No, not if you’re willing to get creative.
I don’t know how often I’ve heard this question in its various forms. A few people come straight out and ask, some people wander around the topic, asking if it “gets in the way of your marriage,” and I’ve even run into a few people who insinuated that I was a bad wife and mother because I was putting my child’s needs before my husband’s needs, which in addition to causing my husband pain, was giving my child a bad example.
Normally, I would tell people to mind their own business, but this seems like such a common misconception, that I think someone has to talk about it. First, I have to say that my child is a toddler and doesn’t understand waiting, and my husband is an adult and knows how to put his needs on hold, so putting my child first is absolutely not wrong in my eyes. But the very, very important second point is that attachment parenting doesn’t mean that you can’t have sex.
I remember watching an episode of the Tyra Banks show a little while back where a wife and husband were on because the husband wanted sex and the wife wanted to co-sleep with their newborn. The audience and Tyra sided with the husband and Tyra gave the couple a sidecar sleeper. What I didn’t understand was why the idea of having sex outside of the family bed was never brought up.
Need some ideas? Why not have sex in the laundry room or the shower? What’s wrong with the sofa or the arm chair? Having a family bed just gives you the opportunity to spice up your love life outside the bedroom.
Why are so many people stuck thinking that you can only make love in a bed? If that’s the case, what’s wrong with the guest bed, then?
And what about when you’re travelling? In a hotel room, there’s no place to “get away.” Well, there’s still always the shower. Another solution we use quite often is to walk our child to sleep in his stroller (it fully reclines), park the stroller in the entry or bathroom, then spend time with each other. Just before we go to bed, we transfer him from the stroller over to the bed.
Have you ever felt that AP has gotten in the way of your sex life or marital intimacy? Do you have any tips on how to keep cosleeping from interfering with sex?
Christina blogs about life at An American Expat in Deutschland and about parenting at Mamas Worldwide.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for talking about this subject! The fact that I have four children should be proof enough that AP and sleep sharing have NOT gotten “in the way” of having sex
But, just like with good parenting, you must be more creative then more traditional families.
The entire concept of the “conjugal bed” as THE center of a marriage is an antiquated and patriarchal one. A man who must have his so- called “needs” met before those of his children is a cave man as far as I am concerned. Selfishness is NOT one of the values I want my hubby passing on to any of our children. Neither is martyrdom, though. We are not sacrificing a thing by choosing to be AP’ers. The respect that we show to our children is also visited upon us. For example, in the form of respecting closed doors by knocking and waiting for an invitation to enter. We never enter our children’s room uninvited…and guess what? They don’t come into ours uninvited. But what about the little ones who are already IN the room? The preschooler often sleeps next to our bed on a small crib mattress… which is super easy to slide back into her room if need be. Our baby, who still sleeps in our bed, simply gets buckled into her cradle swing. Or we leave them both in our room and WE go someplace else!
You bring up the most important thing, though: we are adults who know how to wait, and how to be patient. We must model that behavior if we want our children to learn it and to model it in turn.
You make really great points, Justine. I’ve only got a toddler, so I never thought about how our sex lives could be affected when we have older children roaming the house and can’t just do it anywhere. So you’ve given a wonderful example of how practicing AP and having a sex life go together in a larger family with older children.
You also make a good point about teaching responsibility, respect, and patience. Teaching kids that responsibilities need to be placed before instant-gratification is an important lesson, especially in these times.
Guilty…a fellow AP and good friend of mine recently admitted to me (and I in return) that we’ve made love with our husbands in the bed with our infants. When they’re old enough to understand, we’ll pick a new spot. And…here’s the key, explain to them that sex is healthy, normal and special between two adults that love one another. I think more kids would benefit from having an open discussion at a young age about sex with their parents. Why are Americans so sexual in secret, while outwardly shunning those who feel no shame in being sexual beings? I just don’t get it. Many parents have no qualms about arguing in front of their babies, who “don’t understand”…but an act of love, never!
