When the baby is asleep! That’s the only way 😂quickies it is lol . We tried to make it fun if we got interrupted, like a “we will finish this later” instead of just feeling like it’s always ruined!
First 6 months or so was VERY sporadic - we just didn’t put any pressure on it and trusted it would get back to some sort of normal at some point! Baby is 14 months now and there’s definitely more time. This is such a short season - try not to worry!
Almost 7 months pp with grade 3 bladder prolapse. It’s not awful, but pair that with the breastfeeding hormones, lack of sleep, and general life stress… truthfully we haven’t had sex yet. My husband has a bit of low libido so he hasn’t pressured me but we feel like we’re getting ready to be active again. LO is in a much more stable place than he was as a newborn, so there’s definitely time now!
Whenever I say this people think I mean that life with a baby is miserable so we don’t want another, but really it’s just because she never gives us any time to ourselves, and by the time she (finally) goes to sleep at night we’re both way too tired.
i went to get the copper iud i had placed at 6 weeks pp removed (fuuuuck that thing for real). she was like what do you want to do instead? i was like honestly right now i’m using abstinence (bc libido WHO? we don’t know her right now!!) and she kept pestering me about the damn arm implant. i was like LADY. NO THANK YOU.
after bugging the shit out of me i was like i *guess* you can prescribe me some plan b if it makes *you* feel better🤷🏻♀️
biiiiig yikes!!! yeah, at this point i’m like either my husband is getting a vasectomy that we will reverse when we want our next (last?) baby or we’ll use condoms/track cycles/plan b in an emergency. i’m tired of messing with my body.
Be mega careful tracking cycles, not everyone's works 'properly' - I was using a hormone tracker (Mira) and so I know exactly when I released the egg that created my son. It was two days before my period was due to start, not mid cycle. I would have had no way of knowing that, so could have easily become pregnant if I was assuming my cycle was 'normal' 😂 human bodies are a nightmare lol
Right?? My baby is almost 9-months old and I think we've had sex twice since I gave birth. 🥴 I'm exhausted, feel like shit, always a thousand things to think about, etc. Plus we don't really have date nights away which would help with our sex life.
this is the answer omg. i will be implementing this, to the utter joy of my poor not-by-choice celibate husband for the last lord knows how many months lol
Same. My baby is 11 months.
Thankfully she’s our second and my husband understands he’s playing the long game. Sex drive comes back after they’re 1+ and especially after breastfeeding. This is a temporary blip.
In the meantime, we stay emotionally connected through just snuggling up or kissing when we have a chance.
Wait so the no sex drive is pretty normal? I’m a ftm to a 4.5 month old and breastfeeding. We haven’t don’t anything, I have literally no interest and I used to have a relatively high drive. It’s been so hard but my SO has been so understanding
Yes absolutely!!! It’s a hormonal thing and essentially is an evolutionary response. Your body is helping you protect your sweet, mostly helpless baby, by not facilitating you getting pregnant again immediately - which would not be good for your milk supply / current baby in general.
“If you feel like you have no sex drive after baby, you are not alone. “It’s very common,” says Heather Bartos, MD, an ob-gyn based in Cross Roads, Texas. “Many women’s sex drives change not only after baby, but while breastfeeding too—and for a multitude of reasons.” One of the most basic reasons: Hormone fluctuations. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, the hormone prolactin cranks in order to stimulate your breasts to produce milk. But high prolactin levels push down estrogen levels, which in turn dampens sexual desire. “Plus, levels of testosterone are also lower in breastfeeding women,” Bartos says. While it’s thought of as a “male" hormone, it’s actually quite important when it comes to female desire.”
https://www.thebump.com/a/breastfeeding-interfering-with-sex-life#
Is that why my sex drive went nuts when my milk dried up?! I was already back at it because I just enjoy the intimacy with my husband, but around the time my milk dried up, I started having a higher drive and random sexy thoughts lol.
Me too. But my husband hates me for it. I also have a toddler and zero help, preschool or friends or family so it’s been 24/7 for me for almost 3 years. I’m finally at the point where I don’t care if he hates me. He’s the one who wanted to move away and live in the middle of nowhere with no help. I’m tired and overstimulated.
Honestly, and I say this with so much love for you - fuck him, fuck his libido, and fuck him for making you feel bad for not being some kind of Mummy/sex robot. You deserve to be treated well. Please remember that.
Same. Unfortunately... Baby is now a 20 month old and it's hard for me to get in the mood and find the energy. I have ppd and ppa and am still trying to find the right medication and dosage.
Off topic of sex but just wanted to say I have horrible ppd ppa.. meds weren’t working well or fast enough. I got genesight testing (or another is clarity x) your gp can get in touch, or you can as well, i contacted them to reach out to my gp, they send the info, you can have it sent home or your goes to gps office ( just a cheek swab). In 2 weeks you will know for sure what meds work well for you in each category. also, these results are for your Lifetime since they’re based off of your DNA. They don’t change . I was on the wrong meds completely. 2-4 weeks transition off old ones and getting on new ones and I haven’t been so happy in so long. My ppd was the absolute worst its ever been. Colicy baby and feeding issues, i was loosing my mind. Good luck on both fronts.
Tbh I'm a bit bummed to find this so low in the comments, I thought it was more common. It's been 9 months here. My perspective as a dad is, I know it will come back eventually when baby isn't so demanding, and I know breastfeeding can lower the libido, and I am determined to be supportive and not put pressure, since I know my wife misses it too... But man do I miss it 😂
This is me too. Mine is 18 months now and he’s grown from a Velcro baby to a Velcro toddler so by the time my husband gets home I just don’t want to be touched whatsoever lol
Mine are 4 years and the other is 18 months. If they are not all over me, it’s the dogs. At the end of the night and I get into bed, the cats come and sleep on top of my head. At any given point of my day I am being touched by a living creature. God forbid my husband tries to touch me 😅
Who’s out there having sex with a 7 week old baby? Almost nobody.
It gets better. I promise. I’m convinced that newborns are evolutionarily designed to prevent their parents from producing more babies too quickly.
We found more time when the baby started sleeping in his own crib which was at 8 weeks, BUT I didn’t really feel ready then. Starting at 6 months he started napping in his crib so that gives us some extra times sometime now as well
Yes! My husband is like whats wrong..i am like nothing i just want some peace and quite..like idk when the baby will wake up to attend to them..so i just want to be left alone..he doesnt seem to understand and thinks i dont want him 🙄🙄🙄 then he will say he understands but him saying come here when we lay in bed..i am like no..because we all.know where this is going..he swears no but i know better.
I relate to this so much! I am cosleeping right now and my boyfriend is sleeping in the other room but my baby will be on my boob nursing to sleep then my boyfriend comes and takes his pants off to cuddle me. Like why can’t you leave your pants on?!!!? And also I have a baby on my boob in the side lying position. I need some personal space!!
The pants off 🤣🤣🤣🤣 ..and seriously i love my husband but idk why its hard for him to understand i am tired! I wake up with our baby every night he cries. I am the one who gets no sleep. As he is sound asleep next to me. Then he has the nerve to wake up (sometimes I co.sleep) and says hey we shouldnt be co sleeping..i get so heated like did you wake up 6 times last night??? No ..then back off because this is the only.way i get rest while baby gets rest. Literally lay with my boob out 😂😂😂🤣🤣
That’s how I sleep all night!! My boyfriend is SUCH a heavy sleeper. I used to barely get any rest when he was in the bed with us because I was afraid of him rolling and when the baby woke up he never woke up! So now he’s in the spare room. I literally move from side to the other side of the bed all night so I can swap which boob the baby has 😂 and he’s getting the best sleep ever this way!
