Parent Savers
Sex After Kids

Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.

[00:00:00]

Tony DiLorenzo: So you had a lot of sex to make a baby,

Alisa DiLorenzo: or maybe just once.

Tony DiLorenzo: and now getting lucky,

Alisa DiLorenzo: that means the sleeping baby.

Tony DiLorenzo: It can be one of the first things to go in a relationship when you have everybody vying for your attention.

Alisa DiLorenzo: How do you make the time and energy to have sex a priority in your relationship after the baby comes?

Tony DiLorenzo: I am Tony

Alisa DiLorenzo: And I am Alisa, and we are authors of the 7 Days of Sex Challenge

Tony DiLorenzo: And have a Podcast focused on sex, called One Extraordinary Marriage, and this is Parent Savers, Episode 7.

[Theme Song/Intro]

KC Wilt: Welcome to Parent Savers, broadcasting from the Birth Education Center of San Diego. I am your host KC Wilt. Parent Savers is all about helping new parents preserve their sanity by giving you expert advice from the baby years to the toddler years. Feel free to send us emails or suggestions on our website https://www.parentsavers.com or our Facebook page. You can also call the Parent Savers hotline at 619-866-4775. I am a new parent myself. My son Carson is 16 months old and I am joined by two new panelists here in the studio.

Sunny Gault: Hi everyone, I’m Sunny Gault. I’m actually the host of Parent Savers sister show Preggie Pals which is all about pregnancy. I’m 34 years old, and I have two children both are little boys one is 21 months and one is almost a month.

KC Wilt: Almost a month?

Sunny Gault: Almost a month. I know, right?

KC Wilt: Oh my gosh.

Sunny Gault: It’s almost a month. It’s almost been a month.

KC Wilt: The children grow so fast.

Sunny Gault: I know.

KC Wilt: We have Danelle here.

Danelle Dutoit: Hi, I am Danelle Dutoit and I’m 32 years and I have a little boy named Jude and he is 2 years old.

KC Wilt: Are you French? Or is your husband French?

Danelle Dutoit: My husband is French.

KC Wilt: Oh, I love that. Your name sounds so good together.

Sunny Gault: It’s perfect.

KC Wilt: I know the last name, I have never heard it. It’s spoken so eloquently like that. I love it. It’s gorgeous. It was nice.

Sunny Gault: Am so jealous.

[Theme Music]

[Featured Segment: News Headlines - The Mommy War]

KC Wilt: Today we have some headlines. In the news, we actually last time talked about the Time article, “Are you mom enough” and in the front cover had Jamie breastfeeding a 3 year old and it’s caused controversy. So I actually have an article that I got today and it says, “Are we ready for cease fire in the mommy Wars” so what do you guys think about that? Do you think mommy wars exist and like, I don’t know, how do we stop them? And the fun part about our headlines today is we have our expert joining us and in on as one another mom as well. Tell us what do you think Alisa?

Alisa DiLorenzo: I’m convinced the mommy wars exist. I know that I hear it my kids are both in elementary school. We’ve got a 6 year old and 9 year old and between the stay at home moms and the working moms there is that under kind of tension.

KC Wilt: So, it doesn’t stop?

Alisa DiLorenzo: It doesn’t stop.

KC Wilt: Are we going to solve mommy wars at college, like the college you went to and the college my son went to?

Alisa DiLorenzo: You know unfortunately I think you probably will.

Sunny Gault: When do you guys think that these mommy wars actually start, though? Because I don’t know if I have really felt the full force of mommy wars yet, but my kids are still pretty young. My kids aren’t in school yet, and I feel like you know, once they start getting involved in extracurricular activities and the sports and everything then it becomes far more competitive. Right now you know I am just trying to get my kid to say a couple of words. You know

[Laughter]

Sunny Gault: I’m not quite at that stage yet. So guys when do you think this starts?

KC Wilt: Well, I think for me it started in pregnancy, because I felt like it was kind like, have you felt your baby kick yet? or I felt mine kick.

