To ask how new parents manage to ahem do it?

[BraveLilBear]

I'm baffled. Honestly I am. How do new parents get jiggy with it?

We have a 6 week old. The closest we've got is to ask each other 'do you think we'll ever manage it again?' A combination of breastfeeding, trepidation at ruined lady parts, lack of sleep and generally having no time to do anything but baby juggle when we're in the same room makes the prospect of feeling the love oh so dim and distant.

Yet people do do it. Siblings with 11 month gaps are evidence that they're not liars.

So... Please enlighten me! Otherwise I shan't be held accountable for my actions the next time a HCP asks me my plans for contraception

This isn't true for everyone "You do need a child at will stay in a cot in another room and a (one way only) baby monitor."

Plenty of couples share a room with their baby and just have not-so-noisy sex for a while.

"The MW said we should make an effort to do it before the 6 week check." The midwife can bog off! We should all do it as soon or as late as we feel ready!

The NHS advice when i gave birth (some years ago) was that its okay to have sex once you have stopped bleeding and feel ready. You just tell the doctor if you have any pain if you have sex prior to the six week post partum check.
I waited 4 weeks with my first baby and six weeks with my second baby. I had natural births both times and I breastfed both times. I was worried the first time, but considering my vagina had stretched to pass a rather big baby through I think it could manage a penis which is much smaller than said baby. If I had torn or had instrumental intervention then I imagine that I would have needed more healing time, but both births were straightforward with just one or two small grazes.
Everybody heals differently and so needs different recovery times and will feel ready a different times. However I do think the longer you wait once healed the more nervous you are likely to get about the whole matter.

I agree with the not so noisy sex with baby in the room. I don't think we'd do it with the baby on the bed, but have done it with him in his cot or pram in the room, while he's asleep. Stealthy sex is actually quite fun :)

about three weeks in with all of them - usually quickies around naps. We cosleep/bedshare and EBF too. sometimes baby would be asleep in a crib or on cushion on floor and we had a sofa, or even asleep in bed (they sleep through it and as little immobile babies really don't know or care).
As they got older and were going to sleep upstairs we, again, had the sofa. We've never really had sex in bed though - beds are for sleeping in IMO

Ahahahaa.. 6 weeks? At that point I was convinced I was in a middle of a nightmare. I don't remember that well, but it must have been many, many, many months for us. Terrible sleeper, refluxy ds and pnd suffering, whale-like me, plus stressed, sleep deprived and worried dh does not a sexy equation make. Felt roughly like myself only when ds was around 2 and a half, or more.

At three weeks, and that was following a ventouse delivery.

Never had a baby coshare a room, let alone a bed, and they both slept through at 10 weeks, so we had plenty of evenings... :)

Good grief - we didn't manage it for six months after DC1 was born, and from a straw poll it seems like most of our NCT group were the same. DD was a horrendous sleeper and it was absolutely the last thing on our minds - all we could think about for that period was SLEEP.

A word of advice though, when you do go for it - make sure you have actually sorted some contraception. DH took me by surprise that first time, as it were, and you guessed it I got preggers. Unfortunately I miscarried, but the next time we went for it (again a few months later, and again, all very opportunistic), yep, knocked up. I'm delighted, but we will have quite a small gap . I think this time I will listen slightly more sympathetically to the MW's lecture on contraception

Twas about 8 weeks for DP and I and 4 months post partum that we conceived DC3.

Resuming er relations around 1 DC was easy. The first time was 4/5 weeks and that was with an episiotomy.

Try having a toddler and a newborn. Now that's hard. DC2 is 6 weeks old and we still haven't found the time. S

Its a fairly swift and fumbling effort when we have the energy, but some evenings when DD finally settles we can at least talk a good fight :-)

I am amazed and impressed by all these people who have managed to DTD within the first few months. DD is nearly 13 months and we still haven't, nor does either of us want to due to lack of energy. Also in my case I got so fed up with TTC which took about 2.5 years, I now feel like we've done that and don't need to bother again as we don't plan more children.

Completely baffled by the idea of DTD while the baby naps anyway - in the early days mine would only ever nap on someone, and even if I'd been in the mood I wouldn't have been up to asking DM or DMIL "Take DD so we can have a shag, would you?"

My undercarriage was still being held together by stitches at 6 weeks

Bit of a randy bugger here!

C-sec and still managed to pin hubby down (not literally, my stitches may have burst) 3 weeks after, during dd's rare nap

Eternal opportunist

Oh the joys of childbirth!
Let me tell you folks, you have a short window of a few years between the ages of say, four and ten when hopefully your DCs will sleep throught the night in their own bed and won't have a clue what you are up to in yours.
Then they become aware, and start asking questions and sniggering and giggling etc etc.
Once they hit teens it is totally impossible to get away with it on the quiet. Unless of course they like to have a lie in at the weekend, in which case early mornings are your friend

It was 5 weeks after DD1, forceps and third degree.
To be honest I wanted to check I still could feel things down there. I could, unsurprisingly it was pretty sore . We were back in the swing of it by 10 weeks though.

It was 3/4 weeks after DD2. I was really horny and had a C section so none of the swollen stitches of the first time.

Lube and making it quick kept us going until they slept better/we weren't so tired.

We did it about 5 weeks after DD. Easy vaginal birth with one or two stitches. We were really lucky that she was sleeping through the night at that stage and so we weren't really tired so could get on with other things.

For me it was quite important because until that point it seemed as though EVERYTHING was to do with the baby. I needed something to anchor the fact that we were also a couple as well as parents.

We did it at about 4 weeks post partum. I wasn't particularly bothered tbh; but they say, the more you do it, the more you feel like doing it. Which was true for us; after a few times doing it between naps (in another room!) it made me feel more into the whole thing, and helped me feel better and more normal.

Blowie 1 week after birth.
Mutual masturbation 2 - 4 weeks.
Penetrative 4 weeks, once the bleeding had stopped.

Forceps, episiotomy, urine infection & bfing.

We'd had average sexlife during pregnancy but it ramped up during 37 - 41 weeks, I was making sure my cervix was covered, coated and glossed with sperm to get the baby out.

I think the increase in sex in the later stages of the pregnancy probably influenced the early return of sexual activity.

Also found those 'getting it while you can' moments when a baby is asleep, very reminiscent of the early stages of a relationship. We had sex more with a baby than before and during TTC.

& if anyone wants a decent baby nap, take them swimming. Mine slept for AGES after a trip to the pool. Gives you plenty of time