Sex After Children: What Changes and How to Get Back to Mind-Blowing Sex

May 15

Written By Dr. Zairys Feliz, Ph.D., LCSW

Your doctor may clear you to have sex as soon as six weeks after giving birth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll want to. In fact, having children of any age can affect your sex life. Your physical, emotional, and mental states are different after having kids, all of which play into your sex drive.

Still, sex is a critical part of a romantic relationship. It strengthens the bond between yourself and your partner and helps fulfill the needs of both parties. So how do you get back to your regular sex lives when enjoying sex feels impossible? Read on for my best tips as a trained sex therapist.

What Changes After Having Children?

Having a child leads to major changes for both partners, which can ultimately affect your sex life. First, for the mother who birthed the child, there are a number of bodily changes to account for. That includes:

● Vaginal changes, including physical recovery and dryness

● Weight gain

● Growing foot size

● Dental problems, including losing teeth, enlarged gums, and bleeding gums

● Growing, shrinking, and sagging breasts

● Stretch marks

● Hair loss

● Varicose veins and hemorrhoids

As the birth parent deals with these changes, they may not feel as sexy as they once did. While they feed and care for the baby, they may also start to feel like their body is not their own. For some women, this carries over into sex - they’re already giving so much of their body to the baby that “giving” their body to their partner feels even less appealing.

Parents also go through a range of hormonal and emotional changes. Up to 80% of new parents experience the baby blues, which can last for two days or two weeks after having the baby. For about 15% of women, the baby blues may actually be postpartum depression, which leads to mood swings and feelings of shame, guilt, panic, fear, and sadness.

As a new parent, you must also function on limited sleep and time. You’re up at all hours caring for the baby. The time you once spent socializing and relaxing is now replaced with caring for the baby, which means you likely feel less at ease.

Of course, you face additional challenges as the baby grows up. That means that months and years after having a baby, your sex life will still be different than when you were childless. You may deal with financial issues as one parent stays home to care for the baby. You may have conflicting ideas and disagreements on how to parent.

Having a child also turns your partnership into a triad. Partners may feel sidelined as the birthing parent focuses on the child. Mothers may feel like they aren’t getting enough support from their partners. Any imbalance in responsibilities can impact your connection with your partner.

Reviving Your Sex Life After Children

Understanding the changes you and your partner are going through can help you be more compassionate toward each other during this time. However, it’s important not to use these changes as an excuse to avoid intimacy and sex after kids. The longer you wait, the more difficult resuming intimacy will feel.

Still, no matter how long you’ve had kids, it’s never too late to start working on reconnecting with your partner. You can use the following tips regardless of where you’re at in your journey.

Start Slow

It can be helpful to take things slow as you reestablish your intimate connection. Hold hands, cuddle, spoon, kiss, and make out. All of these activities once helped you create a physical bond with your partner. It’s okay to start there again rather than jumping into sex immediately.

If you’re feeling stressed out about sex, you may feel like just kissing is dangerous as that leads to sex. In these cases, it can be helpful to take sex off the table entirely for a set amount of time. This can allow you to really lose yourself in the moment and enjoy just connecting with your partner in other ways without worrying about what expectations your partner has. Over time, as you build desire, you can reintroduce sex.

It’s also worth noting that you may spend all of your time together caring for your children. If this is the case, you’ll need to remind yourselves what you once did to connect. What activities did you once do together that strengthened your bond? Aim to include more of those.

Use Your Desire Type to Your Advantage

People typically tend to have spontaneous or responsive sex. In other words, you either have a random thought that gets you in the mood (like getting turned on when you randomly think about that one time you and your partner had amazing vacation sex) or you need sexual stimulus (like kissing and touching) to feel desire.

Once you know how you get aroused, you can use that knowledge to your advantage. If you need sexual stimulus, you can share that with your partner and plan how (and even when) to create those moments. If you’re a spontaneous person, you might create a list of memories and thoughts that get you in the mood. All the while, you’ll need to consider your partner’s desire type and work together to get there.

Consider Your Barriers to Sex

You may have negative feelings toward your partner’s sexual needs, like finding their advances annoying or inconvenient. In this case, you’ll likely find that your own basic needs aren’t being met, leading to resentment against your partner.

Ask yourself what self-care is necessary for you to even consider sex again. Do you need time away from the baby to get outside, exercise, journal, read, sleep, or bathe? At the same time, take stock of the mental and physical workload in your home. If there’s an imbalance between you and your partner, it’s time to have a conversation and find ways to even it out. Don’t forget to lean on friends and family for support during this time.

Remember Your Turn-Ons

Ask yourself what got you in the mood before you had kids. Get a pen and paper and make a list - what about your partner turned you on? What was your environment like? Who initiated? How did they initiate? What happened during the sexual encounter that you loved?

Once you have this list, consider how you can recreate this now. You might have to adjust around your child, but you can likely bring many of these factors back to life. In fact, just reminiscing with your partner about your favorite sexual memories can help you get things going again.

Communication Is Key

Talking to your partner throughout this process is critical. You must be comfortable enough with your partner to tell them if you need more foreplay, a different type of initiation, a gentler touch, verbal encouragement, and so on. If sex hurts after giving birth, you should feel at liberty to tell your partner. Likewise, your partner may be concerned about hurting you - you must keep communication open to ensure both parties feel safe.

Not sure how to communicate about sex after kids with your partner? Consider sex therapy, whether on your own or as a couple. Sitting down with a third party can help you set goals, explore your sexual history, work through negative sexual associations, and take affirmative action - all in a safe, judgment-free space. You can get started with a free consultation here.

Resources:

Dr. Zairys Feliz, Ph.D., LCSW is a clinical psychotherapist. Zairys provides individual, couples and sex therapy using evidence-based approaches. She specializes in treating individuals and couples who have relationship or sexual concerns. Read full bio

Dr. Zairys Feliz, Ph.D., LCSW http://www.bloomtherapy.online