Sex Survey

[Nothorny]

I'll try to put this in a nutshell. DH is worried that everyone else out there is having loads of sex after having had a baby and that we are "abnormal". DS is six months old, first child. I know all the reasons as to why we are not having sex and am confident we shall pick up again soon, once the breast feeding has stopped, we get more people to help us and therefore have more time, are less tired, etc etc you know the score.

ANYWAY, could you lot please just let my poor old dh know when you started having sex again and how often (roughly!)say for the first year. I am sure we are not alone in our sexual desert but it would reassure dh greatly if he heard it from all your horses' mouths. Thank you so much. Of course, all you amazing people who bonk five times a week and have done since a week after the birth, do let us know too. Thanks. Oh I've used a different pseudonym BTW.

SimonHoward; its all very well being an honest and open bloke, but if I was Marie 'dw of Simon Howard', believe me, you wouldnt be having ANY nookie after revealing sex life and personal details quite so openly. I imagine she has absolutely no idea you've done this.

Poor woman.

Ems, do you think the dhs of those of us who have added our 2pworth to this thread should go on sex strike too? Plenty of postings are just as intimate as SimonHoward's! I think it's great that he's asking other anonymous women for help rather than starting to look elsewhere...

Angharad, he can say or do what he likes, but no where else has anyone put their full name or their partners full name and then discussed very intimate details.

Im thinking of the view of a horrified wife; if I had 3 month old baby, fell upon this site for information, support etc, and saw my name - my FULL NAME - on this thread, and what my husband had written,... my god!

I would be mortified, I think there is a reason for instances such as this, for usernames and confidentiality. (and perhaps a bit of commonsense and loyalty towards ones partner).

There are many regulars on this particular thread who have even felt they had to change their everyday usernames.

Perhaps you didnt understand the point I was making Angharad.

No Ems, I didn't get your point-sorry. To be honest I thought the Howard was a middle name!

As Simon is a new poster, perhaps he didn't realise that you shouldn't use your real name?

If you read further down he doesnt believe in changing his name, Jasper suggested yesterday he might want to.

Ladies

Sorry if I have offended anyones sensibilities by using my real name but I'm used to posting on boards where being identified is not a problem.

As to my wife being horrified, I don't think she would be that at all. She might be annoyed that I couldn't come up with all the answers myself but I'd like to think that, as someone said earlier, me seeking advice here rather than look elsewhere would be a more than acceptable option.

On top of that we both try to be as open as possible at all times, we have both discussed things like this before with friends and relatives but it can be difficult, especially when none of them have had the same sort of problem.

Here I can ask and get help from people that I may never know who they are, but who may be sitting only feet away in real life or they may be on another continent.

I don't mind people knowing my name but if it is going to cause problems I will try to be a bit more discreet. That may be hard though as I seem to be the only man posting here.

I haven't got anything against vibrators, I just can't imagine ever using one, or wanting to.

I was just curious to see if many people did.

As for recommending I get one, well like I said, my problem is that I feel absolutely no desire for sex, be it with dh or by myself w. vibrator, so advising me to get a vibrator ... well, it's a bit like advising an annorexic to go and buy a big cream cake, or telling a bloke who hates doing housework that buying a new iron would solve his problems. (Please don't get on high horses about stupid stereotypes - just a jokey ananlogy). God I'm in a bad mood today, sorry everyone.

Ems, I agree totally.

Simonhoward you say this is your real name, and you give the christian name of your wife. When you log on here it is so apparent that you nneed to choose a nickname. I assume you made a deliberate choice not to.

Apologies if you really are someone else and are keeping your identity secret.

Asuming that this is not the case - having given your real name, you then discuss your relationship in intimate detail. If I was your wife, I would be speechless with anger. Sex? forget it!

Simon and Marie Howard, its up to you, if don't mind being identified. Shame your wife won't ever be able to log onto mumsnet in the future however. And you might want to warn Justine and Carrie that you'd rather not use your name in the Mumsnet book!

Simon, I've just seen your message. For your information, men have posted here from time to time (I assume they are men) and none have felt the need to use their full name.

Simon, I've just seen your message. For your information, men have posted here from time to time (I assume they are men) and none have felt the need to use their full name.

On a positive note my dw loved the flowers that have just turned up for her.

