Video transcript

Annalisa (mother of Deuchar): There are so many wonderful things about having a baby and what it does to the relationship, but I really don’t think that the guys truly understand the enormous strain physically on the female.

Jessamyn (mother of Brynley): It still hurts me to have sex even now my child’s nearly 9 months old. So I didn’t know that, I didn’t know the pain that you’d have after you have a child, and not everyone does.

Rochelle (mother of 4): Before you have a baby you share your body with your partner, and then once you have a baby you’re sharing your body with your baby for a while, obviously in a very different way but in just as intimate a way because you’re breastfeeding and touching all the time, and it was hard for me to share it with someone else then as well.

Rahnia (mother of Allirah and Ashtyn): He’d ask for a kiss and I’d be like ‘Do I have to?’ and I would hate to feel the way he would’ve felt. I would hate for someone to be like that towards me but I couldn’t help it, it wasn’t intentional.

Grace (mother of Zoe and Aiden): I mean you’re rejecting them. No one likes to be rejected, so after a while they kind of give up trying so then you don’t get affection from them, you’re not giving them affection, you don’t even talk because you’re always angry at them because they don’t do anything right.

Pete (father of 3): I remember when I was in the middle of it, it just seemed interminable, this kind of inability to have that cuddle and that kiss and that time and stuff like that.

Lani (mother of Jaii): It does put a really big strain on the relationship and I think once that happens then they don’t know how to fix it and you don’t know how to fix it so they tend to just step away.

Annalisa: You’re not actually spending that partner/couple time together in the same way, and you’re either tired or you’re distressed and you’re arguing about something or you’re frustrated because they don’t really understand what’s going on and so then when you do have that time together, there’s been so much distance, it’s actually quite difficult to re-establish it again.

Jessamyn: It’s like you go on a new path to discover a new intimacy with each other really.

Mum (mother of Rowan): We made moves in order to get our time back together, we felt like we were really brave in putting Rowan in the cot and as freakish as it was in the beginning and as terrifying as it was, that first night of laying there in the bed and having a cuddle was worth every minute.

Rochelle: Often when someone has a child, they often want the intimacy with their partner more than the sexuality. And often I think that intimacy will lead to sexuality with your partner.

Keith (father of Joe): You can turn the lights off, put a movie on, the baby’s asleep in bed, get a bowl of popcorn and pretend you’re at the movies and just sit there and just make a moment, and that might sustain you for the rest of that week.