You know a friend of mine was commenting on the importance of not only having disagreements in front of our children, but actually _making up_ in front of them too. I hadn’t thought about the importance of normalizing sexuality to children from a young age. My parents were very open with nakedness and open affection, and I think that’s helped me to be more open. I hope that will get passed on to my children as well!
I have a friend whose family of 5 all sleep together. They have a king sized matress on the floor where mom and the three kids sleep and a smaller matress next to them where dad sleeps. Maybe it’s because their kids sleep really well but mom and dad just have sex on the little matress next to them. Sex can be quiet. I’m sure they won’t always do this but she swears it works fine for them. Oldest child just turned 5.
For most of history, the majority of families didn’t have the space for the parents to have sex away from their children, so I think it’s quite natural. We haven’t, just because I can’t get into it know the baby is right there, but I think it’s completely healthy and normal in most of the world.
Here in Germany, sex and nudity are out in the open, but kids are protected from violent imagery.
AP will only come between you and your partners sex life if you let it. Some may use this as an excuse to let intimacy take a back seat. My husband and I have been guilty of this. After 10 years of being together it takes more work to keep our intimacy thriving. You can AP your kids and have regular sex–you just need commitment and creativity!
Thank you. I’ve been getting grief from parents, in-laws, friends, and co-workers about having my son still sleep in my room, even though he’s only 10 months old. I felt guilty about having “relations” with my husband while our son was sleeping in the crib next to the bed. I’m going to have my husband read this, too, so that he can feel better about it. We discussed how he doesn’t know what’s going on and even if he did, it was normal and healthy.
Once again, THANK YOU.
I don’t want to leave too specific of a comment, but suffice to say our sex life is much better AFTER having kids. Ditto on the “why only in the big bed” question–do people have so little imagination?! I did have to LOL a bit about the remark in this post re: traveling, because when we travel sex is very far from my mind–it has nothing to do with being AP–just with the strain of traveling and I have very little interest in intimacy while in a hotel or at relatives’ houses. It kind of surprises me that other people manage! However, it is not the end of the world to go through a dry spell on vacation either
Hmm, 9 responses in favor of AP- all of them positive, all of them women. Well, I feel that it may have worked when he is a baby, now that he’s 4 years old it’s becoming a big problem. We’ve tried to get him into his own bed but he refuses. every time my wife wakes up -even to go to the bathroom- he immediately wakes up too. This morning we had our first shot at having sex in 3 months, and he wakes up right as we’re about to start. Who knows how long it will be before we get another chance. I love our son, but I want him out of our bed right now.
@eric: Have you both tried reading The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers. The author gives tips for getting a child into their own bed. Don’t push your son out though, the more he feels pushed away, the more he will cling. Maybe you guys could redecorate his room with him giving input. Our oldest son was very excited to pick out his own sheets at the store and happily crawled into bed in that evening.
Does your son wake up if you put him to bed and get up (rather than your wife)? Maybe you could try putting him to bed and sneaking out for a rendez-vous with your wife in another part of the house.
By the way, it’s not just women who enjoy co-sleeping. I know quite a few husbands who enjoy it, including my own. I’ve brought up trying to put our youngest into his own bed and my husband has objected, saying he likes waking up to our son’s little smile in the mornings. Honestly, as Molly says, our sex life is MUCH more exciting while cosleeping, since it eliminates the bed from the equation and makes us get a lot more creative. Plan things out! Talking about how and where you’re going to do it can be very stimulating.
Do you have grandparents, other relatives or family friends that could take your son for a weekend? Even if they’re out of town, maybe you could go visit, drop your son with a grandparent, then check into a hotel nearby for a weekend getaway. Be creative. And don’t forget romance. Remember how you treated your wife when you were courting and try to get back into that place. It can be difficult to go straight from being a mom to being sexual, help her get in the mood. Good luck!
@eric: If you and your wife are practicing AP and you would like a man’s perspective, I just ran across a really great blog run by an AP dad, Attachment Parenting Blog: Raising Children with Love