Or is my husband - doesn't want sex unless stop cosleeping with DC

Good to know.

All these self-sufficient toddlers clearly aren’t camping in the woods where I walk my dog.

Thanks for such an enlightening post.

Yes exactly..such a stupid post. In 'days gone by' there was no notion of child safeguarding and 13 year olds got married.

News flash most abusers are the parents,! And it was the disclosure raising a SS query not the practice.

Sex with a child (not a baby but a child) in the room with you is classed as sexual abuse.

But what about someone who has to bedroom share with the child and child in one bed and couple in the other bed in same room?
Not me by the way, but I have known of 1/2 people do this.

I don’t think either of you are wrong here it’s a difference in priorities

I personally think it’s absolutely fine to still be co sleeping for as long as a child is happy but all need to be happy many couples manage

and some have to compromise

But having sex in your actual bed is quite normal for the vast majority of people. Just so you don't have to get up straight away, can have a snooze, have a cuddle in comfort. Doing it on the kitchen table might be exciting, but as the actress Mrs Patrick Campbell said, ' marriage is the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly burly of the chaise longue'. I'm with her on that.

YABVVVVVU. I’m 100% with your husband here. Don’t risk your marriage over this.

It’s not lazy to desperately need sleep, and take it however it’s available.

We’re sometimes awake for actual days. Wake ups can easily be 10am - 4am, with a nap either side. We do have melatonin, but it works for the first two hours of the night and then might as well just be water.

But personally, co-sleeping forever still isn’t a viable option for us. We cannot have a 24 year old who still won’t sleep independently. Which would be a real possibility if we don’t at least try and nip it in the bud.

The strain that is already on our relationship from the exhaustion, and other challenges, is only added to by taking that exhaustion into separate beds.

I am quite “anti” co-sleep, certainly all night, because it adds an inordinate amount of pressure into my relationship, so can totally see why others might not want it in theirs.

I'm not sure how to respond to this (and other comments suggesting it's lazy parenting) without furious swearing. I'll give it a go.

I tried getting up to resettle my baby/toddler. She has issues with sleep related to medical issues and is now on melatonin. For 12-18m I got up every HOUR with her, to resettle her in her cot/bed. She didn't like cosleeping. For over a year surviving on 3-4 hours broken sleep, working and looking after a toddler, I was in and out of her room like a yoyo all night.

So maybe when she started liking cosleeping it was 'lazy' of me to let her sleep solidly next to me, rather than me be ill with exhaustion. Even when cosleeping, she'd sometimes be awake in the night for you 3 hours. Exhausting but at least I could lie down.

If that's lazy then I don't care. It's survival.

Absolutely sick and vile to have a sex next your 3 year old!

YABU

Maybe I'm loving in a parallel universe or something, but I don't see what is so unromantic about sofa sex - it's probably where you were snuggling up before going upstairs anyway? And yes, you can't go to sleep there straight away for the night but women really should be going for a wee after sex anyway to minimise UTI risks anyway.

Also, I can't be the only mum on the planet who would prefer to have a bit more distance by being downstairs/a stairgate away/being able to hear footsteps down the stairs if the kids wake up.

I can't think of a worse time to have sex than late at night anyway, you're both knackered and it's often the most likely time for kids to wake.

Cosleeping or not (we have done it on and off for 7 years), sex is much more a living room thing or during a WFH lunchbreak in bed.

I think it's awful of the OPs husband to hold sex hostage just because he doesn't get to do it in one specific place. People would think it was nuts if the OP insisted they could only have sex in the kitchen, at a specific time, but that's what he is suggesting and it's just as nuts, even though it's a more socially common place to have sex. Seriously, be imaginative!

I don't see the issue with having sex in another room. We currently co sleep with our nearly 1 year old. This was necessity, she absolutely will not sleep or even be put down by herself but anyway. We have always just gone to another bedroom to have sex. At some point she won't be in our bed anymore, but for now this works for us 🤷🏻‍♀️

Mental reasoning.

It also used to be legal to rape your wife, that hardly makes it acceptable in 2024 does it?

