Sex after childbirth

Hi all!

This is my first post here so I start from the beginning. We have been a couple with my wife for more than 7 years. The sex has always been fantastic. Things began to change a year ago when she got pregnant. I understood that this is due to her pregnancy and accepted it. I hoped that after our child is born things will return to normal. Now our son is more than 4 months old and we have sex even less than before he was born.

I do not want complain, my son is a huge remedy for everything however I am starting to miss this type of pleasure. We have sex on average once in 2 weeks. We have spoken about this several times. She always tell me that she misses the sex just like I do but I know her enough to know she is not telling me the truth.

I know she has lot to do looking after the baby. It is true but she does lot of other free time activities, so there could be time and energy for sex if she wanted to.

I would like to know your opinion and experience with this. Will it get back to normal or is it something that is lost forever? If yes, how long will it take?

Please give me some advice...

You need to give it more time if it's only been 4 months since your child was born. Having a child really wreaks havoc on a woman in more ways than you can imagine. Speaking from personal experience, sex was the last thing on my mind for quite some time after my son was born.

Barbwire a.k.a. Cowboy Lover

Congratulations. I can promise you life will never be the same as you have been accustomed to. It will take time to settle into a routine, which will be a routine of unpredictable confusion because now everything is about the baby and babies are not patient at all. They'll learn patience from you after about 24 years if you really try hard.

This all takes a lot of getting used to and it's very difficult to accept for both partners. But if the world ever revolved around you, whether it was you yourself or you two as a couple, it can't now. Did I say that's hard to accept? Give her plenty of time and patience, and do a self check every day to make sure you're doing all you can. It's hard to know what's expected of you as a Daddy and it will take a while to figure it out. But when you learn to be more comfortable in the chaos, you will be able to laugh and be happy again.

As for her, she is now faced with a new baby and the damn thing was missing the owners manual when it came out and she has to guess at what to do, having no idea what the right things and wrong things to do are. It (he/she?) is a total stranger in the house and doesn't know y'all and y'all don't know it. That's extremely scary and not always as obvious to Dad as it is to Mommy. And keep in mind that her body chemistry was going wild for nine months and is still crazy. Most women are unhappy with their changed bodies and feel somewhat depressed about their self image after the birth. That's all really working on her confidence, which is where you can really be there for her. She needs you a lot, even though baby is the one dominating her thoughts and time and maybe making you feel left out. And baby never ever thanks her or you for all the inconvenient trouble you go to to make it safe, comfortable and happy. My 24 year old son lately has thanked us several times for sticking with him, as he's beginning to realize how responsible we had to be for so long. I can't tell you how happy and proud that makes us. We had our only child when we were 27 and 28.

On top of helping take care of the baby as much as you can, Dad, make sure you take care of her too. She is more fragile than you know and needs you more for her mental well being now than ever before. Your day job will take some hits and your priorities will change. The two of you will cease to be two individuals and become a family unit. This is all scary and not a lot of fun at first, but the baby will grow and you and your wife will grow if you realize that you only have one joint mission... to help turn this rude puking screaming thankless child into a healthy functional adult. And you will all grow together and find a new love and dependence on each other that you never imagined existed.

The fun times will return, though they won't be the same as your youthful fun (you get that back after college). The sex will return, but maybe not as quickly as you wish because you two don't have the luxury of the reckless abandon which made it so good, and that you were so privileged to enjoy in freer times. Not to mention plain old exhaustion.

Soon baby will be old enough to have a baby sitter and you two MUST make a date once or twice a month to get away and be a couple again. You have to do that. Don't forget and don't get sidetracked. If you have nearby parents that's even better because maybe you can an overnight date or even a weekend to pretend you're free again. But get whatever you can get and savor it.

Let us know how this all goes.

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Excellent post, HardRocker. Thanks for offering the OP the voice of reason and experience.

As for the OP. Just to clarify a few things:

You've been with her for seven years and you don't know her well enough to know whether she's telling the truth about missing sex?

You know she has a lot to do looking after the baby?



This doesn't sound very good.