All: [Laughs]

KC Wilt: It truly start, oh my gosh you so look like you are about to pop. I used to have a nice rack and am skinny you know, whatever;

All: [Laughs]

KC Wilt: I had a cute bump, you know and then it went on from there, like a second, and are you breastfeeding or are you doing formula?

Danelle Dutoit: I did feel that.

KC Wilt: And are you having a natural birth or are you going to have an epidural?

Sunny Gault: An epidural? [Laughs]

KC Wilt: Yeah are you going to have that and ruin your child because he’ll go slow like a turtle, you know [laughs] here we go and I turn back around. But, yeah, I think I felt like the second I got pregnant it was just all that blah blah, let me give you all the advice I have and dump it on you and then I don’t agree with yours, and isn’t my way superior? I mean, and that’s what the article talks about, like its basically, well, mom is not feeling good enough and woman feeling superior in their choice. Even if I know am better than all of you, but you know…

Danelle Dutoit: At least you are saying it.

Alisa DiLorenzo: I know, I’m just kidding.

Sunny Gault: Its one of the one things that we pretty much all have in common, right. I know not everybody has kids or chooses to have kids but it’s something we all have in common that we can talk about. And it is a shame that we compare ourselves so much but I think it’s more of a common denominator you know you, and you just so happen to maybe say some stuff you shouldn’t say just because you are trying to make conversation or again you know, you are just trying to talk to people rather than kids, you know, “get out of the house a little bit!”

KC Wilt: You know the article we talked about last time was all those people, the comments on that episode they were calling like this woman ‘a whore’ and all sorts of, and it was like “Why do we have to start calling names?” Like.

Alisa DiLorenzo: That is taking it too far.

Sunny Gault: Yes.

Alisa DiLorenzo: You know we do not know what her life is like.

KC Wilt: Yes, it’s the whole name calling stuff and anyways, everyone be friendly out there, be nice, from starting right now we are doing our cease fire. Parent Savers we are all about every side of the board, work or don’t work, we don’t care.

Sunny Gault: Yeah.

KC Wilt: Just love your child.

Alisa DiLorenzo: And ultimately that is what it comes down to.

KC Wilt:: Exactly.

[Theme Music]

KC Wilt: Today on Parent Savers, we have Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo from https://www.oneextraordinarymarriage.com here to talk with us about, “Sex After Kids”.

All: [Laughs]

KC Wilt: And, I’m blushing already, and how to cure all those night time headaches that all you mamas are getting out there to avoid bedroom talks. So I guess we should call you Sexperts rather than;

Alisa DiLorenzo: You can call us Sexperts, that is fine.

Tony DiLorenzo: We have a lot of it.

All: [Laughs]

KC Wilt: So, let’s start from the beginning. Oh I’m sorry but it’s getting hot in here and we haven’t started. So why is sex important in a relationship, can you guys tell me?

Alisa DiLorenzo: Absolutely. You are obviously; you guys were talking about mommy hood, parenthood things like that. You had sex getting into parenthood and that is how it happened for almost everybody and we know that there are couples that struggle with infertility and what not, but…

Tony DiLorenzo: But they still have sex.

All: [Laughs]

KC Wilt: Right, yeah, everyone is having sex.

Alisa DiLorenzo: The thing is that physical intimacy is such a vital component to our marriages. You know? We need, we need to touch and be touched and the ultimate expression of that is through sexual intimacy; and so when that goes away, for many couples, as it does postpartum, there is an absence. There is a void in their marriage that really starts to change the dynamic.

I mean, we know even for ourselves and for many of our listeners, you know, we hear all of a sudden, especially for first time parents, you have this screaming little bundle that you don’t understand, cries at all kind of random hours. You are exhausted because suddenly they need that 2 a.m. feeding, and maybe the 3 a.m. feeding and then if you are really blessed that night, a 4 a.m. feeding and 20 diapers later, and your body for us women, do not feel sexy, you know.

Tony DiLorenzo: And, as a husband you are, for me anyway, and for the husbands that we have talked to, we don’t see it like oh, you just had a baby, we are going, “Hey, our needs are not being met right now,” and because that need isn’t met, we are frustrated and like Alisa said, there is a this kid in here who is crying and all that, but we want our needs met as well because…

KC Wilt: Everybody wants a piece of you!