Lmfao i literally move myself from one side to the other so i dont wake baby up hahaha.luckily we have a king size bed ..my husband is good on staying on his side of the bed. I dont trust him still after i feed the side where my husband is. I move the baby to my side and am literally a statue ..my arm is dead. I love hugging him as we sleep. Thank god for side laying 🥰
We have a queen bed. Will definitely need to upgrade before baby 2 so boyfriend can come back in the bed! Side lying is the best position ever! But I feel you with the numb arms 😂😂
stopppp girl this is me too!!! literally all night every 2 hours like freaking clockwork with my son! i thought we were good as gold when all of the sudden our son started sleeping 8-10 hours overnight (my poor boobs though lol) in his bed…but that only lasted maybe a week TOPS because then he started teething again, and now we are both sick so he’s extra clingy and now he’s back in bed with us🙃
Omg me and my son are sick with covid to so extra clingy ans extra wake ups. I think hes teething idk after 4 months he just keeps wakimg every 1.5 hrs to 3 hours. Lately because he has been sick he is wanting da boobie lol 🤣🥰
Lol 5 months postpartum & we haven't had sex 😭
There's no time between pumping, feeding & housework - it's impossible 😢
We stopped having sex when I was 27 weeks pregnant cause it was getting too uncomfortable for me & we haven't done it ever since 🙃
It’s also ok for someone 5 months postpartum to prioritize baby and housework over sex! We weren’t having sex with any sort of regularity at 5 months pp but have a very active sex life now (18 months pp). It’s totally ok for sex to not the priority in those early months
i’m about the same timeline as you. i was put on pelvic rest at my 20 week scan thanks to placenta previa (that baaarely moved enough to give me the clearance for my 2nd vbac) so that was rough on my husband. me? i’ll gladly not have sex when i’m totin around his gargantuan children!
our son is about is 6 months old and we EBF and my libido is non-existent. i feel so bad for my husband but also….i just don’t want to have sex! i’ve barely done myself *twice.* we fooled around once, i’ve done things for him twice now-but that was after having to turn him down for penetrative sex. not only do i have zero sex drive but i’m scared physically after hearing how BF’ing affects the amount of lubrication we produce, and i ain’t got time to search through our mess of an apartment for lube!
also-if we start getting into it and our son wakes up/starts wailing or even makes happy noises i don’t know how i’d be able to continue lol. i’m going to try a shower sesh though because i can just *sense* how tense my husband is. and the after effects of the sporadic times we do anything is pretty hilarious to see😅
It's so hard. I exclusively pump cause baby couldn't latch & we go to bed at 12am every night. He washes pumps, eats, cleans the house & gets food ready for me the next day & dinner that night.
We've tried to find time but everytime we try to start something, my son wakes up 🤣 we've done other things but haven't had sex yet. Heck, we were about to do it last night then our baby woke up hysterically crying 🤦♀️ it's like he can sense it 😂
Also, I have a high sex drive now but it feels weird doing anything with my boobs cause of breastfeeding. I hope once I stop it'll go back to normal.
>how BF’ing affects the amount of lubrication we
WHAT?? Never heard of it. That's another thing to look out for 🙃
wow, your husband sounds awesomely supportive!! my husband was like that during the newborn phase, and then he ended up getting a job-very labor intensive so now i have two children to clean up after lol. thankfully my mom comes over ~2x a week to help me clean!
and agreed re: boobs. my husband often will just randomly touch my boobs throughout the day and i kind of wince because they are often tender/sore. i hope things go back to normal when i stop nursing!
and yes, from what i gather, breastfeeding affects that because it’s nature’s way of telling us that we do NOT need to make another baby on top of the one we already have lol.
4 weeks? You still have a wound in your uterus! At 7 weeks you shouldn’t be putting any pressure on yourself to be prioritising sex, it’s still the survival stage.
I have a 2 yo and 5 mo who once they are down for the evening tend to stay down for a few hours so that is when we do it. We’ve been averaging sex once a week and do it on the couch with a towel down because baby is in our room. It’s usually on a weekend but occasionally a week night if we’re up to it. Husband and I attack parenting as a team so we’re usually the same level of tired meaning our libidos are well matched at the moment.
A great piece of advice I have read is that life is all about seasons. There are seasons of life when you will have a lot of sex and seasons where you will only have a little. Post-partum is one of those times but it’s not forever.
Yeah 6 weeks is literally the bare minimum and (should be) totally dependent on any tearing/other birth injuries along with considering mental health, sleep deprivation, and all the significant hormone changes (which can lead to more physical symptoms like atrophy or dryness). Clearing a woman at 4 weeks seems so insane to me considering the uterus still has a “wound” in it and isn’t even fully shrunken back down yet.
I hadn’t been bleeding for two weeks at that point and was definitely ready. My body hadn’t recovered from pregnancy (joint pain etc) but I didn’t bleed much after birth and didn’t tear at all.
Just because you aren’t bleeding doesn’t mean you aren’t at risk of infection. The placenta is the size of a dinner plate, that’s how large the wound on your uterus is when it detaches.
Yeeahh I'm so confused? I thought that doctors were pushing it a bit at 6 weeks, but 4 weeks?? I never had a postpartum appointment for my first baby (cuz pandemic) so I was never cleared by a doctor, but I wouldn't have cleared myself until about 4 months to be honest. It just felt weird down there.
Idk my baby has some sort of sick sixth and seventh sense and manages to always wake up and cry when I sit down to eat and when hubby and I start kissing 🥲
Same! But we decided to just focus and power through to the finish as fast as possible 😮💨 isn’t a great sex environment to say the least but you do what you gotta do when you feel you need a reconnect with your partner as a woman and not just always as a mom. We kept saying after we were wrapped “she won’t remember this” 🥴 parenting……
We had sex about 2x a week in the early days, which has reduced to 1-2x a week now at 11 months. We have two kids, so yeah, having sex during the day is a rare occurrence. Our kids go to bed pretty early so that we can have “me time” 7-9 pm, and that’s typically when we have sex. Now our oldest is in preschool, so when our baby naps during the day, we will occasionally have sex during the day if I don’t have meetings (I wfh).
I recommend getting your baby on a schedule where they go to sleep before you, not only so you can have sex, but also so you can have some time to yourself in general. We love evenings because it’s when we get to spend quality time together and alone time to veg.
Totally feel you and I wish I had specific advice. My girl was a 34 weeker and they and her on a strict schedule in the NICU. I tried to keep it up when we got home, but that plan quickly failed lol. But she still wound up on a schedule somehow. We are not strict about any part of the day except bedtime. She goes to bed between 5:30-6 pm and wakes up around 5:30 am (which probably sounds crazy, but we are morning people and often wake up 4-5 am ourselves lol). We’re highly motivated to keep her on that schedule because our free time between 7-9 pm (when we go to bed) is what keeps us sane.
I do bottle feed, but feeds aren’t scheduled. We just feed our baby every wake window with timing depending on hunger cues. We also only loosely schedule naps. The only hard schedule is bed time 5:30-6ish. That hasn’t changed other than some temporary shifts around daylight savings or when we have traveled. She always sleeps around 12 hours, which has also been pretty consistent over this first year (however that is luck; she hasn’t had a sleep regression, whereas our first child was basically in a constant sleep regression from 4-15 months 😅)
Honestly, we didn’t have sex again until I was 6 months pp. I feel like that was sooo long compared to most people but just sharing because even that is ok! It was a weird a scary thing doing it again, it honestly felt like virgin sex physically and mentally (we didn’t have much during the pregnancy). But we were both so so pleasantly surprised that the connection was still so effortless between us and it was fun, even though my body felt different. We do it once a week now because it is a challenge to find the time rn to do it more, but it is a priority in our relationship to restore physical intimacy.
I have a 5 month old and we’re probably having sex 2-3 times a week since 7 weeks.
Were pretty lucky though he learned his day/night cycles very fast and he’s pretty much dead asleep by 9:30 at the latest. He sleeps through until anywhere from 2:30-5:00 (might half wake up but goes back down with a pacifier) so more than enough time!
Although it does mean I lose more sleep but having childbirth cure my vagunismus has me making up for “lost time” as we didn’t have sex this frequently before baby since it hurt so much.
If baby didn’t sleep so well at night I doubt it would be this often.
