Sex After Kids

Through every stage of parenthood, whether your kids are newborns or teens, there are different sets of challenges and stresses that can put the brakes on your intimate relationship with your partner. Of course, some challenges span the stages of childhood, and multiple children compound the intimacy hurdles. Whatever the size of your family, staying romantic partners and avoiding the slide toward roommate territory is tough, but it’s not impossible. And it’s worth the effort.

Phase 1 baby

Ah, those sweet little bundles of joy—well, not exactly “joy” all the time. Let’s face it: You aren’t sleeping and a host of new challenges (the crying, the lack of time to yourself, the endless laundry) that come with having a baby can leave you ridiculously worn out and stressed. And when your day finds you struggling just to change your spit-up-stained shirt or make yourself a sandwich, it may be hard to fathom anything other than grabbing a shower or a catnap during the small windows of time when baby doesn’t need you.

How to deal 

Moms, remember that lovin’ feeling you had pre-baby? Your partner probably does and misses it. A lot. Physical touch often falls by the wayside during this stage because mom gives so much of her physical self to her baby, leaving dad out in the cold. And though mom may have zero desire to have sex, staying connected is critical. “If you don’t set the precedent now, to make time for each other—even if the sex is crap—your relationship may disintegrate,” says Trina Read, a sexologist and owner of sex advice site vivaxo.com.

Important? Yes. A struggle? Check. Vancouver mom Olivia Smith* has a two-year-old and a six-month-old, and she says that it is really tough to have any kind of sex life. “I feel like I’m doing it because I have to keep my husband happy, not because I want to, though afterwards I always feel relieved that we did it. It is brutal, but that’s what it is like right now,” she says. “We know it’s not always going to be pretty, but we do it anyway because we’re scared of losing touch.”

Make the effort. Sex is about so much more than just the physical act and the pleasure it brings, says Read. It keeps you connected as a couple, so you can withstand the good and bad times. And it may be the only time you are completely in tune with and concentrated on your adult relationship in the swirling chaos of family life in those early days. Read stresses it’s important not to just walk into the bedroom and get it over with to please your partner.

“If that’s your foreplay for sex and you do that over and over again, you’re just going to dread sex,” she says. “Consciously make the decision: This morning I’m getting up and I’m going to put on some nice underwear, and I’m doing this intentionally because I want to get myself in the mood.”

Phase 2 toddler

Sure, your toddler sleeps through the night most of the time—too bad it’s so often in your bed. Between wrangling kids and working hard to make ends meet, frustration and exhaustion can get in the way of good loving. Vancouver mom Brandee Brown, whose daughter just turned four, says she spent years feeling “touched out, worn out and like there’s always someone to clean up after and feed.”

Brown says that she and her husband eventually realized they needed to give their relationship more attention. Their efforts have paid off. “We feel more connected and less like roommates,” she says. “We argue less over petty things when we find time to be together romantically, and we are both happier and more in tune with each other.”

How to deal 

Pencil it in. Seriously. Put it in your calendar. “Nobody wants to hear that they have to plan sex, but the more effort that you put into it, the better it’s going to be,” says Read. “When your child is young, you need to look out for the times in your week that you can carve out for it; otherwise the days will go by in a flash and you won’t have had sex,” she says.

Smith and her husband plan staycations where each child goes off to one set of grandparents, then they’ll book a last-minute hotel that day (to ensure no sick-kid/family drama sabotages their plans). “We’ll make the best of it, go out for drinks and then not have to worry about going home to the kids [when we’re] drunk,” she says. “We can be adults together.” Don’t have parents willing to take the kids overnight? Ask trusted friends or other family members.

Phase 3 ages 4–10

Bringing sexy back The kids are finally sleeping through the night in their own beds. With any luck, your evenings are, at least partially, your own and you aren’t too tired to get those bedposts banging. That said, years of putting your relationship on the back burner can create a void that is difficult to close.

Liz Jarvis*, a mom of two kids aged four and seven in Truro, N.S., says that she isn’t sure how she and her husband managed to stay together through years of stress—juggling jobs, daycare pickups, the never-ending cleaning and tantrums. “My husband has no idea how close I was to leaving,” she says. It wasn’t until we started making a conscious effort to have sex that things turned around. Without intimacy, all we did was fight. We weren’t close, and I did not feel secure at all.”

How to deal 

Make the space to have an adult, intimate relationship. “Everyone talks about date nights being key, but really, expecting to create that space when you only have a few hours and the babysitter’s clock is ticking puts a lot of pressure on you both, which just isn’t sexy,” says Heather Chamberlin, a mom of two and a sex educator at Venus Envy adult store in Halifax.

