For couples
When the baby is fine and the relationship isn’t
The Gottman Institute followed couples through the first three years after a first child: about two-thirds reported a significant drop in relationship satisfaction. Sleep, the household load, and the disappearance of couple time do it. Almost nobody has the energy for weekly counselling in that window. Sameside is built for exactly that: twenty minutes each to start, ten minutes a week after, and a coach that knows what new parents are dealing with.
What actually goes wrong
It is rarely one big thing. It is the five-minute handover that never happens, the bids for attention that get lost under the noise, the mental load landing on one person, and arguments that start at 11pm when neither of you has slept. Each of those has a known, small fix. None of them needs a therapist’s office.
How Sameside helps new parents
You each answer an assessment alone — nobody sees the other’s answers — and tell the coach you are new parents. The plan it writes is built for your stage: a daily handover, one specific appreciation a day, the household load made visible, and a conversation guide you can do in twenty minutes with the monitor on. Check-ins take three minutes. If a week goes badly, the coach lightens the next one.
For the 11pm argument
The toolkit has a twenty-minute cool-down with a promise to come back, and a gentle start-up builder that catches “you always” before you say it. Neither needs the other person to be in the app.
What it costs
The assessment, your personal plan and the first week of the shared plan are free. Plus is £15.98 a month for both of you, or the eight-week programme once for £69. Couples counselling in the UK is £60–£100 a session.
The research behind this, in two minutes
Two-thirds of couples dip after a baby. It’s reversible.
Sleep loss, the load, and lost couple time drive the drop. Small, regular connection brings it back.
The work nobody sees
Noticing, planning and remembering are work. Helping is not the same as owning. Making the invisible visible changes the argument.
The small reaches that decide everything
A bid is any small attempt at connection. Turning towards them is the single best predictor of a relationship that lasts.
Why you can’t think straight mid-argument
When your heart rate passes about 100 beats a minute, the part of you that listens goes offline. A twenty-minute break is a repair, not a retreat.
Questions people ask
Is it normal to feel disconnected from my partner after having a baby?
Yes. Roughly two in three couples report a significant dip in satisfaction in the first three years after a first child. It is common and, with small consistent changes, it is reversible.
We don’t have time for counselling. How long does Sameside take?
About twenty minutes each to do the assessment, then around ten to twenty-five minutes a week: two short practices, one conversation and a three-minute check-in.
What if only one of us wants to do it?
You get a full personal plan from your own answers the moment you finish. The shared plan needs both of you, and the invite is a single link.
Other situations
Free to start. Private by design.
Start with twenty minutes, alone. Your personal plan is ready the moment you finish.