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

[dhnosex]

DC is just under 3. Cosleeps with us for about half a year now.
I love the cosleeping - it leads to more sleep for me and in all honesty I love waking up to the tiny sleepy face or the little hugs I get in the middle of the night, DH not so much - he occasionally gets woken up by DC turning over in the night and DH believes a bed should just be for parents.
We have a large and comfortable sofa (for sex or to sleep in) and a spare bedroom (which, in fairness is full of clutter and used as a storage room but has a bed).
DH has declared that he is uncomfortable having sex when a toddler is in our bed. Understandable. To my suggestion that there are other places to have sex he's said he just likes it in a bed, after a cuddle rather than a scheduled walk to the second bedroom or on the sofa.
DC sleeps through the night when we cosleep but wakes up every couple of hours if we sleep apart. Inevitably I'm the one that has to resettle DC if they wake up because DH absolutely can't (DC will not go back to sleep, just gets more agitated). If we were to end cosleeping I'd just end up marching back and forth between our room and DC's all night, or camping in DC's room.
So... who is being unreasonable? Him for wanting DC out of our bed and threatening no sex until I do or me for not wanting to kick DC out? What solutions do I have? I do want sex, in theory could easily live without it but it's not great for a marriage to be sexless.

Only read the first page or so, but cannot believe the consensus that the tiny, tiny human should learn to sleep alone because the fully grown man(child) demands his desire to sleep with the OP is more important.

Husband is right, so it's either co sleep/no sex or solve the co sleeping/have sex.

How much longer are you planning to let your DC co-sleep?

This could go on for years if you don’t build a proper routine in.
And the older they get, the harder it will be to get out of it.

It sounds like it’s you that likes the co-sleeping, which is why it’s not been changed.

Sex is about intimacy too and so although you can have enjoyable sex on the sofa or other bed, it wouldn’t have the same intimacy.

I would buy her some new bedding and teddy and start this weekend.
Use christmas or Father Christmas as an excuse or something.

The first few nights might be tricky but you have to push through because the more you give up, the harder it will be.

I assume both you and DH work and so it’s not fair if it’s just you settling her back to sleep.
Tell him that if he wants her to stop sleeping in their bed, then he’s going to have to help.

It does read as though you encourage it though and I wonder if he finds it frustrating, which is why he doesn’t try putting her back in her bed.

Ever likely kids are fucked up. Emotional blackmail almost from birth.

DD coslept for much of the night at this age. It absolutely didn’t “go on for years”. But even as a teenager, if something is troubling her, or she’s feeling poorly, she is absolutely welcome in the family bed (super king). We sometimes have movie nights and all sleep in the same bed. It’s lovely.

No, it's self preservation .it isn't normal here and that is partly due to child protection concerns.

I know my sons father would not be comfortable with his child asking about an erection for example. The naivety that this isn't in a lot of fathers head doesn't make it untrue.

For me and millions of others bed is adult only. It is linked to our sex life it isn't exactly a shock when it's the norm here.

Who the hell wants to sneak around like teenagers when you have your own room!

It sounds like it’s you that likes the co-sleeping, which is why it’s not been changed.

It doesn’t sound like OP’s husband has volunteered to go back and fore to the child’s room all night. He might like it more if he did.

Yeah I'm with you tbh. In the assumed decades you spend married, 6 months + of cosleeping with your child really isn't a large percentage of potential marital nights together. Especially when DH can't settle the child himself (understand this, my kids wouldn't settle for anyone but me in the middle of the night either). So if cosleeping means the OP, and the little one get more sleep, and there are alternative locations for marital intimacy then think husband needs to be compromising more here!! Sleep deprivation is awful, if I'm going back and forth trying to settle a kid into their bed multiple times a night I wouldn't be in the mood for the sex either way 😂

I don't have many solutions for you though OP. Think it would be a matter of sitting down and discussing all the options and how to make it all work in a way that's fair to all three of you. Hope you reach a compromise soon.

Fuck's sake. Tell me this isn't real.

A child learning to self sooth back to sleep is a life skill.

Because he’s sharing a bed with a three year old and finds the notion of having to decant to somewhere else for sex a turn off. He therefore doesn’t want to have sex. That’s absolutely fair enough and understandable, I can’t think of many things less arousing than having to have sex on a sofa or in the junk room and then go and sleep with a child afterwards

You do your normal and let other people do theirs. FFS a child is perfectly safe in bed with his/her parents, stop trying to make a practice (that's lovely and perfectly natural) out to be a perversion.

I know it's the DH. I never said it wasn't. Perhaps you should try reading the words.

I know of a couple where the ten year old boy sleeps in the double bed with his mum and the dad sleeps in a single bed in the kid's room.

The dad is having an affair.

The whole thing gives me the ick.

Move your three year old to their own bed.

How can you live like this OP? You are not in a relationship with your toddler, you’re in a relationship with your husband. You need to sort this out, are you passively trying to avoid intimacy? Are you happy to go sexless and drift apart? This sounds as though you don’t value your relationship. It’s normal for a married man or woman to want to have sex with their wife in bed, it’s not normal to sleep in bed with your toddler and avoid sex.

At what point do they stop being a tiny tiny human?

If someone described a child like this and turned up with anything over a 3 month old baby I’d be very surprised.

The fact that you describe a child that’s pretty much a pre schooler in that way gives a really clear indication that you’re probably on a very different page to me.

Tell me you’re heading towards inevitable divorce without telling me you’re heading towards inevitable divorce 🙄🙈

You don't want the OP to co-sleep with her child because it doesn't support the values and lives of the people?

😂. Right ok.

YABU. Child should learn to sleep in own bed.

And you think it’s normal to be in a sexless marriage?

It isn't lovely for the father of he isn't comfortable with it!

Are you seriously saying you wouldn't as a man be worried about a disclosure? Because unfortunately the world we live in that's a real fear most men I know have.

Why does the mother's choice override his? Surely the logical solution is for her to sleep in the child's room and leave the adult bedroom as is.

If my partner would sooner go without sex than shag me on the sofa then I'd be worried he didn't fancy me much at all.

We have a drawer in the living room with a blindfold, condoms and some sex toys. A bit of effort goes a long way 😉.

It doesn't override his, but it's of equal weight. She's not automatically being unreasonable just because he feels differently.

Edited to add:

I don't think there's anything at all weird about it, so no, disclosure of a two year old sleeping with his parents wouldn't bother me at all.

OP, what worked for me was DC having a large bed in their own room. DC went to sleep in own room (with me there* til DC fell asleep). Then I would go to my bed later with DH like a ‘normal’ couple haha.
DC would wake at some point in the night and call for me… I would go through and get into DC’s bed and we would both go back to sleep easily there.
Over time, DC would wake in the night less until never at all anymore.
*Yes i know they need to learn to settle themselves, but this is what worked for me, and may work for you. At least it means the DC gets used to their own bed.

I like my husband so I want to sleep next to him and I want to have sex with him and I don't want him to not be able to sleep properly for years because of a three year old and then have to go to work.

It's very indulgent to keep a three year old in your bed because you like to look at his face.

Your child’s sleep needs are entirely normal
Not to me they aren't. When my dc were three they had bed, bath and story and then they went to sleep in their beds. That is what I thought was normal because that's what happened to me as a child.

You and I are very, very different.

Is it you describing an almost three year old as a tiny tiny human?

Because it sounds like you’re happy to keep sex toys etc in a communal place with a preschooler around (who aren’t renowned for their self discipline and discretion) but feel the that they’re too young to sleep on their own.