Alisa DiLorenzo: And that’s what we feel like, especially those of you that got toddlers now, you know. When you got this little hands crawling all over you all day, and somebody is holding onto you and somebody is calling mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, especially once they, you know it’s so wonderful to hear mommy the first time.

All: [Laughs]

Alisa DiLorenzo: You feel so blessed that your child has gone to the part where they are speaking and then 400 mommy’s later, like really we could have waited another month.

All: [Laughs]

Alisa DiLorenzo: But then your husband looks at you his like, “Hey, let’s go to the bedroom”, and you’re like, “I got nothing to give”, yeah. You know we feel that way and so it’s getting past that, and realizing you know what this person that I made a baby with, I still need to work on that relationship. It doesn’t just end once I get the baby. You know, that that’s not the prize.

KC Wilt: Why does sex take a back burner when we have children?

Tony DiLorenzo: You know from a husband point of view, you know it’s not just you and your spouse anymore. It’s you, your spouse and one, two, three; four however many kids you decide you to have.

Danelle Dutoit: Or if you live with your parent, my parents, your in-laws like we do, [laughs] ok, yeah that is ok; I got to bother people in the house.

Tony DiLorenzo: So the stress level you know, increases and that can really hamper that time you have together.

Alisa DiLorenzo: Because when you are so stressed and let’s face it, motherhood is stressful and if somebody tells you they are not, that is probably another episode for you guys you know, mothers being truthful. You know when you deal with that stress, you get to a point you just want to shut down and you know for a lot of women that turns into, “I don’t want to have sex”, you know so they are like, ‘oh am just tired’, or like you mentioned earlier, the headaches start popping up very quickly.

Tony DiLorenzo: Or as Alisa used to do, the time in the bathroom would extend out for long periods of time. I would be sitting there reading in bed and you know, “Hey honey are you coming to bed?” “Yeah. I will be there in a minute” and before you know its half an hour, 45 minutes later I am conked out sleeping.

KC Wilt: Is that the trick to do?

Alisa DiLorenzo: Well, you know what it’s so funny because I talk a lot with a lot of women just all of the different excuses and stall tactics that we get really good at. Some are very deliberate and some are probably a little more subversive. But if you don’t want to have sex you will figure out ways not to have sex.

Tony DiLorenzo: You read the book.

All: [Laughs]

Alisa DiLorenzo: I did that, one more chapter, one more chapter. But what I didn’t realize when I was doing that on my marriage was the detriment it was having on our marital relationship, because when you start to pull away from each other physically, its starts to pull that connection apart. Physical intimacy is such a vital component to marriage that you’ve got to maintain that, post kids.

Tony DiLorenzo: Let’s talk about excuses though, and the detriment it has in the marriage. Because time after time, when you continue to reject or when you continue to make excuses, you are rejecting, you are rejecting your spouse, each and every time. You may not that know as the mother that you are doing that, you are just thinking about yourself at that moment in time, but time after time, after time, you are rejecting your spouse and you are pushing him farther and farther away, and that takes its toll on us husbands.

Alisa DiLorenzo: Absolutely.

Tony DiLorenzo: And I will tell you moms, there are other women who will be there, who will help him out, if you are not there and if you continue to push him away and we know that from….

KC Wilt: That is harsh.

Alisa DiLorenzo: It is true.

Tony DiLorenzo: But, it’s truth.

Alisa DiLorenzo: I mean, we wouldn’t bring it up if we hadn’t heard from listeners time and time again, that this is what’s happened in their own lives.

Tony DiLorenzo: Right.

