Having a baby can dramatically change a couple's relationship, especially when it comes to how often they have sex.
What happens between couples in the bedroom after there’s a new arrival? Sinead Corcoran Dye talks to five mothers to find out.
Loretta, age 37, married for five years and mum to a 4-year-old daughter
Before we had a baby, my sex life was never something that I was going to rave about, but it existed.
There were ebbs and flows. I work fulltime in digital marketing so if work was super busy or one of us had a big project on, it would be less. We didn’t have a schedule, but it would be a few times a month, which I was happy with.
I remember we went to see Fertility Associates to get pre-checks before we started trying to have a baby. And they told us there was no need to track my cycle... “as long as you’re having sex three times a week”. And I was like, “who is doing that?”.
But then it took on a whole other life because we were actively trying to have a baby. It became like a competitive sport - and my poor husband was eventually kind of like “leave me alone”.
My daughter is in daycare four days a week and has one day a week with my mum and I’m back at work fulltime. Since having her we are generally back to having sex a few times a month - but we can have huge dry spells. And it’s not necessarily because the baby is sleeping and what if she hears or she’s going wake in half an hour? It’s just like I’m not interested at all.
My sex drive has kind of plateaued to the point I’m now consuming all these articles about perimenopause and stuff. I’m like “why am I so disinterested in it?” But I think it’s partly because it became so associated with producing a baby. It’s now that thing you do to make a baby and I don’t want to do that any more. It’s got to the point where our group of friends have now started a vasectomy club because all the wives are pretty much like “don’t come near me, I’m not risking having another baby”.
Sex went from being sexy to making a baby and it’s hard to reverse that. And also, because making the baby then comes with carrying the baby, birthing the baby and potentially feeding the baby. Those stages rewired what those parts of your body did for me. So, it became like, “no, no, my vagina, that’s where I gave birth, I don’t want you down there”.
Before having a baby I was a real breast person. Afterwards, I didn’t want my husband near them. I breastfed for 15 months - those are not pleasure centres. I haven’t been able to rewire those nerves, I guess. And I feel for my husband, because it’s hard to explain and it feels so unfair - but when he initiates sex, I just have these flashbacks of me and my daughter in the dark of the night and feeding her and desperately trying to get her to sleep.
I had really bad postnatal anxiety and trouble breastfeeding. I’ve got polycystic ovary syndrome, and it affects the hormones that produce milk, so I spent my whole time breastfeeding on really high doses of medication. Also, I became a mum at the end of October 2019 and Covid came in March the next year so my whole breastfeeding was through the pandemic and lockdowns. I was double pumping because I worried if I got Covid - this was back when we were washing all of our vegetables - what happens to her if I end up in hospital?
It’s probably really confusing for my husband because sometimes I’m like, “yeah, let’s do this” for like a week. And then I’m like, “get away from me” for like six months. I know sex is awesome, I know it’s good for us. But I don’t prioritise anything that’s good for me. I haven’t gotten back to that yet. I don’t know if mums do for a long time.
My husband is very good at letting me know that he still desires me without it feeling like he’s putting on pressure. Obviously, he’d probably rather be having sex more, but I think when I took the time to explain it to him, he found it quite heartbreaking when he realised I was just doing it for him. So now he’s really backed off and I am the one who gets to initiate it.
Jamie, age 32, mum of three
I wish more husbands understood the whole idea of foreplay happening 24 hours beforehand. I wish more people could understand the science of what a woman is battling within her own body to try to make it happen. And the feeling of being unsexy and all of that - it is a two-person job to make it happen. And, for me, there is nothing more unattractive than a man that’s just slobbing around, not doing anything around the house.
We have three kids and probably manage sex on average once a week. We’ve still got a baby that wakes in the night and then the 6-year-old gets out of bed 100 times before finally falling asleep. We really need to put a lock on our door.
I can barely remember my sex life before the kids, but it was very much doing it whenever we felt like it. Some weeks it would have been like four or five times, other weeks once. It’s not like the magazines seem to claim, which make you feel like you’re the only woman not doing BDM.
I remember the first time having sex after our first baby. I’d had an episiotomy and I was like, “I’m just going to have to push through this to make it enjoyable again”. All your energy is going into sustaining life. You’re literally fighting an uphill battle and your own body is going against you.
I want less sex now. I think so much of like the woman’s libido comes down to the mental load - it’s just another thing on your to-do list. And then when my husband understood that as well, that helped because it was like “okay, so we’ve got to approach this together”.
My husband wants it more. I’m quite content with once a week. I do just want it to be a nice quick finish. So I’m like “let’s get the job done, I’ve got lunches to make for the next day, we’re not going to do the whole Kama Sutra book”.
Often my mind is wandering _ “oh, where is her Plunket book? oh my gosh, it’s the dress-up day at school and it’s his mum’s birthday next week”. That’s why I think it’s the whole foreplay 24 hours beforehand, which means making sure all that stuff is taken care of so that you can relax and enjoy it. The effort is not actually what you’re putting in in bed. The effort is what you’re putting in during the day around the house.
Candice, 34, mum of one
When you’ve been trying for ages to get pregnant, you’re so focused on routine and having sex only when you’re ovulating it does get a bit like “ugh, f*** that.” There was no longer any spontaneity to our sex life, and if I was ovulating, we knew when we went to bed, we had to have sex.
