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.

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.

Mental reasoning.

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

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 🤷🏻‍♀️

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!

YABU

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

We don't have sex with the child in the room, ever. Of course.
My suggestion to my DH is to have sex in a DIFFERENT ROOM ie second bedroom or living room whilst our child sleeps in master bedroom.
At the moment there is no sex because he claims he can only have sex in the master bedroom bed. So is that him being unreasonable or me?
This was the question.

It's madness to let a child sleep in the master bedroom while you move out for any reason.

Put the child in it's own room.

You are.

You are being unreasonable.

Your 3 year old should be sleeping in their own bed, get them used to that before they have to start school etc.

If your 3 year old is dependent on you to fall asleep, you are making life harder for your future self.

So what did he have to “declare” that he was uncomfortable having sex with a toddler in the bed. And why have you acted like it wouldn’t wake them up so what’s the problem.

I wouldn’t feel the need to declare that to my partner unless my partner had suggested we have sex with the toddler in the bed, and then I’d have to say it whilst thinking, “I can’t believe they even suggested it.” Otherwise, I wouldn’t say it out loud because it’s not needed.

Did you ever suggest having sex whilst your toddler slept in the bed with you?

I am definitely in the minority clearly so take this as you wish, but I'm on your side OP. The arrangement you describe is normal world over in many households. It won't be forever. So what that it's technically a 'master'. It's the biggest room and right now you're co sleeping (also very normal in many cultures until child/ren is/are much older, generally stopping prior to adolescence, there is research on this. I don't think levels of marital sex are that different in said cultures if population sizes are anything to go by...) so makes sense to use it to co sleep and another room for sex.

So if I'm reading this correctly [the spare room/the second bedroom/the other room]- your three year old doesn't actually have a bedroom?

So where does he actually sleep if not with you and is not settling [if you are off shagging on the sofa]

Because I'd start there. Convert the spare room - give him a double bed so you can co sleep through the transition phase if he is VERY unsettled and give him a lovely room of his own that he might be inclined to sleep in.

Meh, I think it's totally fine to co-sleep with a 3 year old and much more common than this thread is inferring.

I always find it interesting when people think the child should sleep alone so the adults can sleep together.

YADNBU at all!!!!

If HE has a problem with the co sleeping arrangements then perhaps HE should sort out the sleep issues and get up each night and deal with the non sleeping child.
Sounds to me like he wants it all his own way tbh and is trying to make his life easier and better at the expense of both his wife and his child.