Ida Tin’s “Dear Men” Series: Part 21 of 29 – Sex While Having Small Kids
Dear Men, this is post 21/29 on what it feels like to live in a female body. This time, it is about having sex while having small kids.
Well, it is kind of like what it was like having sex after giving birth (see post 20), except it just kind of continues like a new norm.
Acute body transformation has ended, and the body settles in some new form. The body is somewhat reclaimed, breastfeeding or getting up at night to bottle-feed, has thankfully stopped, the little ones are not tiny anymore. But that doesn’t mean they just sleep all night. They wake up thirsty, have wetted the bed, have an ear pain, growing aches, the duvet has fallen off the bed, they had a bad dream… the list goes on. And for all of those, I got out of bed to care for them. My sleep got light, I still wake up at the slightest sounds from them, on alert.
All this just to say, mum might be tired… Unbroken sleep becomes really precious. Anything that gets between peaceful sleep, blissfully free of conflict and stress, pretty much is better than anything that could keep her awake at night. That unfortunately included my romantic partner very often. That had a lot of reasons, not only having small kids, but this constant presence of small kids was definitely not an aphrodisiac for me.
Being walked in on by a kid while in the heat of things, also isn’t all that great. Yep, that happens too.
For practical reasons, and in an attempt to get the best sleep possible, one parent might sleep in one room with one kid, and the other parent with another kid someplace else. Even after the kids sleep in their own beds in their own rooms, parents might stay in separate bedrooms. While that can be no hindrance for a great intimate life, it might be for some. Just a new norm that happened.
See comments for link to the first post in this series that has links to all other posts.
Artwork by Kyle Leuck
-This post by Ida Tin is shared on LinkedIn and is republished here with her permission. The SheSight Team has not made any changes to the content.