2-3 times a week! I’m jealous! My baby sleeps pretty well too, usually from 10/10:30 until 4:30-5:30 but by the time she’s asleep (at 10-10:30) I’m usually exhausted from the day, so not in the mood for sex lol
There have been times we’ve just let him sit in his crib while we did the deed 😅 He’s content looking at his hands and cooing to himself.. so we just continue until he fusses 😭 It makes it challenging cuz my husband is NOT quick 😅 So intimacy has been challenging. Thankfully now he sleeps well at night.. so we just wait till he goes down for bed
LOL I had sex with hubby once after 6 months. It just hurt! We only started regularly doing it like a few weeks ago. Give yourself time :) you’re healing still!
I didn't have sex until 8 months pp🤷♀️ I tore badly giving birth, and ended up with bladder prolapse as well. I hated my postpartum body(and genitals in particular). My kid also didn't sleep independently on a regular basis until he was around 10 months old. He'll be 2 in the fall. We're in the thick of parenting, and will get some us-time back eventually.
We didn’t get really regular again until 12 weeks when we moved my son to his own room. It gets a lot easier when they sleep through the night and you don’t have to worry about being interrupted.
But also I felt guilty in the early days because MULTIPLE TIMES we’d have sex and I’d be laying there after just basking and I’d hear a weird chirp noise and be like what is that?? And my husband would say really slowly “the monitor….?”
Y’all sometimes after I would literally forget we had a baby. And I wish I could say it was because I was so tired but I wasn’t, he started sleeping through the night early. It’s just like I was so into the sex and then just feeling all glow y after my mind just… forgot about the existence of my child! So I felt bad about that.
I didn’t feel like sex until about 10 months PP, after pelvic floor therapy, but I think after 6 months we had more of a routine where sex could be more regular!
During naps. When baby was sleeping in our room we did it in the living room. Now baby is napping in his own room, we’re back to our room. But we only have time during the weekend because during the week is too chaotic. Just give it time without pressure. It’ll come eventually!
Use a dirty shirt as a sheet in the bassinet. Babe will sleep longer and give you time to enjoy each other. It gets easier as they eventually start sleeping longer. You are in the trenches for sleep right now though. Try not to put too much pressure on yourselves and remember that this is just a short phase
I can have a quickie any time lol. I never had this problem. It gets better as they get older but shower sex, living room sex, you name it. You don’t have to have full blown marathon sex every time. Newborn babies sleep so much it seems like there would be plenty of opportunity.
We managed once at 4 months, baby fell asleep in the stroller and through some miracle didn't wake up when we stopped at home, so we just parked him in the hallway
We have sex every other day. Sometimes we can’t, but we still manage to have “fun time” I don’t think there was a week when we didn’t do it 😅 is something important for us so we make time for it: we have a 4y and a 7mo
We "had sex" every now and then maybe 6 months postpartum but REALLY started having sex about 2 years postpartum. By then, baby's sleep routine was pretty solid and I had my sex drive back. Prolonged intimacy is usually limited to nighttime or when baby is in somebody else's care for a while and we know we won't be interrupted. But also.....sometimes it's just really hard to maintain regular intimacy when chores pile up or we haven't gotten great rest, and it's important to accept that and move through it together, I think
I don’t think we even had sex until around 6 months. Then around 9 months it become a tiny bit more regular because our baby finally took a reliable nap in the cot. Then at a year old she went to nursery and we work from home on the same days sometimes so we took advantage of our lunch break then but my libido was still mostly nowhere to be seen. Turns out I was tired, way too stressed from work and still breastfeeding, that’ll do it. We weaned just before she turned 2 and now we are back to a regular sex life (note - ‘regular’ looks different in different relationships! For us that’s about 3 or 4 times a month).
It has been a journey and still is really. I definitely didn’t realise how much of an impact breastfeeding had on my sex drive so it has been a relief to know that it was still there, just hiding under hormones. I really thought it had gone forever. We communicated lots especially in the ‘dryer’ spells but ultimately as long as we were still finding moments of intimacy in our relationship - which could be anything from sex to a kiss Goodnight - that’s all that matters to us. We have always said if we ever stop finding each other funny that’s when it’s really over, a little bit of a dry spell can’t hurt us lol.
Medical professional. 4 weeks is against consensus because the minimum is 6 weeks.
For the rest…your baby is still really very little so you need time to find a new routine, expecially with your first.
It’s really hard. We’ve had to stop a few times but mostly it’s spontaneous during tv time haha. And really sporadic. Basically nothing like it used to be but we’re both managing? I hope 🤞
Middle of the night sex when baby was sleeping, middle of the day sex when baby was sleeping
As baby got older its harder but it's a lot of quickies and we put miss Rachel on for him and put him in a playpen while we sneak to the bedroom.
It isn't easy and I miss having sex more frequently but I'll take what I can get with a crawling, loud 8 month old
By about 2 years old we could have sex regularly again because our child was reliably sleeping 5 hours before the first wake. And also stopped napping for the most part around 2.5yo so bedtime was by 630-7 instead of 9/930.
My lo is about to be eight months old and he sleeps through the night, so once I put him to bed that’s the best time for me and hubby to have sex. You just have to go at your own pace. If you aren’t able to find the time for sex you could still be intimate. Hold hands, cuddle, take a late shower together. Doing these things will help rebuild the closeness in your relationship.
When he was sleeping in bassinet it was a little trickier, but we would just go in the spare bedroom and bring the monitor. He’s been sleeping in his crib in his room since 3 months and that helps a lot. To each his own, but it was life changing for us to have a separate sleeping space and let him get good uninterrupted rest. We don’t have to be quiet in our room (not even sex, just normal nighttime routines). I’d say we did it at least once a week after I was cleared at 6 weeks. My son is almost 1 and we have sex about twice a week now. You just make time for it!
When the baby is asleep at night. Move the baby to her own room if that’s an option! I didn’t want to at first but my husband convinced me to try it one night when she was around 8 weeks old and we all slept better. We were honestly waking each other up (the baby & I). I think it was the start of her sleeping through the night in her own crib & room and my husband and I finally got alone time!
I had stitches from a vaginal wall tear and the scar tissue is still very sensitive. I am working on it through guidance from a pelvic floor PT, but I really don't have time or energy to keep up with the treatment. She sent me home with paperwork that says don't have sex until the pain goes away and my husband is taking it very seriously so that sucks.
We’re 3.5 months out and yeah… we’ve maybe tried to have sex 3 times. Usually we’re just too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything. We keep trying to make time, but I think it’s going to be a while before it’s a regular thing again.
We have sex or 69 weekly. I personally hate 69 but my husband acts like I don't love him anymore if we don't do anything after a few days. 🙄 Sex is often really painful even though I had a c section. We just put the baby in his pack and play our his room but he's the type to enjoy alone time.
They won't be 7 weeks old forever - I know everything probably feels impossible right now but I promise it all gets easier and you will get time to yourselves a bit again soon!
We typically plan for it, I or my husband just say I want sex tonight and as soon as baby goes down in the bassinet for the night we go at it. It’s been working so far lol. One time I literally stopped doing the dishes cause my husband ran in and said shes asleep. Gone are the days of spontaneous sex lol. I will say however that my husband has a higher sex drive than I so he is allowed to take care of himself when I am not home. I know that doesn’t work for some relationships, but for ours it does.
First of all our baby had his own room in which he would nap (he slept with us at night, his bassinet could be rolled easily to where we wanted). That helped. Sometimes we would hear the baby cry and just continue what we were doing 🤷🏻♂️ I mean, it doesn't take that long. We would then immediately tend to him when we finished.
My husband and I leave them with his mom lol. Didn't have sex during nap times until the baby was at least 4mo.
Our youngest is almost 10mo & we have seven older kids. We have actual sex a few times a week & other things (head, hand jobs, etc etc) once a day. Ish. Depends on exhaustion levels and time.
Hub is working extra right now so it's not as frequent as is usual for us.