Alisa DiLorenzo: And it comes from many many conversations and it’s something we feel really strongly about, because, our whole website, I mean we’ve built One Extraordinary Marriage on building up marriages, and so we want people to be aware of the pitfalls can be so that you can say uh, am doing that excuse thing, hold on, I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to push him away. I want, you know sit down maybe I’m not at having sex, but we can just cuddle on the couch, because you know those excuses they do build up this huge wall between the two of you and in some cases you can’t break down that wall because he is just tired of being rejected. You know, we actually had one listener I really want to share this real quick. This new mom wrote to us when she was 6 months postpartum it was 5 – 6 months postpartum and they were having serious issues connecting and she’s like, he wants it all the time but am tired……I wrote back to her and said, “look he was their first and you know if you continue to put him below changing a stinky diaper, do you think he is going to stick around?” I know he doesn’t want to be there, you needed him to make the baby let him know that he is still important to you. As so she wrote us back about 4 months later telling us that she didn’t like my message.

All: [Laughs]

Alisa DiLorenzo: We do a lot of tough love on our show, laughs but what she said was, we came up with a compromise, if he told me any night before 10 that he wanted to have sex that night, she goes, “I was ready in 10 minutes”. 10 o’clock was the window though because after 10, I’m done.

KC Wilt: That is so smart because I feel like my husband always at 10 o’clock when we are in bed embracing put the music, no if we started this an hour ago before CSI we would totally would have been….

All: [Laughs]

Alisa DiLorenzo: You know, it would have been worth to skip CSI that night?

KC Wilt: It would have been fine, but now that you’re and I feel bad as a rejecter because you know, here I am rejecting him so late at night, but I would have been fine, you know.

Alisa DiLorenzo: At 9?

KC Wilt: Yeah.

Alisa DiLorenzo: Like maybe your time is 9? Anytime by 9, I am good to go. At 10, dude lights out.

KC Wilt: Yeah. That’s was a good compromise

Alisa DiLorenzo: It was a great compromise and it just works so well for them and their marriage is at completely different place now, because he feels valued, he knows what he has to do to have intimacy with her and it works for their new dynamic of their family, so yeah.

Sunny Gault: There is another issue that I wanted to bring out to you. I had a good friend of mine who had a baby at a younger age and I can’t remember she was married at the time, she did end up marrying him but that’s besides the point. The issue was after she had her baby, he really didn’t want to have anything to do with her, he was and it was more of a….

Alisa DiLorenzo: Was it an object switch?

Sunny Gault: Well you know it’s not that she was all over him now or anything like that, but it was more that she had a baby, she had put on some weight and it wasn’t that attractive factor anymore and she is a beautiful girl. In the sense, lost the weight and more and she totally re-made herself, but still you know I feel like you know, we always say oh oh the guy always wants it and the girl never wants it, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Sometimes the woman just wants affection, and the guy is either put off by childbirth and what he saw during childbirth or a woman’s body after wards, or stretch marks or whatever is happend. So I don’t know, Tony I would love for you to kind of touch on that a little bit. Tell me what you think.

All: [Laughs]

Tony DiLorenzo: I think all of us have body image issues, right? Especially women afterwards and men looking at their wives go through this process. We’ve been through it twice, so I’ve seen it and you know, a big thing is the communication issue. You know, it’s, it’s okay, I understand what’s happening, but let’s talk, let’s emotionally connect, so I can understand, as a wife, you know, so I can understand what is the issue? Now, was it seeing the child-birth that freaked you out? You know, and if so, let’s discuss this together. And to go through that process, I think is the big thing. What ends up happening is so many of us in our marriages, things come up and we just sort of stop talking about it. So this is the time when: Hey, you know, let’s look at our bodies. Let’s look at each other. We got together for a reason and our bodies are going to change over time. But let’s continue to communicate. I think that’s a big issue that we see a lot of times, is that: Yeah, it’s coming up and one mom is telling another mom, that that mom is not telling her husband.

Everyone: Yeah!
Alisa DiLorenzo: We are so good at telling our girlfriends and griping about our husbands, and not going to, not going to him and saying “Okay, this is really bugging me. Like what’s going on here?” And it maybe things that we don’t want to hear. But I would much rather hear from Tony but, okay you know what? I liked you when you were a little bit firmer…. You know, it just, and now you are a little squishy and I just…, I’ve got to kind of re-adjust, you know, what I think, for who you are now, because now you are the mother of my children. And it’s true, we don’t always communicate well, as couples, sometimes we really drop the ball or stick the foot in the mouth, you know, any of that stuff, and so it’s unfortunate, that you know, after nine months of pregnancy, in my case, 35 plus pounds with both kids and stretched out to here, yeah, I did not look the way I did in my twenties.