I think you’re getting an unnecessarily hard time here OP.. I didn’t read your OP as suggesting you have sex with the child in the bed (which would of course be unreasonable!) but that you ask your husband to go elsewhere with you to have it and he doesn’t want to, so it doesn’t happen.. is that correct?

I can see both your and your husband’s points of view here. Plenty of people co-sleep with children older than 3, it was the norm in this country until Victorian times /Industrial revolution and the family bed is still very normal in many other cultures eg Japan. For most of human history it would have been incredibly dangerous for them to sleep separately. Plus yes, often it is easier to cosleep as they sleep through and don’t wake up as often. I can relate as the same thing happened to me when my son was young and cosleeping was the only way anyone got any sleep, but over time he naturally moved into his own bed.

However, on the other hand it’s obviously having an impact on your marriage and it’s important to be pragmatic here.. could you and your husband talk together and reach a compromise? For instance you could work towards a gradual move to get your 3 year old into his own bed (look at gradual withdrawal methods eg Sarah Ockwell Smith) but your husband needs to also step up to support this process, eg helping with the settling process and wakeups, and sharing lie ins at weekends). You could aim to do this over a few months.. hopefully would end up as a win win for everyone.

Have ds start the night in his bed and then at first wake let him in with you. If she objects to this then she can be the one to get up and resettle every wake up

I couldn’t even t and wouldn’t do it

but for example after the Second World War and the fact that my great grandmothers house was bombed, all the neighbour lived in one of the only standing houses left which was a 2 bed and had 27 people in it….she went on to have more kids after. So I mean it’s happened for years and years beforehand.

You have sex in the bed while your 3 year old is lying there asleep? Have I read this correctly? Can't believe you would even contemplate this let alone do it

Can you do a phased roll out ?

1. put your child in a separate bed in your room
2. put your child in his room, but you too sleep there
3. Go back to your bed for sex but return to sleep in the child’s room
4. everyone in their own rooms.

I know! I wouldn’t want to have sex on my own sofa because I wouldn’t want to leave any wet patches behind! It’s now making me think twice about sitting on someone else’s. Gross.

Op, I’m 100% behind your husband here. You’re concerned about your sleep but not concerned that your husband finds it hard to sleep with a wriggly 3 year old. I’d also find scheduled sex in a junk room a total turn off. The solution is that your child sleeps in his own room and you are both responsible for settling him in the transition period.

It's not easy getting your toddler to settle nicely in their own bed. It can be tricky and lead to quite a few sleepless nights trotting along the landing. I know, I've been there and done it twice. The exhaustion is real.

But letting your toddler cosleep 'just for tonight' because it makes your life easier for the next few hours is madness. Obviously your toddler will prefer it, so all you're doing is kicking the problem down the road and making it a much harder issue to resolve in the future.

I see so many parents doing whatever it takes to make their lives easier for the next hour with nary a thought to how it's ultimately making their lives harder in the long run. I'll never understand parents who allow a toddler to dictate everyone's sleeping arrangements.

I think its reasonable for him to make a temporary adjustment to where you have sex, personally.

People here will give you a hard time as they are against co-sleeping.

Lots of different opinions here. As a person in a mixed-culture marriage, I can tell you that, on the one hand, it is entirely normal for the families around the world to co-sleep together till the child is 6-7 years old. It's just in the Western culture that we seem to have sexualised a lot of stuff and see things that are e.g. totally normal in Asia (even in wealthy households), as some kind of perversion. Not sure where it is coming from, maybe just too much sex in our pop-culture, no idea.
However, on the other hand, your husband is not comfortable with this, so you should compromise here. I would make the spare bedroom ready for the little one (bright colour on the walls, cartoon stickers, fancy lampshade, soft-toys, etc.). Make the child love the room. Your child should fall asleep in his/her own room. They will keep coming to your room or call for you in the middle of the night and that is fine, it will probably take some time (6 months or so). It's up to you then if you want to take him/her back to their room every time or just get a toddler bed/a mattress and put it next to your marital bed. Good luck!