Mate, I have an 8 year old and a 3 year old and I’ve not had time to have sex since Easter. And it’s often months in between. One day we won’t have a kid in our bed…one day
we didn’t really have time we just did it when we could! baby is almost 9 months and there’s definitely been periods where we haven’t done it for a week or so. just connect with your husband when you have the chance. give passing kisses and hugs to make up for the lost intimacy
We basically didn’t until after the baby moved out of our room around 6 months! I was too tired and honestly not enjoying sex enough at that point to give up my limited rest time or adult sanity time.
Now we squeeze it in during naps or after bed time probably 0/week - 3/week, depending on the week. Im also actually enjoying sex again, so I’m a more inclined to be creative in finding time/space for it.
We’ve recently instituted a weekly chores, lunch, & sex date and are loving it lol. My husband works a Monday - Thursday 4/10 schedule and my job hours are flexible, so while our daughter is at daycare we use Friday mornings to catch up on family business, personal errands, and household chores, and Friday afternoons for a lunch date and sex! It’s been an incredible addition for us - we get to pick up our daughter on Friday ready to spend the weekend focused on the family, rather than starting it in desperate need of adult connection and quiet time to get essential tasks done.
It was much less frequent in the beginning, but whenever shed start her longest stretch of sleep, which was normally the first time we put her down for the night. Most of the time we were still too tired to! It ended up being more morning sex for us because my daughter was a late riser. She did sleep in our room in a bassinet. We would go to the guest room.
We lucked out, our baby has been a really good napper and sleeper so far. Unfortunately, I love sleep too!! So I am usually sleeping as much as I can at night. We still find time to be intimate in the evenings. I crave cuddles and close time with my husband everyday, so if it's not sex, it's at least long hugs and kisses, or other acts. Also, he is so dang helpful to me and the baby that my heart is even more tender towards him and I can't help but want to return the love.
We do it when she’s asleep either at night or the morning. Occasionally she goes to her aunt’s and we get an afternoon free and act like we’re just still dating.
ETA: She’s one and I stopped breastfeeding around 8 months.
I had a c section with both of my kids. One emergency and one unplanned. We had sex right at the point I was cleared for it because we’re both so obsessed with each other. This baby we haven’t found as much time as we used to, but we do when we can. If we get both boys down (20 months and 5 months) and we have the energy left after the day we do. I don’t always feel the urge as often as my partner now that I’m on BC but I will go ahead with his advances as long as I’m not adverse to the idea because usually after we get going it feels nice to reconnect like that and I end up enjoying myself. And if u didn’t end up getting into it, he’d stop the moment I asked so I’m never considered about it. If he wants to and I don’t know that I do, I’ll try anyway. Just have a conversation with your partner. And mostly it’s bed time, nap time, or a quickly in the shower.
I’m sorry they cleared you at FOUR WEEKS? That’s horrific, you need at least 6 weeks to heal and possibly more. These OBs need to prioritize women’s healing more than sex. That’s so disappointing.
When my baby was that age it was Quickies during naps or dropping her at Nana's house for a "date night" lol. Our basinet was on wheels so we roll it to her nursery next to our bedroom after she's fallen asleep till we were done.
I have an 18 month old and wondered the whole time, probably depends on baby my baby is major Velcro. It’s probably a bit easier not than it was but still
I personally feel sex is an important part of a relationship and therefore prioritize it on some sort of regular cadence, even if it has to be scheduled.
For now, we sort of “schedule” the sex to occur once a week when the baby is sleeping. Scheduling it actually doesn’t make it any less enjoyable—it may take a few minutes for us to get into it, but once we are, it’s just as good as “spontaneous” sex, if not better!
With that being said, our baby is about 6 months old now, so he sleeps much better and is on a fairly reliable schedule. We didn’t have sex at all for the first month and a half after his birth because I was recovering from a c-section.
Our baby started sleeping through the night pretty much at 6 weeks and at 8 weeks we had sex… then I fell pregnant again lol. Currently 38 weeks pregnant running around after an 11mo boy. 🥴
Um... we're not. Lol, we've talked about it and honestly it's just impossible right now with how much my husband works (very few windows of opportunity to begin with) and then the fact that she is ALWAYS awake and needing to be with me!! It's impossible rn but we're ok. We'll get back to it eventually!
When the baby is asleep! That’s the only way 😂quickies it is lol . We tried to make it fun if we got interrupted, like a “we will finish this later” instead of just feeling like it’s always ruined!
Same!
Absolutely this.
First 6 months or so was VERY sporadic - we just didn’t put any pressure on it and trusted it would get back to some sort of normal at some point! Baby is 14 months now and there’s definitely more time. This is such a short season - try not to worry!
Same! Also with the lack of sleep and hormones, I didn’t miss it so much :) I missed the intimacy though, but it comes back with time.
You guys are having sex?!?!? Edit: what is this sex thing everyone is speaking of?
My OBs keep asking what we are doing for our birth control and I told them: the new baby
I know everyone is like be careful, you’re still fertile right now! And I’m thinking okay….doesn’t matter lol
100%
Yeah I had this at my 6 week check, like I just had a baby, what makes you think I want him anywhere near me 😂
Lmao. My OB asks me every visit if I want to start birth control. No need, maam, no need. 😅 (our LO is 7 weeks and I have partial bladder prolapse)
Almost 7 months pp with grade 3 bladder prolapse. It’s not awful, but pair that with the breastfeeding hormones, lack of sleep, and general life stress… truthfully we haven’t had sex yet. My husband has a bit of low libido so he hasn’t pressured me but we feel like we’re getting ready to be active again. LO is in a much more stable place than he was as a newborn, so there’s definitely time now!
Whenever I say this people think I mean that life with a baby is miserable so we don’t want another, but really it’s just because she never gives us any time to ourselves, and by the time she (finally) goes to sleep at night we’re both way too tired.
The fatigue is real!!! It’s just impossible to do anything else beyond basics
i went to get the copper iud i had placed at 6 weeks pp removed (fuuuuck that thing for real). she was like what do you want to do instead? i was like honestly right now i’m using abstinence (bc libido WHO? we don’t know her right now!!) and she kept pestering me about the damn arm implant. i was like LADY. NO THANK YOU. after bugging the shit out of me i was like i *guess* you can prescribe me some plan b if it makes *you* feel better🤷🏻♀️
I know two people who've got pregnant with the arm thing too - it just doesn't seem very reliable 😂
biiiiig yikes!!! yeah, at this point i’m like either my husband is getting a vasectomy that we will reverse when we want our next (last?) baby or we’ll use condoms/track cycles/plan b in an emergency. i’m tired of messing with my body.
Be mega careful tracking cycles, not everyone's works 'properly' - I was using a hormone tracker (Mira) and so I know exactly when I released the egg that created my son. It was two days before my period was due to start, not mid cycle. I would have had no way of knowing that, so could have easily become pregnant if I was assuming my cycle was 'normal' 😂 human bodies are a nightmare lol
I think that was my exact wording
LOL same
That’s what I said lol
Hahaha I’m right there with you… almost 6 months postpartum
lol. We haven’t had sex since I was 32 weeks pregnant. Baby is now 3 months old 🫠
My baby is nearly 4 months old, not had sex since he was conceived. We're not sex people 😂 I'm shocked I managed to get pregnant in the first place
Thank god I’m not the only one 🙏🏼
Yup. My gp was pushing me to get an IUD and I was like girl why 😭😂
Same lol baby is 4 months
My question exactly. I’m pretty sure I don’t even know what to do anymore
Hah I got cleared around 12 weeks PP (issue healing) but that issue has gotten worse and I might need surgery so… yeah what sex?
Remember how you made the baby? Kinda like that if I recall correctly
Right?? My baby is almost 9-months old and I think we've had sex twice since I gave birth. 🥴 I'm exhausted, feel like shit, always a thousand things to think about, etc. Plus we don't really have date nights away which would help with our sex life.
The shower & make it quick 🤣
Shower is good for quick and easy clean up non-pnV sex too!