My appologies to anyone that I have offended by being so open (it wouldn't be the first time I have done this, and it probably won't be the last).

I will stop posting under my real name and try to come up a good nickname.

Leave the porr blokey alone!! How many Simon Howards are there in the world? Even the best thought out nicknames are probably completely identifiable by one's nearest & dearest if they make it as far as mumsnet - I know that my dh would work it out in seconds and I can't imagine that I'm the only mother in the country with a child called Harry!

Yeah, lay off him! Poor bloke comes on here for a bit of advice and ends up getting ripped to shreds for his lack of discretion! My dh knows what my nickname is on here and my sister and best friend use this site and know my nickname too, so I'm hardly anonymous myself! If his wife ever wanted to join Mumsnet, she could use a nickname and none of us would be the wiser.

I do hope that you carry on posting Simon and not be put off by the comments on here. It is nice to have men's opinions too and I just wish that my bloke had done something like this, it might have saved us months of tension and I wouldn't have given 2 hoots if he had used his real name. At least I would have known that he cared enough to ask advice and then to act upon it! I'm glad she liked the flowers. Keep on treating her like a princess and she'll soon come round. You've got to make them feel sexy in order for them to be sexy. You're doing good so far!

Crikey tigermoth, that's an extremist posting from you!

No it wasn't, sml, the lovely tigermoth still managed to get in an apology before stating her case!

To all those who commented re b/feeding & fertility. I was never suggesting that one should totally rely upon it as a safe form of contraception. However it is used world wide in order to space babies naturally (see www.nd.edu/~mmeineke/kelly/lam/lam.html for a whole host of info and resources). The stats show that most women don't have a period for about 6 months. However there are always exceptions to this and obviously we are going to hear from those women on a discussion like this. I have a friend who returned to work and only b/fed part time but her periods still didn't return till a year later so it works both ways. Also research has shown that people's definition of breastfeeding varies widely. I am not suggesting that of those who have written here but some who b/feed may have given a dummy or a bottle - even one bottle could make the difference for some women. I have another friend who breastfed but she only did from one breast and her periods returned very quickly.

Fertility varies widely but as I say the average is around 6 months of no periods. As I said before it is complex and here is some more info if anyone is interested ...

Suckling by the baby causes the mother's pituitary to release prolactin. It used to be thought that prolactin directly affected ovulation/fertility, but new research suggests that there is another hormone intermediate between prolactin and the ovaries. So that high levels of prolactin lead to either high or low levels of this other factor, which then affects fertility. Fertility is not an "either/or" sort of phenomenon. Post-partum, a woman does not ovulate for a while, even if she isn't breastfeeding. If she is breastfeeding frequently enough to keep her prolactin levels above her individual critical threshhold for fertility (and women vary in this threshhold) then her fertility is suppressed.

The greatest level of suppression is not ovulating, but as your prolactin levels go up, your fertility will gradually return. First you will ovulate, but not have the proper hormone levels for fertilization; then you will ovulate and fertilization may occur, but you still may not have the proper hormone levels for implantation; finally, you may ovulate, be fertilized, and implant, but not have the proper hormone levels for continuing the pregnancy, so you have a very early miscarriage, probably along the lines of minutes or hours after implantation, so you wouldn't know you had been pregnant. It is also possible to ovulate without having the right hormonal levels in the right combinations for the uterus to have been preparing for implantation, so yes, it is possible to ovulate without menstruating. For all of these stages, there seems to be incredible individual variation between women. Some women get pregnant again the first time they ovulate, with no intervening menstrual periods.

My DH doesn't know my user-name either, he's usually doing something else while I am on the computer (evenings) or is at work. I wish more men contributed here although the site is called 'Mumsnet' it really is intended for parents in general.

I'm starting to get paranoid now, what with dodgy neighbours (see other thread), breastfed on demand until 7 months and periods returned after 3 months. Does this mean that I didn't feed ds enough, even though I spent months on the sofa thinking I was doing the best for my baby at the time?!By the way, Simon, I think you are doing great, whatever you call yourself, hang in there!

Simonhoward, you call yourself whatever you damn well like mate and good for you for asking for advice and for making such a big effort with your wife. She's a lucky woman and who knows, when she's back in the mood, she might go through one of her experimental phases again. Sounds v. interesting, I'm deeply intrigued! Take care.