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.

YABU

Don't quite understand why your husband has threatened no sex whilst co-sleeping then.

It's called the marital bed for a reason and you share it with your husband instead of having your own beds for a reason. I've never had this problem and I've raised 8 babies. They were always beside me in their crib and I always put them down after a feed and they've always known that. Never cried or complained, just sometimes would fall asleep on me and then placed down and that was that. An almost 3 year old in the bed would cause a lot of disturbance for your husband. If it doesn't disturb you also then that's great but it is disturbing him and a 3 year old needs to be in their own bed. If you're going back and forth all night, you haven't made him feel like he's safe enough to be alone. So you'd have to take it back to basics as he's not a tiny baby anymore.
I'd suggest sleeping beside him in his bed the first night and then camp on the floor beside him the second and move a bit closer to the door each night and then eventually into your own room. Tedious but it means in a week or even sooner if it works well, you could have little one sleeping in his own bed.
It's nice to cuddle up with them but you can do that in the day time. A marriage needs privacy and intimate moments. Plus both parents need and deserve a good night's sleep.

I actually don’t agree with your husband. From what I can tell, OP is not saying they are having sex in the same room, just to be clear, I don’t agree with that.

We are cosleeping with our almost one year old and will happily cosleep until he is 3. There is lots of research about the benefits of cosleeping for both mum and child. I know plenty of children who have settled in their own beds when they are ready and long before age 10! We get creative, have fun thinking of new ways and places to have sex. You’ll have the marital bed back in time and have the rest of your lives to have sex in it. In the meantime, surely your DH can think outside the box a bit! YANBU

Just wait until you get a partner. You've made a rod for your own back, your kid won't be going anywhere and your new partner won't put up with that.

Girl, I'm so single, I'm not gonna be dating for a while 😄😄

But yeah, it needs to be sorted, its on the list for next year 🥺. No regrets though, I rocked her to sleep as long as I could as I'm one and done - I wanted the closeness

Edited to add - I didn't expect it to last for this long though. It's top priority for sorting

YABU. Come on, you think this is reasonable?!!
Get the kid in his own bed and sleep with your husband in yours!

Going against most of PPs here.
We co-sleep with our nearly 3yo and a 1yo. We love the closeness with them and it’s the only way we get the most sleep. They will learn to sleep on their own when they are ready, grown adults aren’t still sleep in their parents’ bed are they?

And we have the plenty of sex, elsewhere in the house.

Yeah sometimes it’s a little “scheduled” but whatever we laugh it off because we know that if sex is important to us we have to make it work. Appreciate sex and how it’s initiated is extremely personal but refusing it anywhere except the bedroom seems prudish. If he’s insisting the child sleeps elsewhere then yes he should absolutely be helping with the wake ups.

OP, I feel you, we started co-sleeping with my (now 5yr) DS when he was 3.5 when he was very ill. He starts off in his own bed though, and moves into our bed half-way through the night (probably 4 out of 7 nights). Difference is - my DH loves it more than me! Can you try training your little one to fall asleep in his own bed, but to come through to yours if he's scared/needs comfort? This means you can still have time with your DH.
Completely understand that you'll do anything not to be sleep deprived!
Please don't listen too anyone droning on about lack of independence/making a rod for your own back - absolute nonsense, they're only little for a short while, and you may regret it when you're older, if you don't co-sleep.

I think this thread got side tracked by people misreading it as you wanting sex in bed with your child present. But I am still a little mindblown at how many people are against co sleeping when it leads to a better nights sleep for both you and your child.
My partner is away in the week and my 7yr old (who has ADHD) gets in with me pretty much every single night (in the middle of the night). He gets comfort, I don't even wake up, win-win. My 5yr old sometimes get in in the night or if not gets in with us when she wakes up early in the morning.
Sometimes being sandwiched between the two is less of a restful night sleep for me. Ha. But we brought a double bed for my daughter, so i just get out and get in her bed! They also go to sleep together in her room (can't remember the last time my son's room was used for anything other than to pile clean clothes. Lol
I know grownups that hate sleeping alone so why should little kids, they won't want to do it forever.

Is it an option for a double bed in your son's room, so you can have the rule he can get in your bed, but he can call you to come get in with him if he wakes in the night? That way you and your husband can get time alone in your bed, but you and your son can also get good nights sleep.

All of this "rod for your own back" stuff is bollocks. Co-sleeping has lots of benefits.

Your husband can deal with having sex in a slightly different location for a bit to accommodate something that makes your life easier. You literally birthed his child,

Husband is being completely inflexible. If having sex is the more important thing he should be able to compromise on the location not being his favourite.

