us with a toy or a book. We tell her Mommy and Daddy are going to do couch time and she must play quietly on the blanket until the bell (kitchen timer) goes off. We started with a couple of minutes and have worked up to 10-15 minutes (depends on if we really have that much to discuss). There have been a few couch times that were short because of her wailing so loudly we couldn’t really hear each other. However, we continued to make it part of our evening routine and she now has come to accept it and even enjoy it!

Guideline: this is not the time to discuss heated subjects. As a matter of fact there are days we know that this excersise almost feels like a show to us but one we lovingly do because we have now seen results of the security it has provided our daughter.

So we work on our couch time, and I’ll admit being married to a pastor and working part-time myself some days it just doesn’t happen. But here is what I have noticed over the past few months. If we miss one night its cool. If we miss two nights its iffy-she may wake up at her favorite “Mommy hold me” time, 3am. If we miss three night its definite-I will see her at 3am, might as well set my alarm.

Needless to say, couch time is really important to me too. Side note: my love language is “quality time” so gazing into my husband’s eyes as we “talk” about our day isn’t so bad for me.

Related post - Ask GFI: Couch Time