KC Wilt: Here’s a spin-off of Sunny’s question sort of: Men typically…., we always say, men typically want it, and then he’ll go find it somewhere else. If the role is reversed, I don’t see necessarily, I mean I don’t say it doesn’t happen, but I don’t see women typically going “Well I’ll go and find it somewhere else.” So how is she able to take her husband and actually she sits down, you’ve recommended sitting down, having a conversation with her husband, telling your husband, “Look, I want it more than you want it”. How does, I mean, in my mind, the typical reaction, does it really go if it was the opposite way around. I mean, the guy will be like: “Okay, let’s go…”, if it was that way, but if he’s not interested, then….?

Tony DiLorenzo: There may be bigger issues.

KC Wilt: Yeah.

Tony DiLorenzo: There may be bigger issues. We have found it more likely than not, pornography is an issue. So, the image, the body image that you talked about is whatever he or she may be looking at on the screen, we’ll say for this instance, ‘he’, because he’s not into it. So that becomes a big issue. And that’s an addiction and it needs to be taken care of. It just…, it needs to be taken care of. If it’s just that, he’s just spent, you know, his drive is just down because with the increase in stress, you’re sexual desire decreases and we’ve seen it in our marriage happen numerous times and I can see it, it’s like “Gosh, I’m just not in it!” And I’ve looked back over those times and I’m going “What’s going on? Well there are some major issues going on, and mentally I’m not there”. So if I can’t get there mentally, I’m just out of it. And my sexual desire isn’t raised. And so, that’s a big one. When it comes to the talking though, Alisa and I always say, “Hey, if you guys haven’t had a really good heart-to-heart talk about sex in your marriage, you need to have a state-of-your-marriage sex talk. Like you need to sit down and talk about sex. Instead of just having it, you need to talk about it a little bit. And not in the bedroom right before you are about to have sex. Because a lot of times, we just go…, we are infatuated with each other, when we first get together, and it’s so new and it’s so amazing, so we don’t ever talk about it. But the best time to be talking about sex is when you are not in that mode, when you are sitting in the bedroom about to have it. You take time. And it may be 2, 3, 4, maybe 20 different conversations. But you start to talk about these things, about body image. What do you enjoy? What do you not enjoy? She may have changed in a way that she is engaging him in foreplay, that no longer…., that doesn’t arouse him. So he doesn’t want to go down that path, because it…, he doesn’t like it! But he doesn’t know how to talk about it. You know what I mean? There’s a number of issues that could be here but, we got to be talking about sex, if you want to have it. And it can’t be two minutes before we are about to have it, because that’s not the place. We got to be having it other times. It needs to be coming up in conversations between husband and wife.

KC Wilt: When we come back we’ll talk about ways to reignite the flame and put sex in your weekly routine. We’ll be back shortly.

[Music]

KC Wilt: So, what can we do to re-ignite the flame in our marriage and sex life? What are ways that you teach or tell people about?

Alisa DiLorenzo: The most important thing is to be intentional about your sex life.

KC Wilt: Okay.

Alisa DiLorenzo: You know, we know of a couple who were like “Oh, but I like it to be spontaneous!” and we were actually teaching a class and the wife looked at the husband, when he was like “I want it to be spontaneous!” and she looks at him and she goes like “How’s that working out for ya?!”.

[Laughter]

Alisa DiLorenzo: And the reality is, if you have kids, spontaneity is probably not working out for you that much, because you are exhausted or you know, he wakes up with an earache, or you know, whatever it is. So what we coach couples to do is to be intentional and one of the ways that we do that is to…, we tell them to Calendar It. You know actually take out your calendars and…

KC Wilt: Like at the beginning of the week, a month in advance….?

Tony DiLorenzo: Whatever works for you, you know it may take a little time to figure that out, but whatever works for you…, it maybe hey, to start out, it’s a weekly thing. So maybe on a Sunday, you pull it out and you go, “Hey, you know what? Wednesday morning works!” and so you circle Wednesday morning. Or it may be Wednesday as a whole, that’s when we want to have sex. But yeah….

