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Have cotton nightshirts replaced sexy lingerie? Have Teletubbies or Pokemon jingles replaced your favorite love songs? Are romance, intimacy and uninterrupted lovemaking just vague memories? Then you must be married with kids.

As soon as the baby arrives, nearly every aspect of your relationship changes—including your love life. At a recent seminar, a mom named Helen asked us for advice. "My husband and I had a great love life before we had kids," she said. "But now we have a problem. Frankly, after three preschoolers climb on me all day, I just don't want to be touched. I'm exhausted and want my 'personal space' back. I end up making myself be intimate because I know my husband wants sex. He senses my reluctance and that doesn't help things. Any tips on how we can reignite a faltering love life?"

Our advice to Helen applies to all couples struggling with getting their sex life back on track after kids arrive. You need to give yourself permission to prioritize your marriage—and that includes finding the time and energy to love each other. One warning: don't wait for spontaneity or you'll end up waiting a long, long time. Your marriage needs to come first, and here's why: your kids will wait while you build your marriage, but your marriage won't wait for your kids to grow up. Ask any couple whose marriage ended just as their kids left home.

Couples with children become concerned about the loss of the easy intimacy they enjoyed earlier in their marriage. It's a common struggle but certainly not hopeless. We know; we've been there.

When we'd been married four years, six pounds and seven ounces of dynamite blasted into our lives, blowing away our sex life and causing mass confusion. As new parents, we were overwhelmed, exhausted and insecure. We kept waiting for life to return to normal. It never did. When I (Claudia) went back for my six-week post-partum checkup, the doctor told me we could resume sex as usual. Whom was he kidding? After delivering an almost-seven-pound bundle of energy and nursing a ravenous baby several hours a day, I was exhausted and wanted sleep, not sex.

Although I (Dave) was tired too, I didn't understand why Claudia and I were so out of sync. Our easygoing, relaxed routine was history. Then after we added two more kids to the mix, we almost gave up on both sex and sleep. Our sexual fantasy boiled down to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Becoming parents should not make us celibate, so how can couples have kids and still maintain a sex life? It's not easy, but it is possible, especially when you understand that great sex is much more than the physical act. We're talking about developing and nurturing a love life.

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