Sex & Cosleeping

[HikeMama]

My daughter's 2 and we love sharing sleep with her. For most of the 2 years, sex on the couch was fun and ergonomically correct and worked for us. Lately, my libido is up in BED and down on couch. When we come downstairs after getting her to bed, we do other things, and it's just not romantic and, actually, a little awkward initiating sex sometimes, with the daylight bulbs glaring and the diapers and papers and clutter all over. When I wake up in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning, or when we retire at the end of the night and cuddle, that's when I'm "feelin' it" but that's not working for us.

I don't want to transition her yet, because we don't have a room for her yet and we won't for a few-several months. I just don't want to move her from our bed yet, I don't feel ready and I don't think she is either. Has anyone dealt with this? What do you do?

[kgreenemama]

Oh, HikeMama, we may need to be friends. I just met you via your reply to my nap post, and I see that we also share some couple similarities.

Intimacy has been hard for us, too. DS's crib is shoved up against our queen mattress, and when I can get him to sleep ON his crib mattress, where he doesn't feel us wiggling around, sex is easier than it is when he wakes up from bouncing three inches off our mattress to the rhythm of our doings. Nothing like a toddler crying out, "I want nummies," in the middle of sex to ruin the mood.

Our house is very small. In fact, the family bedroom is a converted attic with sloping ceilings that we bump our heads on coming down the stairs. The abandoned, too-small downstairs bedroom has become the place where our dressers collect dust and laundry piles up. But I've been thinking that if I straightened things up there and tossed a futon mattress on the box spring where our queen mattress used to live, it could be a cozy little retreat for us. Do you have a room other than the living room where you could dim the lights, play some of your favorite music and get into the mood? An office? It would still require having to get up and move from the comfort of your sleeping place, but until the new room is set up for your daughter... maybe?

Keep us posted. I'm interested in creative ideas in this department!

[DisplacedYooper]

I will admit to having sex in the bed with a cosleeping toddler. He sleeps pretty soundly, and we do our best to be, ahem, subtle. Sometimes I'm just not feeling the love for the couch... A few times he has woken up, which is a bummer, but what can you do?

[pacificbliss]

Hide some pillows under the bed and get to know the floor? DS only slept with us for 18 months and I have to admit, we sometimes did it in the bed with him there. It was quiet, toned down sex but at least it was sex.

[To-Fu]

Can you designate an area/room in your house for sexy time? We have a guest room that works quite nicely and is free of the usual clutter, etc. You could keep some candles in there and maybe some music-playing device.

[Katie T]

We just pick whatever room we feel like at the time. Now that out BIL is sleeping on our couch every night we have had to tone it down and use the bedroom floor. Kinda sucks but not much to be done about it.

[HikeMama]

We can't have sex in just any room because we're living with my parents while we renovate our house. We've got some slim pickings right now. I know things will improve (probably dramatically!) in our own place, but in the interim I would like our sex lives to be more than once every couple of weeks with awkward initiation. I am just way more comfortable initiating it in the bedroom. I think it's because our entire life is in the other room and no one (well, most people I'd assume) wants to have sex while looking at the pile of mail and taxes and laundry waiting to be put away and reality tv on. I suppose we could pre-plan it, like- "hey hun, when tot's asleep- we're going at it so be ready" and then we could NOT put WOW on the computer and start going through the mail as soon as we sneak out... It's so odd because pre-baby you just have at it whenever the mood strikes and I'm still after 2 years, getting used to the planning and setting aside time and whatever for it...

[Aka mommy]

6 years of being a mother and we still havent figured this one out. We don't have the room. And the couch, im over it. It doesnt do it for me, i miss sex on the bed! For awhile we did it while they slept, turned the fan on for noise and it seemed ok. But as they grew older, i grew worried about them waking up to it. So we took it out to the couch. 2 years later, it occurs rarely because the couch is just not the same as my bed.

We will hopefully be moving next month and intend on putting the daybed in the office and that will be our 'sex room'. LOL. This way i dont have to worry about 3 sleeping children in our room and the dog can be kenneled in another room and i dont have to worry about the couch.

[DaddyM]

We've had this problem with our 16m old. She wants to be cuddled with mom and get frustrated everytime we get frisky. My wife also tends to fall asleep getting the baby to sleep. The shower is a nice change of venue now and then.

[HikeMama]

I forgot about the shower! There are no taxes waiting to be done in the bathroom! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who can't say "Yeah, we cosleep and our sex-life hasn't suffered at all!" I hear that so much and I LOVE Co-sleeping, but I think when we move we might do it half the night and start transitioning her to her own bed the other half-full night. She's 2 so I think she'll be ready soon.

[HikeMama]

As an update, we've been moving her to her little bed that is adjacent to ours when she falls asleep. She likes it- calls it her "own bed". So far we all seem comfortable with this, and we can always move after things get started if hiding under the covers doesn't work that night. I'm happy we moved her over- she's still right there with us but I'm even getting better sleep because I don't have to sleep around her. (She takes up half the bed)