Danelle Dutoit: All day long?

[Laughter]

Sunny Gault: No! Ouch! I got one word: Ouch!

Alisa DiLorenzo: But the thing with that is that, you know….,

Tony DiLorenzo: It’s a huge secret though. It is the number one secret, that if couples would put this into practice, it would become something that they really enjoy doing again.

Danelle Dutoit: Now, I have a question with that, because we tried that at home with my husband and he said that he didn’t like that idea because it was a set schedule and it wasn’t romantic enough. So how do you get over that…..

Alisa DiLorenzo: That’s a great question.

KC Wilt: ….hill of it just being scheduled and you just have to do it, no matter what?

Alisa DiLorenzo: What works for us, and we call it our Intimacy Lifestyle, and so for us, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are Tony’s days, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are my days…, I will explain it, because everybody listening is going “Oh my gosh, that’s six days a week!”. No we are not having sex six days a week. He’d be a very happy man, but…

[Laughter]

Tony DiLorenzo: I’d be tired though, I’d be tired.

Alisa DiLorenzo: So, on Tony’s three days, he has the responsibility to initiate sex on one of those three days. On my three days, I have the responsibility to initiate sex on one of those three days. So what that does, is it still gives us the spontaneity, the ability to romance, leave candles lit, you know, do that type of thing, but we know that twice a week, we are having sex. And we’ve taken it a step further because we know that initiating is a big problem for most couples. One partner is always the initiator and one partner is always the pursued. Pusuer and Persued. And it was a promenade marriage. I…, was for many years was like “Come, you know, come and pursue me and if I want to…, great! If not, guess what? You are not getting any!”.

KC Wilt: I think that’s pretty typical.

[Laughter]

Alisa DiLorenzo: And that goes back to the whole rejection thing that we talked about in the first segment. That was detrimental to my marriage. And he wants to feel like I desire him. So I need to be, you know, lighting the candles, or sending him text messages saying: “Hey, you know tonight? Thinking about you!”, you know, or “We’ve got this tonight, kids are here, you and me!”And so by doing that, calendaring it and having that intimacy lifestyle, you can have the best of both worlds. You can romance, you know, if you’ve got, for example Danelle, if you’ve got Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he doesn’t know when you are going to romance him, he just knows that he might walk into the bedroom one night and candles might be lit. “Oh, hello!” That sends up a big signal. Or he can say, “You know what? Mondays are my…, Monday and Tuesday are my days! And I’m going to come home with a red rose and that’s going to be the signal ‘Hi baby!’”

KC Wilt: What if he gets to the end of the week, and like “Shoot I forgot to do it!” Do you just…., well I guess I just answered my own question, he has to do it then that night!

[Laughter]

Tony DiLorenzo: You got it. And that happens.

Alisa DiLorenzo: That happens, you know because life does get busy. You know, our kids are a little bit older than the three of you and so we’ve got baseball games and we’ve got school programs and what not and so there are some nights where it’s like “Oh, it’s 8:30; I thought I was going to have sex tonight.” Nope, tomorrow, we are definitely having sex! That’s just the way it goes!

KC Wilt: Do the math!

Sunny Gault: Yeah. You’re out of days!

Tony DiLorenzo: And this really helps, like Alisa says: So one, you are calendaring it, you got some days in there. Two is you are taking the lead. And that’s a big thing that we love, because now, it is Alisa can take the lead on those three days and I’ll take the lead on one of my three days. And it’s wonderful because there are times when she doesn’t know when I’m going to romance her, but she may be working out in the garage doing something and I’ll light up all the candles in our bedroom. And I’ll just have it all set up, kids are already asleep and I’ll be like “Hey, are you coming to bed Hun?” “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.” And when she walks in, it’s like “Oh! Yep! Okay, here it is!” You know what I mean?

[Laughter]

Sunny Gault: I want to know, what about if you have a headache or you know, or you have your excuse or your explanation or whatever.

