Actually, We Have Sex When The Baby's In The Room

If you’re one of those couple’s who follow the book, The Five Love Languages, then you know how important “physical touch” can be to some. In our relationship, this is one has my husband’s name written all over it and what keeps his love tank full. I know, I know, the book is all about connecting on an emotional level and can kinda sound like a bad quiz you would take in a magazine, but knowing where each of us stands has kept us in tune with one another and never sexually deprived. Knowing this, I was kinda nervous about that “no sex for six weeks” rule after giving birth, and I had no clue how my husband was going to get by. In fact, it’s all a blur how we even managed after our first pregnancy, but it probably had something to do with him only having so many paternity leave days while he was active duty Army.

This time around things were different, and our little one would be sharing a bedroom with us in our tiny New York City apartment. She was there. We were there. We were all new roommates and bonding as we navigated our new nightlife routine. To put it plainly, that meant figuring out how to have sex with a baby in the room. Those six weeks were rough. The first three were so painful and I complained so much about it that my husband didn’t want to be near me. Then the last three weeks I had to swat him off of me countless times.

As soon as I got the go ahead from my midwife that all was good downstairs and my vagina became fair game again, my husband was ready to rock and roll. Honestly, we didn’t even think twice about having the baby in the bedroom with us while we were getting it on, leading to me being totally pro having sex with the baby in the room. Gasp.

But you know what? Doing so doesn’t make me a bad mom.

An article on the subject was recently published on TODAY, where Dr. Michele Borba, author of The Big Book of Parenting Solutions, says,

If the child's younger than six months old, you probably don't need to worry. It's unlikely there would be problems, only happy, contented parents.

Mind blown, right?

So many people tend to hold very big opinions on this subject with little evidence to backup their claims. An article in the Huffington Post outlines a time when this subject came up on a TV show, to which people in the audience heckled that it’s “abuse” and “disgusting" to have sex with baby in the room. There is no way that it deserves that type of reaction. When your little one is fast asleep in their crib, they have no idea what mommy and daddy are doing in the bed. It’s not harming your child or scarring them for life, as they are absolutely unaware that anything is even happening.

If we didn’t make our intimacy a priority it would send a completely wrong message. Instead of feeling everyday like I deserve to have pleasure in my life, it would say that I don’t and that I need to be on mom duty at all times. I’m a person, too, after all — I deserve the big O just as much as the next woman.

While some things changed, like needing to be quieter and make sure that we weren't moving the bed all around, because if baby wakes up - game over — it’s still our special, intimate time we need to make sure that our marriage is in check, to show each other we care, and hello, to have an orgasm. And honestly, we are happier people because of it.

There have been moments though, whenever things have gotten a little too heated and it’s caused our little one to stir. Of course, when that happens we stop whatever it is we’re doing and tend to her little whimper and make sure we get her back sleep, because she always comes first. But once she nods back off into dreamland, we get right back to it because honestly, if I’m shaving my legs, you bet I’m getting to the grand finale.

And, if we didn’t have sex while the baby was in her crib then it would be really difficult for us to have any alone time at all. Date nights? Those are far and few in between, and Netflix and chill is pretty much our saving grace. Let’s face it: This parenting thing is tough and it’s not always possible to sneak away to a sexy hotel room, especially when you don’t have grandma and grandpa nearby to take the kids overnight.

We need to have these intimate moments and there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting down and dirty while the baby sleeps because intimacy is a priority in our marriage. In fact, I feel that if we didn’t make our intimacy a priority it would send a completely wrong message. Instead of feeling everyday like I deserve to have pleasure in my life, it would say that I don’t and that I need to be on mom duty at all times. I’m a person, too, after all — I deserve the big O just as much as the next woman.

And to set the record straight: We aren’t having sex in front of our children. I would completely understand why child services would intervene if a couple was having sex in front a child or toddler or even a newborn who was aware of their surroundings, but that’s not the case. Having sex with the baby asleep in her crib is a completely different thing, so don’t get it twisted. She’s not bed sharing with us and is in her own crib at all times. We’ll be moving into a bigger place before she turns 1 year old, so having sex with a toddler in our room won’t even be a question we need to entertain. But for now, things are just fine in our bedroom and our sex life thanks us for it.