Before we had our son, we’d have sex once every week, but it was sporadic. But once we started trying to have a baby – and trying for a long time – it got really clinical.
As well as our sex life becoming really regimented, we also stopped doing foreplay because we were like what’s the point – let’s just get into it. The only time we would have sexy sex would be on special occasions or if we were on holiday and got drunk.
It was a relief when we found out we knew we had to have IVF to try and get pregnant, as the pressure to have sex to make a baby was gone. But then I was pregnant, and I really wasn’t in the mood. But now, because we had to have IVF, we don’t use contraception any more, which means it can be more spontaneous.
I had a vaginal birth with our son a few months ago, and this week we had sex for the first time since. I was really scared, because one of my friends who hadn’t even had a vaginal birth – she’d had a c-section – told me she was in a lot of pain the first time she had sex afterwards.
Thankfully I felt fine during the sex. I was probably a bit tense because of the nerves, but it didn’t hurt like I had thought it would.
And my husband isn’t a pushy person by nature so he’s never once said he’s unsatisfied. He did “try it on” a few weeks prior though, but I didn’t respond to the come-on because I didn’t feel ready.
Even though I probably was physically recovered, I mentally wasn’t ready – especially with our baby still sleeping in our room. And when we did have sex last week, our baby stood up in his cot while we were doing it and we both felt so gross. Also, sex is really off-putting when you’ve just spent an hour getting your baby to sleep.
I don’t think I feel any less sexy now that I’m a mum – but I do feel weird about sex now that I have a child. Especially because it makes me think of my parents having sex, which is disgusting.
And I think now, sex will still be more of a “special date night” or weekend away thing – like a treat. Especially because our weeknights are so out of sync – we go to bed at completely different times. I stay up really late watching TV and my husband goes to bed at 9pm.
Doctors tell you to wait at least six weeks before having sex, and I’d had a second-degree tear during birth. I’d read somewhere that for every degree of tear you get you’re supposed to add three more weeks onto your healing time, so I was like “okay, 12 weeks is my safe spot”. I was more than happy to wait.
In my 20s, when I was single, I would take home a different guy from town every weekend – I was all over the show. Then once I got into a long-term relationship I thought “oh I can have sex whenever I want, there’s no pressure”.
Once you’re comfortable with someone, it is different. And while I didn’t want to have sex during my pregnancy, my libido was through the roof. I read a lot of smutty things online about swingers and loved thinking about it but not actually doing it. And at the time I thought, “huh, that’s interesting, maybe this is where I’m heading, and I want to get into swinging?” But now post-child, I’m like, “no that’s not appealing either”.
Maiya, 31, one child
We’ve only just started having sex again – and it’s not really me who wants to. But I give it a go, even though I don’t really enjoy it.
I’m finding that getting aroused takes a lot more effort after having a baby and wondering if maybe I just need to push through it being physically uncomfortable for a while. I want to do it for my partner – even though there’s absolutely no pressure from his side. But I feel guilty for not wanting to do it, and I want to get our relationship back on track.
We used to have sex at least three or four times a week. Our son just turned 3 months old, and we’ve only had sex three times since he’s been born.
It’s particularly hard as we co-sleep with our baby – he’s a stage one Velcro baby. He’ll very occasionally sleep in his coat – so that’s the only chance we get. Neither of us feel weird about having sex with him in his cot next to us though, we just try not to think about it. Like he’s just a baby right now – obviously different if it was a toddler walking in.
The first two times we had sex I wouldn’t take my shirt off. Not so much because my breasts have changed, more because of my tummy. I used to weigh 120kg and lost half my body weight – but then gained a lot again during pregnancy. And now when I look in the mirror, I know I don’t have the baby excuse of the baby growing in my belly. I don’t feel sexy.
So many people said to me that you lose so much weight breastfeeding, but that just hasn’t been the case for me. Especially because I’m home all day every day with the baby now, so I can raid the pantry whenever.
I think my partner sadly got used to not having any sex during my pregnancy. Because the first trimester I was absolutely shattered, and by third trimester I was like “get away from me”.
He does try it on often, but never makes me feel guilty for saying no. I do feel guilty though. I can tell he really wants to be having sex more, but he’s not going to try encourage me or anything. Especially because he goes to work all day then comes home and I basically throw the baby at him, so he knows it won’t be happening.
I think what would help is if I felt like myself again, but I don’t so I’m just not in the mood at all. And when we have done it, it’s been too physically uncomfortable for me. I don’t know what to do to get past that.
I do other little things to try and keep the connection alive - like just going out and having date night, things we used to do before we had a child. And we try not to spend the entire evening talking about the baby.
I’ve definitely experienced that post-baby, quarter-life crisis. I just dyed my hair bright purple which looks terrible, but I just needed to do something for myself.
And I feel like it’s not helping that I’m still wearing my pregnancy undies four months on. There’s so much pressure to fit back to your old self kind of thing and I’m like, “well, ladies and gentlemen, I’m still wearing maternity tights and yes, my comfy pregnancy underwear and I’ve got the least attractive bras ever”.
Warm water in therapeutic pools reduces swelling and eases joint pressure.