Alisa DiLorenzo: And that’s awesome because, I am so glad you asked that question because we have actually designated our bedroom a “No Rejection Zone”. So, if on one of those days, you know, if on the day, I walk into the bedroom and the candles are lit, we are having sex that night. If I’ve got a headache I needed to have told him earlier in the day, so that he’s not going: “You weren’t feeling well? What? Where did that come from?”

Danelle Dutoit: Or you had a rough day, like you said, with the kids?

Alisa DiLorenzo: A rough day. Yeah, you know, he comes home and I’m like, “The kids were….Aaaah, I’m losing my mind, the kids were just you know, fighting with each other all day and this happened and that happened!” and he’s not going to initiate that day.

KC Wilt: So he takes the signal and says “No, not tonight.”

Alisa DiLorenzo: Not tonight. And I, you know, I’ve come to understand how damaging rejection can be in a marriage. And It’s something that I wish I had known, we’ve been married almost 16 years, I wish I’d known in the first few years of my marriage. I would have saved a lot of distancing between the two of us. And it is, it is one of the things that I think most women don’t realize they are doing, because, they are just like “Well you know, I don’t want to have sex tonight. No big deal. I don’t want to have sex!”. But to him, it’s a huge deal when we say “No!” because for a lot of men, that is their connection. And so, when we say, “I don’t want you….., “ or “I don’t want to have sex,” they are hearing, “I don’t want you!” And the thing is, if you are constantly saying that, think about the message that sends.

KC Wilt: So tell me about the 7 Days Of Sex Challenge. What is it? Obviously, the title kind of explains itself, but what does it look like?

Tony DiLorenzo: 7 Days Of Sex Challenge, one thing we believe in, we’ve done for five years now, is once a year, we do the 7 Days Of Sex Challenge. So we have sex for 7 days straight. And each day, each day, we challenge ourselves to do something different. And our community. Now, we’ve opened up the last 3 to our community.

KC Wilt: With their prospective partners.

Tony DiLorenzo: Yes, yes, yes.

[Laughter]

Alisa DiLorenzo: You are only having sex with your spouse.

Tony DiLorenzo: Doing it with your partner. Yes, and so, what we love talking about and sharing is that, these 7 days and the way we walk you through it, will help to get everything we’ve been talking about here, right? But you put it in 7 condensed days. And it’s amazing, because, the big thing is, is that you commit to it. That’s the big thing. You commit to it. You are going to go: “We are going to do this and we are not going to give up on ourselves”. Right? Even if you miss a day…, we’ve had couples do that. They miss a day, something happens, but they just jump right back up on bandwagon and they just keep on going. And the three years that we’ve done it with our community, at One Extraordinary Marriage, we’ve had the most amazing results. I mean, so many couples just going: “I didn’t think we could do this, we were in a slump.” And 7 days later, it’s absolutely amazing. We are talking, we are communicating, yeah, you know, we are learning more about each other and we still got a long way to go…., but wow, this really challenged us, got us out of our comfort zone and now we are really excited to see what’s to come.

Alisa DiLorenzo: For your listeners that will go to our website, they will find, you know, the pages where, you know, you can read the comments from past days, because we do, the last two years, we’ve done videos for each day, just to challenge them and give them like….

KC Wilt: How different videos?

Alisa DiLorenzo: Videos of like a “How to…”, whatever the challenge is for that day. So if it’s like “Change of Scenery”, ideas for change of scenery.

KC Wilt: Got it!

Alisa DiLorenzo: Or, every year, we encourage them to have one day where they do a quickie, because you know, the art of a quickie and building it into your marriage. It’s a good thing, to just to have that kind of in your tool belt, to say, “Okay, you know what? We’ve got…

Danelle Dutoit: I know how to do one of those!

[Laughter]

Sunny Gault: You put in on your resume.