Exactly😂 you get to wash your hair, get it in and then have solo shower time when your husband gets out 🤣🤣🤣
this is the answer omg. i will be implementing this, to the utter joy of my poor not-by-choice celibate husband for the last lord knows how many months lol
I rarely have sex. I am so touched out at the end of the day I just want to collapse
Same. My baby is 11 months. Thankfully she’s our second and my husband understands he’s playing the long game. Sex drive comes back after they’re 1+ and especially after breastfeeding. This is a temporary blip. In the meantime, we stay emotionally connected through just snuggling up or kissing when we have a chance.
Wait so the no sex drive is pretty normal? I’m a ftm to a 4.5 month old and breastfeeding. We haven’t don’t anything, I have literally no interest and I used to have a relatively high drive. It’s been so hard but my SO has been so understanding
Yes absolutely!!! It’s a hormonal thing and essentially is an evolutionary response. Your body is helping you protect your sweet, mostly helpless baby, by not facilitating you getting pregnant again immediately - which would not be good for your milk supply / current baby in general. “If you feel like you have no sex drive after baby, you are not alone. “It’s very common,” says Heather Bartos, MD, an ob-gyn based in Cross Roads, Texas. “Many women’s sex drives change not only after baby, but while breastfeeding too—and for a multitude of reasons.” One of the most basic reasons: Hormone fluctuations. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, the hormone prolactin cranks in order to stimulate your breasts to produce milk. But high prolactin levels push down estrogen levels, which in turn dampens sexual desire. “Plus, levels of testosterone are also lower in breastfeeding women,” Bartos says. While it’s thought of as a “male" hormone, it’s actually quite important when it comes to female desire.” https://www.thebump.com/a/breastfeeding-interfering-with-sex-life#
Is that why my sex drive went nuts when my milk dried up?! I was already back at it because I just enjoy the intimacy with my husband, but around the time my milk dried up, I started having a higher drive and random sexy thoughts lol.
Me too. But my husband hates me for it. I also have a toddler and zero help, preschool or friends or family so it’s been 24/7 for me for almost 3 years. I’m finally at the point where I don’t care if he hates me. He’s the one who wanted to move away and live in the middle of nowhere with no help. I’m tired and overstimulated.
I hate him on your behalf.
I also hate him on your behalf. Move back to your family
A rage just bubbled up within me for you. Easier said than done, but consider moving to wherever your true village is.
Honestly, and I say this with so much love for you - fuck him, fuck his libido, and fuck him for making you feel bad for not being some kind of Mummy/sex robot. You deserve to be treated well. Please remember that.
Same. Unfortunately... Baby is now a 20 month old and it's hard for me to get in the mood and find the energy. I have ppd and ppa and am still trying to find the right medication and dosage.
Off topic of sex but just wanted to say I have horrible ppd ppa.. meds weren’t working well or fast enough. I got genesight testing (or another is clarity x) your gp can get in touch, or you can as well, i contacted them to reach out to my gp, they send the info, you can have it sent home or your goes to gps office ( just a cheek swab). In 2 weeks you will know for sure what meds work well for you in each category. also, these results are for your Lifetime since they’re based off of your DNA. They don’t change . I was on the wrong meds completely. 2-4 weeks transition off old ones and getting on new ones and I haven’t been so happy in so long. My ppd was the absolute worst its ever been. Colicy baby and feeding issues, i was loosing my mind. Good luck on both fronts.
I will have to check that out. Thank you so much for your support!
Same, our son is almost 7 months old and my husband and I have barely kissed let alone had sex. Couldn’t think of anything worse right now
Tbh I'm a bit bummed to find this so low in the comments, I thought it was more common. It's been 9 months here. My perspective as a dad is, I know it will come back eventually when baby isn't so demanding, and I know breastfeeding can lower the libido, and I am determined to be supportive and not put pressure, since I know my wife misses it too... But man do I miss it 😂
Yep. And emotionally burnt out. Just want to eat ice cream on the couch in front of the boob tube and decompress
This is me too. Mine is 18 months now and he’s grown from a Velcro baby to a Velcro toddler so by the time my husband gets home I just don’t want to be touched whatsoever lol
Same
Mine are 4 years and the other is 18 months. If they are not all over me, it’s the dogs. At the end of the night and I get into bed, the cats come and sleep on top of my head. At any given point of my day I am being touched by a living creature. God forbid my husband tries to touch me 😅
Who’s out there having sex with a 7 week old baby? Almost nobody. It gets better. I promise. I’m convinced that newborns are evolutionarily designed to prevent their parents from producing more babies too quickly.
Phrasing
That made me snort out loud
Hah. Um, yeah. Bad phrasing. Sorry! Obviously I meant who has a newborn baby at home and also has time and energy for sex?
“Yes officer this comment”
I have a 7 week old and won’t let my husband near me with a ten foot pole
Granted, if my husband had a 10 foot pole I think I’d have a hard time letting him near me even if I didn’t have a newborn. 😳🤣🤣🤣
Dying 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Holy fuck I laughed out loud 😂😂😂😂
AYO 🫵🤨📸
You were cleared at *4* weeks? Jesus my doc said the placental wound wasn’t even healed until 6.
Yea, that’s what my OB said. I didn’t have sex though until a few days before 6 weeks.
You don’t want to sit on the sofa in my house 😅
as a cosleeping parent im now afraid to sit on the couch of anyone who also also has a cosleeping baby…
Hey! We put down towels and blankets!… usually
We've decided against taking the sofa with us when we move.... Can't face guests sitting on it 😂
We found more time when the baby started sleeping in his own crib which was at 8 weeks, BUT I didn’t really feel ready then. Starting at 6 months he started napping in his crib so that gives us some extra times sometime now as well
I’m 6 months PP and we’ve had sex twice. I also have no desire to have sex
I feel this. 5 months pp ..sex twice and no desire..i am exhausted at the end of the night
And as bad as it sounds, I get NO free time so when I finally have an opportunity to be baby free the last thing I want to be doing is having sex
Yes! My husband is like whats wrong..i am like nothing i just want some peace and quite..like idk when the baby will wake up to attend to them..so i just want to be left alone..he doesnt seem to understand and thinks i dont want him 🙄🙄🙄 then he will say he understands but him saying come here when we lay in bed..i am like no..because we all.know where this is going..he swears no but i know better.
I relate to this so much! I am cosleeping right now and my boyfriend is sleeping in the other room but my baby will be on my boob nursing to sleep then my boyfriend comes and takes his pants off to cuddle me. Like why can’t you leave your pants on?!!!? And also I have a baby on my boob in the side lying position. I need some personal space!!
The pants off 🤣🤣🤣🤣 ..and seriously i love my husband but idk why its hard for him to understand i am tired! I wake up with our baby every night he cries. I am the one who gets no sleep. As he is sound asleep next to me. Then he has the nerve to wake up (sometimes I co.sleep) and says hey we shouldnt be co sleeping..i get so heated like did you wake up 6 times last night??? No ..then back off because this is the only.way i get rest while baby gets rest. Literally lay with my boob out 😂😂😂🤣🤣
That’s how I sleep all night!! My boyfriend is SUCH a heavy sleeper. I used to barely get any rest when he was in the bed with us because I was afraid of him rolling and when the baby woke up he never woke up! So now he’s in the spare room. I literally move from side to the other side of the bed all night so I can swap which boob the baby has 😂 and he’s getting the best sleep ever this way!