Especially when there is in fact another bed available 24/7.

And especially if the preferred location comes at the expense of his partner and child.

I wouldn't feel comfortable having sex in the same bed as our DC! At all! While it may be lovely to have DC with you, it's also beneficial for them to have their own bed and learn to settle. X

Our babies both came home from hospital and started off in their own rooms. As toddlers, they'd come into bed in the morning and pry open my eyes to read them books.

I realise this is a very unfashionable view. I nodded sympathetically when a friend told me she had to lie on the floor by the bed tiil her daughter went to sleep. I found it difficult though to believe any sane person would do this.

One slept through for a decent stretch at six weeks and the other at 8 weeks. No, we didn't leave them screaming for hours. I can't comprehend why parents aren't focused on getting children trained to self-settle because they are going to have to learn at some point so why not earlier. I never fed or rocked to sleep because you just train a baby that that is how you get to sleep and when they wake up in the dark they are frightened because one moment they were with mum and the next thing they know is she's gone. OP has spent three years training a child that only mum can soothe her and that the child can only sleep in the parent's bed.

I'm kind of bemused about seeing the child's sweet little face. If this keeps up she might not be seeing her husband's sweet little face when she wakes up. If my spouse so obviously preferred my child's company to mine, I'd be hurt.

Can’t you both compromise here? Sex in another room whilst you transition your child back to sleeping in their own room. Or, move the spare bed into your child’s room and try to gradually get them sleeping on their own and then you can use your own bed.

Haven't read all the replies but OP I'd let the 3 year old sleep with you as long as they want to. Nothing beats a good nights sleep for you and the 3 year old. Maybe declutter the spare room ? Sleep is so important imho. I struggled with dd to force her in her own bed and it was horrible. When ds came I just said he could sleep
Where he wanted. And he didn't stay in the bed forever 🤣

Another cosleeping family here. We put the little ones in their own bed to start off but they drift over to us during the night, and they are quite welcome to do so.

OP states her 3 year old won't sleep for more than a couple hours in their own bed, but I'm wondering what the adults are doing that might take more than two hours! I'd be done and dusted and back doom scrolling on Mumsnet by that time, so would consider that ample time.

I didn’t say anything about it being right nor did I say a word about rape?

that’s your words. Not mine.

YABU. A happy marriage is in the long term interests of your children. They need to learn to sleep in their own rooms. Co-sleeping is often used as a sex avoidance strategy.

Thought I was going to be in the minority but I’m not!

My children have never spent a night in my bed. Ever. I like sex, I like the boundary.

When they have been unwell I have slept on their floor or bunk bed depending on where we lived (we moved into a bigger house when they were young).

If my husband kept fobbing me off and had our kids in the bed I wouldn’t have been impressed. I don’t want that. My kids are certainly beyond that now.

Totally agree with your husband. For the sake of your marriage get your kid in its own bed, where they belong.

Isn’t it interesting how this has become a co-sleeping vs not debate. The two are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of families co-sleep while having multiple children, therefore intimacy is possible.

The only reason it’s not possible in this house is because Dad is saying sex is only available on his terms, regardless of the feelings of Mum and child, or quite frankly their well-being (many
of us know what exhaustion does to you).

Yes Mum and child could move to another room. But still not remotely attractive to be held to ransom like this and it would be that that was killing my marriage, not the co-sleeping!

Um, no.

Where does the OP say that she wants to have sex in the bed with their toddler? She says she’s suggested other places but DH has said no, he’ll only do it in their bed.

Why not give your LO the spare double bed? You can help him get settled in there, sneak back to your bedroom for some adult time and then go back to LO for the rest of the night. We did something similar when my youngest was little, although he'd be in a cot in his room until the first wake and then I'd bring him into the double bed in the same room and spend the rest of the night with him there.

YABU. 3 yr old needs to sleep in own bed, I agree with yr DH. I wouldn't feel comfortable having sex with young child in the bed 😐

Quite surprised at the venom of people suggesting cosleeping is the root of evil. We didn't ever co sleep until about 22m, and we don't often (DC has own room and own bed) for lots of reasons, but if you have a child that's not sleeping it's considered developmentally appropriate to cosleep if that's your wish.

Not sure which ark the anti-co sleepers jumped off.

However, back to the OP, DH seems a little fixed and unimaginative, my DH would have sex wherever it's possible, and never stops making suggestions of possible locations (is this a reverse maybe?). Perhaps you should be cosleeping in the spare room and joining him in bed for sex when the mood takes?