Alisa DiLorenzo: “I’ve got five minutes and we just want to connect”, and so, you know what? We don’t have time for foreplay and three hours and you know, that type of thing, but gosh you know, kids are watching cartoons, mom and dad aren’t going to be here for dinner until 6…, you know, “Meet me in the bathroom!” I mean, we’ve had couples that have come to us, you know, in really dire straits. You know, not even sure that they want to do this and then they find themselves at the end of 7 days going “Wow! I mean, who knew?” I mean we’ve got couples that have been married for 40 years. They were like, “You know what? That was really fun! We did some things we haven’t done in the last 20 years!” And all in-between, because we’ve lost, in our frenzied society, we’ve lost the ability to constantly put focus on intimacy in our marriages. And…

KC Wilt: Especially with kids.

Alisa DiLorenzo: Especially with kids! Here’s the funny thing. You can’t have sex with somebody if you are griping about the garbage not being taken out, or the dishes not being done, so you learn to work through those obstacles, because you are like “Okay, I’m still going to have sex with this person at the end of the day! So, is it really that important that I had to bring the trash cans in and not him? Eeee! Not so much! Or that he forgot the milk, okay, you know what? Or she forgot to, you know, pick up the clothes at the dry…., whatever it is. You realize that those things are not so important. It’s like I’ve told women, every time I’ve talked about this topic: Your dishes will be there; your laundry will be there. Invest in what might not be there.

KC Wilt: Thanks Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo for helping us to put sex back in our relationships. If you want more information on One Extraordinary Marriage Podcast or 7 Days Of Sex Challenge, go to today’s show on our Episodes page, on our website: https://www.parentsavers.com or visit https://www.oneextraordinarymarriage.com .

[Theme Music]
[Featured Segment: A Parent’s Babysitting Guide - How Important Is Experience?]

KC Wilt: Before we wrap up today’s show, here is a Parent’s Guide To Baby Sitting.

Jodi Tart: Hi Parent Savers. This is Jodi Tart with https://www.urbansitter.com : a website that connects you to friend-tested baby sitters. I’m here today to help you figure out the right questions to ask when searching for a baby sitter. What type of experience should your baby sitter have? Previous child care experience is incredibly important. Beyond the number of years a candidate has been baby sitting or nannying, it is important to ask if he or she has had experience with children, your child’s age. If you have an infant, you need a sitter that is comfortable changing diapers. And if you have a toddler, you’ll be on the look-out for active sitters who like to take the kids to the park. If you have multiples, it’s important that the sitter has cared for more than one child at once. Do they have references from families that they have worked for previously? Don’t just look at them, you’ve got to check them. There’s nothing more comforting to hear another person’s personal recommendation. A good way to get a feel for a sitter is to invite them over for your home for a quote “Working Interview”. The sitter is going to come over and care for your children when you are at home. So this type of interview, typically, it lasts for about an hour and it’s un-paying, but it’s great, because not only see how the sitter interacts with your children, but you can give them guidance on some specific requests that you may have forgotten about as they come up. Like a poopy diaper that needs to go directly to the outside garbage, not in the trash can? Realize, these sitters are going to be nervous. So try to give them some space to do their thing. You don’t want to look over their shoulder the whole time, or you won’t get a good feel. It will be easy to see if they are comfortable, interacting with your child. For instance, once a baby sitter told me she had tons of experience babysitting infants and then she put my daughters diaper on backwards. So I would always remind the sitters of some basics that seem obvious to a parent, but might not, to a young adult. Like don’t walk away from a baby on the changing table, don’t give a toddler whole grapes, you get the idea. Even though it’s like second nature to us parents now, it never hurts to refresh a sitter’s memory. Okay, Parent Savers, it’s time to say hello to your old friend Spontaneity. Visit https://www.urbansitter.com and find and book trusted baby sitters your friends know and love.

[Theme Music]

KC Wilt: That wraps up today’s episode. We’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions for our experts about today’s show or the topics we discussed, call our Parent Savers hotline at 619-866-4775 or send us an email through our website: https://www.parentsavers.com or Facebook page and we’ll answer your question in an upcoming episode. Coming up next week, we’ll talk about Baby Green Washing. What products really are green and safe for your little ones. Thanks for listening to Parent Savers, empowering new parents, everywhere!

[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media Production. The information material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though such information materials are believed to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problems or disease or prescribing any medication. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified healthcare provider.

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