HR, you are a champion dude!
You said everything I have ever felt and then put it to words better than I ever could.
The only thing I will add, and because I have been there myself is that things will improve for a while and then she gets preggie again and you are back to square one pannpietro but this time around it takes even longer!!
The cycle eventually starts all over again but it takes longer and then guess what?... she is pregnant again!
This time it like.... takes forever.........if ever.
Dude expect from here on in to be right down at the lowest rung of priorities (below the cat and dog thing).
But eventually even as you are making "love" to her she is listing out for the kids.
Sorry dude that is the reality of life but get used to it
Is it worth it?
For me although have one wonderful girl (PhD Astro Physics and then two boys at advanced uni) well maybe.......... but maybe not, as sadly nothing left going with lifelong partner.

Damn dude, don't make the poor boy want to jump under a bus. It doesn't have to be that way, but you have to both want it. It's good to have a refresher talk about what you both want, and stay on point. Like I said, it's a mission, but it takes two in agreement to keep it a common one.
Got someone looking over my shoulder, more later.

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Boys, let me put this in simple terms.
You have just pushed something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a lemon.
You have cracked, bleeding nipples.
Your uterus cramps and bleeds for 6-8 weeks.
Your body is out of shape and essentially no longer yours.

Whoooooooo wheeeeeeee! Lets hop into bed!

Nah, nobody could.......except eventually most do.
Let's face it sex is the most important normal event in our lives no matter what might have come before or after!

I didn't mean to imply that it was as easy for us as it was for me to write about it. It took me a long time to adapt to an instantly changed lifestyle. I still have regrets that it wasn't obvious to me at the time. I could have done a much better job of understanding all the stuff I posted about in my first reply. For a while I was all woe is me, I don't get to relax and have fun on the weekends any more, and do whatever I want to, and on and on and on...
Hey, OP, are you still around? I hope I'm not pissing you off.

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My experience was our sex life paused for a couple of weeks, and then resumed at pretty much the place it was before she gave birth. Body recovery is surprisingly rapid, and I don't recall uterus cramps and bleeds. In the meantime I asked my wife and she didn't recall them either. She said she wanted to be loved like a woman, not a mother. So she made the time and effort for us, and for herself. I did my bit as well, of course. By taking some of the load, this gave her the time and energy to spend on us as a couple.

I think that the crux of it is love. If she loves you, really, truly head over heels for you, then your sex life will be hardly affected. But if she doesn't love you as much, then it's not so good. My experience is far from unique, I know this for a fact.

Without meaning to antagonise anyone, but women who aren't mothers can't comment on this. You really have to go through it yourself, or as a couple, to understand.

Fact: Every single woman on the planet bleeds for up to 6 weeks after giving birth. It is to remove any debris and left over lining from the uterus. Without this the woman will suffer something similar to pyomtra in dogs. It is basically septisemia of the uterus.

Fact: The uterus WILL cramp in order for it to regain it's natural size and shape, as well as ensuring it remains toned. The cramping is worse during breast feeding due to the release of hormones.

http://www.epigee.org/fetal/post_bleeding.html

http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,5246,00.html

http://www.pregnancy-info.net/pregna...trimester.html

I asked my wife and she replied rubbish, and she's the one who gave birth twice. Perhaps I will get her to email you with detail in regards to what she experienced after childbirth. No cramps or bleeds beyond the first two or three days, and none during breastfeeding beyond the first two or three days.

In terms of children and raising thereof, we both agree that ages 2 to 3 are the worst for both mother and father. My wife and I also agree that babies aren't so bad: you don't get an unbroken nights sleep, but beyond the workload of feeding and changing, babies sleep about 12 to 18 hours a day. It's really not that hard, and I put in my bit in terms of helping out with washing nappies and so on. Both of our children were born in summer which also made it easier, the washing dried much faster which is very important.

Your wife is a very lucky woman then. Strange that all gyneas tell women to expect that though.
Did you read the links?

Ladies, can you please back this up as being normal.

That was put amazingly. well done loveit, i'm not going to add a reply of my own, just make this text reappear again.

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/3717/emmsigis1.png

Alright, people. Ask and you shall receive. I'm a benevolent dictator. All Africa/culture related posts have been removed to a new thread called Sex and Culture. There will be no more off-topic posting in this thread.