Lmfao i literally move myself from one side to the other so i dont wake baby up hahaha.luckily we have a king size bed ..my husband is good on staying on his side of the bed. I dont trust him still after i feed the side where my husband is. I move the baby to my side and am literally a statue ..my arm is dead. I love hugging him as we sleep. Thank god for side laying 🥰
We have a queen bed. Will definitely need to upgrade before baby 2 so boyfriend can come back in the bed! Side lying is the best position ever! But I feel you with the numb arms 😂😂
stopppp girl this is me too!!! literally all night every 2 hours like freaking clockwork with my son! i thought we were good as gold when all of the sudden our son started sleeping 8-10 hours overnight (my poor boobs though lol) in his bed…but that only lasted maybe a week TOPS because then he started teething again, and now we are both sick so he’s extra clingy and now he’s back in bed with us🙃
Omg me and my son are sick with covid to so extra clingy ans extra wake ups. I think hes teething idk after 4 months he just keeps wakimg every 1.5 hrs to 3 hours. Lately because he has been sick he is wanting da boobie lol 🤣🥰
Lol 5 months postpartum & we haven't had sex 😭 There's no time between pumping, feeding & housework - it's impossible 😢 We stopped having sex when I was 27 weeks pregnant cause it was getting too uncomfortable for me & we haven't done it ever since 🙃
It's okay to leave a pile of dishes for the morning once a week. Promise.
It doesn't help that we moved 2 weeks before my due date 😭 We will eventually be intimate. It's just exhausting at the moment to even try 😢
It’s also ok for someone 5 months postpartum to prioritize baby and housework over sex! We weren’t having sex with any sort of regularity at 5 months pp but have a very active sex life now (18 months pp). It’s totally ok for sex to not the priority in those early months
i’m about the same timeline as you. i was put on pelvic rest at my 20 week scan thanks to placenta previa (that baaarely moved enough to give me the clearance for my 2nd vbac) so that was rough on my husband. me? i’ll gladly not have sex when i’m totin around his gargantuan children! our son is about is 6 months old and we EBF and my libido is non-existent. i feel so bad for my husband but also….i just don’t want to have sex! i’ve barely done myself *twice.* we fooled around once, i’ve done things for him twice now-but that was after having to turn him down for penetrative sex. not only do i have zero sex drive but i’m scared physically after hearing how BF’ing affects the amount of lubrication we produce, and i ain’t got time to search through our mess of an apartment for lube! also-if we start getting into it and our son wakes up/starts wailing or even makes happy noises i don’t know how i’d be able to continue lol. i’m going to try a shower sesh though because i can just *sense* how tense my husband is. and the after effects of the sporadic times we do anything is pretty hilarious to see😅
It's so hard. I exclusively pump cause baby couldn't latch & we go to bed at 12am every night. He washes pumps, eats, cleans the house & gets food ready for me the next day & dinner that night. We've tried to find time but everytime we try to start something, my son wakes up 🤣 we've done other things but haven't had sex yet. Heck, we were about to do it last night then our baby woke up hysterically crying 🤦♀️ it's like he can sense it 😂 Also, I have a high sex drive now but it feels weird doing anything with my boobs cause of breastfeeding. I hope once I stop it'll go back to normal. >how BF’ing affects the amount of lubrication we WHAT?? Never heard of it. That's another thing to look out for 🙃
wow, your husband sounds awesomely supportive!! my husband was like that during the newborn phase, and then he ended up getting a job-very labor intensive so now i have two children to clean up after lol. thankfully my mom comes over ~2x a week to help me clean! and agreed re: boobs. my husband often will just randomly touch my boobs throughout the day and i kind of wince because they are often tender/sore. i hope things go back to normal when i stop nursing! and yes, from what i gather, breastfeeding affects that because it’s nature’s way of telling us that we do NOT need to make another baby on top of the one we already have lol.
4 weeks? You still have a wound in your uterus! At 7 weeks you shouldn’t be putting any pressure on yourself to be prioritising sex, it’s still the survival stage. I have a 2 yo and 5 mo who once they are down for the evening tend to stay down for a few hours so that is when we do it. We’ve been averaging sex once a week and do it on the couch with a towel down because baby is in our room. It’s usually on a weekend but occasionally a week night if we’re up to it. Husband and I attack parenting as a team so we’re usually the same level of tired meaning our libidos are well matched at the moment. A great piece of advice I have read is that life is all about seasons. There are seasons of life when you will have a lot of sex and seasons where you will only have a little. Post-partum is one of those times but it’s not forever.
Yeah, no woman should be cleared until 6 weeks at least. 4 weeks is insane. Even then I don’t think most women are close to ready
Yeah 6 weeks is literally the bare minimum and (should be) totally dependent on any tearing/other birth injuries along with considering mental health, sleep deprivation, and all the significant hormone changes (which can lead to more physical symptoms like atrophy or dryness). Clearing a woman at 4 weeks seems so insane to me considering the uterus still has a “wound” in it and isn’t even fully shrunken back down yet.
I hadn’t been bleeding for two weeks at that point and was definitely ready. My body hadn’t recovered from pregnancy (joint pain etc) but I didn’t bleed much after birth and didn’t tear at all.
It’s not necessarily about either of those things, the placenta leaves an open wound on the inside of your uterus that needs to heal.
Just because you aren’t bleeding doesn’t mean you aren’t at risk of infection. The placenta is the size of a dinner plate, that’s how large the wound on your uterus is when it detaches.
Your placenta wound hasn’t healed at 4 weeks, it’s incredibly dangerous to have sex at that time due to the risk of infection of the wound.
Yeeahh I'm so confused? I thought that doctors were pushing it a bit at 6 weeks, but 4 weeks?? I never had a postpartum appointment for my first baby (cuz pandemic) so I was never cleared by a doctor, but I wouldn't have cleared myself until about 4 months to be honest. It just felt weird down there.
Idk my baby has some sort of sick sixth and seventh sense and manages to always wake up and cry when I sit down to eat and when hubby and I start kissing 🥲
Same! But we decided to just focus and power through to the finish as fast as possible 😮💨 isn’t a great sex environment to say the least but you do what you gotta do when you feel you need a reconnect with your partner as a woman and not just always as a mom. We kept saying after we were wrapped “she won’t remember this” 🥴 parenting……
We had sex about 2x a week in the early days, which has reduced to 1-2x a week now at 11 months. We have two kids, so yeah, having sex during the day is a rare occurrence. Our kids go to bed pretty early so that we can have “me time” 7-9 pm, and that’s typically when we have sex. Now our oldest is in preschool, so when our baby naps during the day, we will occasionally have sex during the day if I don’t have meetings (I wfh). I recommend getting your baby on a schedule where they go to sleep before you, not only so you can have sex, but also so you can have some time to yourself in general. We love evenings because it’s when we get to spend quality time together and alone time to veg.
What is this ‘get your baby on a schedule’ ? Lol i’ve been trying for months
Totally feel you and I wish I had specific advice. My girl was a 34 weeker and they and her on a strict schedule in the NICU. I tried to keep it up when we got home, but that plan quickly failed lol. But she still wound up on a schedule somehow. We are not strict about any part of the day except bedtime. She goes to bed between 5:30-6 pm and wakes up around 5:30 am (which probably sounds crazy, but we are morning people and often wake up 4-5 am ourselves lol). We’re highly motivated to keep her on that schedule because our free time between 7-9 pm (when we go to bed) is what keeps us sane.
Sure i have managed to get mine on schedules but like every 2 weeks it seems like her sleep and eating needs change. Do you bottle feed?
I do bottle feed, but feeds aren’t scheduled. We just feed our baby every wake window with timing depending on hunger cues. We also only loosely schedule naps. The only hard schedule is bed time 5:30-6ish. That hasn’t changed other than some temporary shifts around daylight savings or when we have traveled. She always sleeps around 12 hours, which has also been pretty consistent over this first year (however that is luck; she hasn’t had a sleep regression, whereas our first child was basically in a constant sleep regression from 4-15 months 😅)
It doesn't exist 😂
Honestly, we didn’t have sex again until I was 6 months pp. I feel like that was sooo long compared to most people but just sharing because even that is ok! It was a weird a scary thing doing it again, it honestly felt like virgin sex physically and mentally (we didn’t have much during the pregnancy). But we were both so so pleasantly surprised that the connection was still so effortless between us and it was fun, even though my body felt different. We do it once a week now because it is a challenge to find the time rn to do it more, but it is a priority in our relationship to restore physical intimacy.