Instead, she suggests rethinking your concepts of intimacy, which is about more than a specific act. “Focus on the playful aspects of spending little chunks of time together—make out on the couch, touch each other just to show affection when you’re making dinner, grab those moments when you can.”

“We can talk about buying toys or techniques to spice things up a bit, but I feel like the underlying secret about making our partners happy is that we give people permission to be into what they are into, or explore what they might be into,” says Chamberlin. That requires the two of you to communicate your desires.

Of course these conversations aren’t always easy, but once you start talking, it gets easier and acts as foreplay to help move things in the right direction. Who knows what interesting and exciting things will come up in conversation—and what fun you’ll have acting on them.

Phase 4 preteen

That awkward moment As your kids become more aware of sex, you become more self-conscious about having a sex life—and often horrified at the prospect of them knowing what you are up to. Chamberlin was caught off guard when her 10-year-old son started a conversation with “Mom, sometimes at night I hear these really funny sounds coming from your bedroom.” Though she felt like she handled the conversation well, Chamberlin says her partner was mortified and jokingly said, “It is never happening again when he is in the house!”

How to deal 

In the wise words of Salt-N-Pepa, “Let’s talk about sex”—in an age-appropriate way, of course. Carolyn Bergen, a marriage and family therapist in Winnipeg, says that how you tackle these types of situations should reflect your child’s level of curiosity, ability to process information and how much she already knows about sexual intimacy.

“A general approach would be to allow children to ask questions and to support their curiosity in a way that doesn’t have them feeling like they are ‘in trouble’ for bringing it up,” she says. “Provide only a brief response…don’t flood your child with too much information.” Bergen says it is totally fine to let your children know that you were “doing that ‘kissy stuff’ that grownups do” but that they need to learn to respect your couple time, too.

Chamberlin responded to her son by having an age-appropriate conversation about what he had heard (that they were touching each other in a way that adults find pleasurable, and he didn’t need to know all the details), and agreed to be more respectful of the fact he could hear them. But she also told him that he needed to respect their privacy as well. “I emphasized that respect was something we all needed to foster together in order for it to be a functional concept.” Her partner got over it, and they also switched bedrooms with Chamberlin’s daughter, 4, placing them at the end of the hallway, away from the other bedrooms.

“Be bold enough to say ‘Saturday morning is our time. The door is locked; only knock on our door if there’s a fire or somebody has a broken arm,’” says Read, adding a lot of parents aren’t willing to do that because they don’t want their kids to know that they are having sex. And, while some kids are just fine with giving their parents some couple time, plenty aren’t so, well, liberal.

“There is often a reluctance for kids to want to know that their parents are sexually active, though, in the long run, they are learning about healthy and vital adult relationships,” says Bergen, who suggests dealing with questions matter-of-factly when they come up. “Honest, candid discussions about privacy and adult relationships can be challenging but rewarding.”

Montreal dad Rob MacIsaac has two sons aged 12 and 13 and says that sometimes he and his wife will go have an “afternoon nap” since both boys are self-sufficient at this point and happy to spend time on the computer. MacIsaac says they don’t generally announce it, and the boys don’t usually come knocking at their door when they do. “There’s a certain amount of mutual discretion in the house that we all respect, I think,” he says.

Phase 5 teen

“Doin’ it” If your kids go to bed when you do, or later, there’s no set private time. Plus, teens have a tendency to be mildly appalled by parental displays of physical affection.

When Bryan Heninger, from Cardston Alta., got married to wife Debbi nearly five years ago, they formed a blended family of seven kids aged eight to 20, including three teenagers who have entirely unpredictable schedules. “Even when they aren’t supposed to be home, when it’s their turn to live at their other parents, they just drop in; there’s no safe time for us to make love,” he says, adding a door chime and a dog provide at least a few moments of warning.

How to deal

Teens know exactly what you are up to, but don’t let that stop you from having sex. “The irony of the situation is that one of the healthiest things that you can do for your child is show them that you have a healthy sex life—that’s going to model for them how to have a healthy and happy relationship once they get older,” says Read, adding the same goes with affection. “If they don’t see you affectionately touching and kissing and being a couple, they don’t know how to do that themselves once they get into a long-term relationship.”

Heninger says that he and Debbi decided early on not to hold back from being affectionate. “We’d tell them that one day they’d be in love and that this is how you show affection in a healthy relationship,” he says. As for finding ways to be alone, he and Debbi take whatever moments they can—even if that means ducking into the pantry for a smooch while the kids are busy elsewhere in the house. “It’s the reason we built the pantry with locks that work only from the inside!”