Sex After Baby: Doing the Dirty



Sex after baby will not be one of your top priorities

Once you have given birth you will start suffering from amnesia. If your husband asks you about having sex it will be like you have no idea what he is talking about. "Sex, what's that again?" you will murmur as he tries to manhandle your breast. Truth be told some of you may be having sex a few days after birth but we're assuming you have either round the clock nanny care and/or are a figment of men's imaginations. For the rest of us sex will be off the agenda for the foreseeable future due to feeling tired, feeling like a milk cow and generally not feeling like it. The downside is your husband will want to resume sexual relations as soon as possible and you'll start coming up with all sorts of crazy excuses to avoid sex such as these:

Excuse 1: "My Scar’s Still Too Sore"

Answer: If you had a Caesarean, chances are it might still be bothering you a bit, but is that any excuse not to give sex a whirl? All you have to do is try a position that doesn’t rub against your scar. Don’t be too ambitious though or you might do yourself an injury. For example, ‘the Wheelbarrow’ position is murder on your arms, or so we’ve heard. Also ‘the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ position can end up giving you or your husband pretty bad carpet burn, depending on who’s being the tiger and who’s being the dragon of course.

Excuse 2: "Won’t I Take His Eye Out?"

Answer: Chances are, if you are nursing you might very well squirt your husband during sex. If you really are too self-conscious about this then by all means don a bra. But we’re pretty sure hubby won’t mind that your breasts have turned into a couple of water pistols (or should that be milk pistols?). In fact, since most men love cowboy films and breasts, this may turn out to be his ultimate fantasy, a buxom cowgirl letting it rip with both barrels, so to speak. 

Excuse 3: "The Clock’s Against Us!"

Answer: If your husband’s been doing the ultimate foreplay - which as you'll find out in Cocktails at Naptime is housework with plenty of elbow grease – and you’re looking anxiously at the clock and wondering if he really does have time to take off his rubber gloves and give you a good going over before Junior wants another feed, then fret no more. Vibrators, God bless them, are the sexual equivalent to microwaves, and will help you be done in a jiffy. Incorporating them into your lovemaking will help to speedily conclude the act so that you are one happily satisfied woman before once again taking up the reins again as Feeder of the Babe Who is Insatiable.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. Maybe you're a new mum who hasn't yet gotten back into the saddle so to speak. Let's call a spade a spade here, at some point you will have to hold up the white flag and yell "Surrender!" so make it now, make it tonight. Maybe you're simply scared about what sex after baby will be like. Well fear not, this is how it's going to be.

The Caveman Cometh or What Will It Really Be Like?

The first time you attempt to have sex post-birth will most likely remind you of a cave trip you took at school where you invariably got lost. Except that this time of course, you're the cave and the explorer is your hapless husband's penis, a caveman lost in the limitless caverns of your vaginal walls (skip this bit if you've been frantically Kegelling as soon as Junior was born, we were too tired to get dressed or even to mop baby vomit off the sofa to Kegel).

As your husband prepares to fire his arrow into your cave, there will invariable be something a little nerve wracking about the act, your husband tentatively exploring your post-partum vagina as if he were scared it were going to do something unexpected - like letting off an air bag. The act itself probably won't be great or even good and you may wonder if you're feeling any sexual sensations at all or whether you just have an urgent need to pee. But whatever happens, watch his face carefully for signs of progress. And whatever you do, don't say those immortal words "Is it in yet?" He'll be shrivelled down to the size of a worm before you can say, "Can we just hurry it up a bit love, Junior's wailing for his next feed."

But on the upside you'll have got it over with.

So, what was first time sex after giving birth for you or should I really not ask?