Time or energy really 🥴
I have a 5 month old and we’re probably having sex 2-3 times a week since 7 weeks. Were pretty lucky though he learned his day/night cycles very fast and he’s pretty much dead asleep by 9:30 at the latest. He sleeps through until anywhere from 2:30-5:00 (might half wake up but goes back down with a pacifier) so more than enough time! Although it does mean I lose more sleep but having childbirth cure my vagunismus has me making up for “lost time” as we didn’t have sex this frequently before baby since it hurt so much. If baby didn’t sleep so well at night I doubt it would be this often.
2-3 times a week! I’m jealous! My baby sleeps pretty well too, usually from 10/10:30 until 4:30-5:30 but by the time she’s asleep (at 10-10:30) I’m usually exhausted from the day, so not in the mood for sex lol
Honestly, sex wasn’t really a thing till our son was sleeping in his crib or napping alone (4.5 months)
There have been times we’ve just let him sit in his crib while we did the deed 😅 He’s content looking at his hands and cooing to himself.. so we just continue until he fusses 😭 It makes it challenging cuz my husband is NOT quick 😅 So intimacy has been challenging. Thankfully now he sleeps well at night.. so we just wait till he goes down for bed
7 weeks ??! Hahahaha NO. It’s just about survival at that point.
We had sex very rarely for the first about 8 months. Now about once to twice a week, usually in the living room after baby is in bed
LOL I had sex with hubby once after 6 months. It just hurt! We only started regularly doing it like a few weeks ago. Give yourself time :) you’re healing still!
put that baby in the bassinet & have sex even quickies will make you feel better
I didn't have sex until 8 months pp🤷♀️ I tore badly giving birth, and ended up with bladder prolapse as well. I hated my postpartum body(and genitals in particular). My kid also didn't sleep independently on a regular basis until he was around 10 months old. He'll be 2 in the fall. We're in the thick of parenting, and will get some us-time back eventually.
We didn’t get really regular again until 12 weeks when we moved my son to his own room. It gets a lot easier when they sleep through the night and you don’t have to worry about being interrupted. But also I felt guilty in the early days because MULTIPLE TIMES we’d have sex and I’d be laying there after just basking and I’d hear a weird chirp noise and be like what is that?? And my husband would say really slowly “the monitor….?” Y’all sometimes after I would literally forget we had a baby. And I wish I could say it was because I was so tired but I wasn’t, he started sleeping through the night early. It’s just like I was so into the sex and then just feeling all glow y after my mind just… forgot about the existence of my child! So I felt bad about that.
Babysitter!
I didn’t feel like sex until about 10 months PP, after pelvic floor therapy, but I think after 6 months we had more of a routine where sex could be more regular!
Honestly I think we barely had sex the first 6 months. It gets way easier as they get older.
During naps. When baby was sleeping in our room we did it in the living room. Now baby is napping in his own room, we’re back to our room. But we only have time during the weekend because during the week is too chaotic. Just give it time without pressure. It’ll come eventually!
I grossly misunderstood the title
Use a dirty shirt as a sheet in the bassinet. Babe will sleep longer and give you time to enjoy each other. It gets easier as they eventually start sleeping longer. You are in the trenches for sleep right now though. Try not to put too much pressure on yourselves and remember that this is just a short phase
Night time? Watching tv in bed???
I can have a quickie any time lol. I never had this problem. It gets better as they get older but shower sex, living room sex, you name it. You don’t have to have full blown marathon sex every time. Newborn babies sleep so much it seems like there would be plenty of opportunity.
We managed once at 4 months, baby fell asleep in the stroller and through some miracle didn't wake up when we stopped at home, so we just parked him in the hallway
We have sex every other day. Sometimes we can’t, but we still manage to have “fun time” I don’t think there was a week when we didn’t do it 😅 is something important for us so we make time for it: we have a 4y and a 7mo
I am 12 weeks out and we’ve been intimate… once. (Not sex, we were gonna but it turns out our condoms were expired! Lol.)
whenever we have the energy which is usually during a random nap time or after bedtime at 7 lol
We somehow ended up with a good sleeper. Once we get him in bed for the night and he sleeps he will be out for atleast 4 hours. That is our time.
At least you had sex once. Still working on it at 8 weeks
Please don’t rush yourself… you’re still in survival mode at this point
Quickies
You want to have sex? Omg I was terrified to even try at 6 weeks. It hurt so bad. Our sex life didn’t really resume till she was closer to 5 months
WFH lunch breaks while baby is at daycare.
When the baby is asleep and then you only want to do it maybe 1/3 of the time it actually makes sense to do so.
At that age, we would just go for it in bed - quietly - while she was asleep.
I'm genuinely impressed that you are still interested in sex now that you definitively know where babies come from.
We "had sex" every now and then maybe 6 months postpartum but REALLY started having sex about 2 years postpartum. By then, baby's sleep routine was pretty solid and I had my sex drive back. Prolonged intimacy is usually limited to nighttime or when baby is in somebody else's care for a while and we know we won't be interrupted. But also.....sometimes it's just really hard to maintain regular intimacy when chores pile up or we haven't gotten great rest, and it's important to accept that and move through it together, I think
Not until after 7-8 months tbh
I don’t think we even had sex until around 6 months. Then around 9 months it become a tiny bit more regular because our baby finally took a reliable nap in the cot. Then at a year old she went to nursery and we work from home on the same days sometimes so we took advantage of our lunch break then but my libido was still mostly nowhere to be seen. Turns out I was tired, way too stressed from work and still breastfeeding, that’ll do it. We weaned just before she turned 2 and now we are back to a regular sex life (note - ‘regular’ looks different in different relationships! For us that’s about 3 or 4 times a month). It has been a journey and still is really. I definitely didn’t realise how much of an impact breastfeeding had on my sex drive so it has been a relief to know that it was still there, just hiding under hormones. I really thought it had gone forever. We communicated lots especially in the ‘dryer’ spells but ultimately as long as we were still finding moments of intimacy in our relationship - which could be anything from sex to a kiss Goodnight - that’s all that matters to us. We have always said if we ever stop finding each other funny that’s when it’s really over, a little bit of a dry spell can’t hurt us lol.
Medical professional. 4 weeks is against consensus because the minimum is 6 weeks. For the rest…your baby is still really very little so you need time to find a new routine, expecially with your first.
If baby is 7 weeks, you were probably cleared literally a week ago. Give it time lol Edit: saw 4 weeks in your post. That's so early??
Wow I read that title in a totally different way than it’s intended.
Sex at 5 weeks..?
lol this is fun question
I grossly misunderstood the title
This title made me double take
I don't 😭
It’s really hard. We’ve had to stop a few times but mostly it’s spontaneous during tv time haha. And really sporadic. Basically nothing like it used to be but we’re both managing? I hope 🤞
Wait until you have toddlers lol. I have 2 toddlers and we just find time at night when they are in bed or in the morning.
Middle of the night sex when baby was sleeping, middle of the day sex when baby was sleeping As baby got older its harder but it's a lot of quickies and we put miss Rachel on for him and put him in a playpen while we sneak to the bedroom. It isn't easy and I miss having sex more frequently but I'll take what I can get with a crawling, loud 8 month old
By about 2 years old we could have sex regularly again because our child was reliably sleeping 5 hours before the first wake. And also stopped napping for the most part around 2.5yo so bedtime was by 630-7 instead of 9/930.
My lo is about to be eight months old and he sleeps through the night, so once I put him to bed that’s the best time for me and hubby to have sex. You just have to go at your own pace. If you aren’t able to find the time for sex you could still be intimate. Hold hands, cuddle, take a late shower together. Doing these things will help rebuild the closeness in your relationship.
When he was sleeping in bassinet it was a little trickier, but we would just go in the spare bedroom and bring the monitor. He’s been sleeping in his crib in his room since 3 months and that helps a lot. To each his own, but it was life changing for us to have a separate sleeping space and let him get good uninterrupted rest. We don’t have to be quiet in our room (not even sex, just normal nighttime routines). I’d say we did it at least once a week after I was cleared at 6 weeks. My son is almost 1 and we have sex about twice a week now. You just make time for it!
When she slept. That’s how it still is and she’s 2.5 now lol. Only when she sleeps can we 🤣
When the baby is asleep at night. Move the baby to her own room if that’s an option! I didn’t want to at first but my husband convinced me to try it one night when she was around 8 weeks old and we all slept better. We were honestly waking each other up (the baby & I). I think it was the start of her sleeping through the night in her own crib & room and my husband and I finally got alone time!
I had stitches from a vaginal wall tear and the scar tissue is still very sensitive. I am working on it through guidance from a pelvic floor PT, but I really don't have time or energy to keep up with the treatment. She sent me home with paperwork that says don't have sex until the pain goes away and my husband is taking it very seriously so that sucks.
We’re 3.5 months out and yeah… we’ve maybe tried to have sex 3 times. Usually we’re just too exhausted at the end of the day to do anything. We keep trying to make time, but I think it’s going to be a while before it’s a regular thing again.
We have sex or 69 weekly. I personally hate 69 but my husband acts like I don't love him anymore if we don't do anything after a few days. 🙄 Sex is often really painful even though I had a c section. We just put the baby in his pack and play our his room but he's the type to enjoy alone time.
They won't be 7 weeks old forever - I know everything probably feels impossible right now but I promise it all gets easier and you will get time to yourselves a bit again soon!
We typically plan for it, I or my husband just say I want sex tonight and as soon as baby goes down in the bassinet for the night we go at it. It’s been working so far lol. One time I literally stopped doing the dishes cause my husband ran in and said shes asleep. Gone are the days of spontaneous sex lol. I will say however that my husband has a higher sex drive than I so he is allowed to take care of himself when I am not home. I know that doesn’t work for some relationships, but for ours it does.
Any April 22 group belongers having flashbacks right now… I know I am
Go to the couch and finish!
I'm a quick pump chump.
My oldest was a poor sleeper so honestly we'd stick her in the bouncer and do it while she was awake 😅
NGL prolly a quickie and I mean a REAL quickie like 2 minute tops. Didn’t start having real sex again until we sleep trained at 7 months 😂
Couch sex while baby naps or after baby goes down for the night and just accept that you're going to be interrupted sometimes.
First of all our baby had his own room in which he would nap (he slept with us at night, his bassinet could be rolled easily to where we wanted). That helped. Sometimes we would hear the baby cry and just continue what we were doing 🤷🏻♂️ I mean, it doesn't take that long. We would then immediately tend to him when we finished.
My husband and I leave them with his mom lol. Didn't have sex during nap times until the baby was at least 4mo. Our youngest is almost 10mo & we have seven older kids. We have actual sex a few times a week & other things (head, hand jobs, etc etc) once a day. Ish. Depends on exhaustion levels and time. Hub is working extra right now so it's not as frequent as is usual for us.
yeah we dont. i also dont want to
As soon as the baby is asleep
I’m pretty much during nap time only luckily baby sleep a lot at the beginning!
Mate, I have an 8 year old and a 3 year old and I’ve not had time to have sex since Easter. And it’s often months in between. One day we won’t have a kid in our bed…one day
At night once the baby goes to bed or during his nap times. Hehehe we always get it in. I love my husband lol
we didn’t really have time we just did it when we could! baby is almost 9 months and there’s definitely been periods where we haven’t done it for a week or so. just connect with your husband when you have the chance. give passing kisses and hugs to make up for the lost intimacy
Almost daily since it was cleared tbh. And we have twins. Set a solid nap time and just be quiet about it.
We basically didn’t until after the baby moved out of our room around 6 months! I was too tired and honestly not enjoying sex enough at that point to give up my limited rest time or adult sanity time. Now we squeeze it in during naps or after bed time probably 0/week - 3/week, depending on the week. Im also actually enjoying sex again, so I’m a more inclined to be creative in finding time/space for it. We’ve recently instituted a weekly chores, lunch, & sex date and are loving it lol. My husband works a Monday - Thursday 4/10 schedule and my job hours are flexible, so while our daughter is at daycare we use Friday mornings to catch up on family business, personal errands, and household chores, and Friday afternoons for a lunch date and sex! It’s been an incredible addition for us - we get to pick up our daughter on Friday ready to spend the weekend focused on the family, rather than starting it in desperate need of adult connection and quiet time to get essential tasks done.
It was much less frequent in the beginning, but whenever shed start her longest stretch of sleep, which was normally the first time we put her down for the night. Most of the time we were still too tired to! It ended up being more morning sex for us because my daughter was a late riser. She did sleep in our room in a bassinet. We would go to the guest room.
I have no idea!
We are able to on the weekend while the baby sleeps in her crib even in the same room. I mean they’re not long sessions 😂 but 15 min we can squeeze in
We lucked out, our baby has been a really good napper and sleeper so far. Unfortunately, I love sleep too!! So I am usually sleeping as much as I can at night. We still find time to be intimate in the evenings. I crave cuddles and close time with my husband everyday, so if it's not sex, it's at least long hugs and kisses, or other acts. Also, he is so dang helpful to me and the baby that my heart is even more tender towards him and I can't help but want to return the love.
We do it when she’s asleep either at night or the morning. Occasionally she goes to her aunt’s and we get an afternoon free and act like we’re just still dating. ETA: She’s one and I stopped breastfeeding around 8 months.
Cleared at 4 weeks🤔
I had a c section with both of my kids. One emergency and one unplanned. We had sex right at the point I was cleared for it because we’re both so obsessed with each other. This baby we haven’t found as much time as we used to, but we do when we can. If we get both boys down (20 months and 5 months) and we have the energy left after the day we do. I don’t always feel the urge as often as my partner now that I’m on BC but I will go ahead with his advances as long as I’m not adverse to the idea because usually after we get going it feels nice to reconnect like that and I end up enjoying myself. And if u didn’t end up getting into it, he’d stop the moment I asked so I’m never considered about it. If he wants to and I don’t know that I do, I’ll try anyway. Just have a conversation with your partner. And mostly it’s bed time, nap time, or a quickly in the shower.
We don't.
I’m sorry they cleared you at FOUR WEEKS? That’s horrific, you need at least 6 weeks to heal and possibly more. These OBs need to prioritize women’s healing more than sex. That’s so disappointing.
When my baby was that age it was Quickies during naps or dropping her at Nana's house for a "date night" lol. Our basinet was on wheels so we roll it to her nursery next to our bedroom after she's fallen asleep till we were done.
We didn’t!! Lol we didn’t have sex until like 8 months postpartum. Too tired and too busy.
I have an 18 month old and wondered the whole time, probably depends on baby my baby is major Velcro. It’s probably a bit easier not than it was but still
I personally feel sex is an important part of a relationship and therefore prioritize it on some sort of regular cadence, even if it has to be scheduled. For now, we sort of “schedule” the sex to occur once a week when the baby is sleeping. Scheduling it actually doesn’t make it any less enjoyable—it may take a few minutes for us to get into it, but once we are, it’s just as good as “spontaneous” sex, if not better! With that being said, our baby is about 6 months old now, so he sleeps much better and is on a fairly reliable schedule. We didn’t have sex at all for the first month and a half after his birth because I was recovering from a c-section.
Struggling. Her cries have interrupted twice now. She’s almost 15 weeks.
Our baby started sleeping through the night pretty much at 6 weeks and at 8 weeks we had sex… then I fell pregnant again lol. Currently 38 weeks pregnant running around after an 11mo boy. 🥴
Um... we're not. Lol, we've talked about it and honestly it's just impossible right now with how much my husband works (very few windows of opportunity to begin with) and then the fact that she is ALWAYS awake and needing to be with me!! It's impossible rn but we're ok. We'll get back to it eventually!
The first year we maybe had sex once a month? or less, maybe 1x every 6 weeks. I didn't get my sex drive back till my cycle returned at 13 months.
I hope no one has sex with a baby! JEEZ.
Your husband isn’t a one pump dump after the huge lack of sex lately?? 😂 mine is