If you are the father of small children and still getting your rocks off with their mother willy, er, nilly, then hurrah for you, stud muffin! This article is not for you.
Neither is it for you if you and/or your partner and/or your relationship don’t conform to any sort of stereotype. Excellent work – go read something else.
However, I’m **pretty** sure there are many men out there who are are to a greater or lesser degree lamenting the loss of their pre-kid love life, bemoaning the hoo-hoo halt, or mourning the curtailment of their tail action. If this is you, please read on!
I feel your pain, boys, I really do. (Or at least I think that’s what’s digging into my hip).
The stark truth is that if you have a mum-on-the edge in your life – it doesn’t mean she’s going to push back harder. She may even be pushing you away harder instead.
There. I’ve said it.
For most of us, post-kid sex is not the same as pre-kid sex, and it’s high time we talked about it. In a grand sweeping generalisation, men need sex to feel love, and women need love to feel like having sex. There is nothing as upsetting to this delicate balance than the horror/magic of childbirth, followed by magic/horror of child-rearing.
So I’m going to attempt to help get us going (ooo, er missus) with a step-by-step hump-guide for Dads. Here’s how to get it ON this summer, when frankly she’s rather gone OFF the whole canoodling caboodle…
- Give it some time
Here’s the thing – brace yourselves. Your favourite squelchy love tunnel will never be quite the same again. Fact. It may return to something approaching what you (and your best trouser pal) remember, but it will take some time. (Having witnessed it pop out a human being you may not feel the same way about IT for some time, too.)
And it isn’t necessarily just the physical stuff. Yes there’s tearing and stitches, and prolapses etc. (Hell I didn’t even use my lady bits to expel my small people, and it still hurt like a womble-flommer when I used it again – FOR MONTHS. Something about swelling, and muscles, and the downward pressure of pregnancy, yada yada).
Any hoo, sometimes it takes the lady folk a little while to feel the same way about the ol’ vag, too, once it’s had a baby-battering. It is no longer the shiny pink playground it was before – physically or metaphorically. Be patient.
And wank.
2. Give it a rest
Pestering, or continually pointing out how long it’s been seen you last got some, is not sexy. Letting her know you’re counting the days, weeks or months since you last danced the filthy fandango is going to do nothing but pile the pressure on and stop any and all juices flowing.
Never, ever, EVER mention your ‘needs’.
This will result in injury; followed by more abstinence.
- Lower your expectations
I have heard of women high on the oxytocin of birth and bonding getting the horn, but I’m going to go out on another limb here and tell you that it’s an exception rather than a hard and fast rule. No hard and fast for you. Down boy.
Basically after you’ve been expecting, you’re best off not expecting anything about your sex life.
You may have to settle for a nice cuddle.
When things do get back up and running, you’ll pretty likely have to settle for perfunctory missionary that gets everyone’s rocks off without the trouble of getting their socks off. Wham, bam, thank you Mam(ma).
If you were once into kamasutra marathons and tantric sexathons, forget it. If you once prided yourself on your stamina, get over it. No one has the time and energy for that kind of b*llocks, now. I don’t care if you ARE both floating sky high on the lurve hormones, the fancy stuff is going to have to wait until everyone is a little less exhausted and the smallest of the people learn how to actually sleep for several fricking hours in a row.
Get each other off and get to bloody sleep.
- Beware of boobs
These may no longer be your personal fun bags, fellas. Sorry. They may be sore, bleeding, blocked; she may be sick of everyone constantly hanging off them, she may mutter darkly about ‘interfering with supply’, and she’s probably going to view them more as udders than erogenous zones – at least at first.
Even if the boobies in your life have not been called into active service for your new small people, don’t assume they’re still fair game. Ask. This is generally good advice in most situations. Yes you’ve known each other’s intimate territory intimately and possibly for some time – but this is a brand new, brave new world. Explore it carefully. (Not least because they may squirt you in the fact once the oxytocin DOES start flowing. Be warned).
- Foreplay has changed
Yip, it is no longer enough to just point at the front of your trousers and waggle your eyebrows. You’re going to have to raise your game, lads!
Remember though, foreplay no longer involves things like massages, snogging, dry humping and oral exploration. Basically it now involves doing the washing up.
Look, you’ve got to cut through all the other crap going on in her head (and life) to get sexy time moved up (or onto) the agenda.
If she’s thinking about getting the tea sorted, remembering to add nappies to the shopping list, steralising the next set of bottles, sticking the muslins in the washing machine, pondering whether she ought to be taking the baby to the Doctors for that cough, wondering if she ought to take the beef out of the freezer, if the homework’s all been done, getting more of the dried food the cat likes, ordering that repeat prescription, mentally composing that work email, thinking about texting her mum back later, trying to recall whether it’s another non-uniform day at school, what time playgroup is on, whether anyone has any clean pants for the next day, etc etc etc etc, she’s not thinking about sex.
Yes, all of this stuff is going through her mind. Yes, at all times.
If you help cut down this To Do list, you’re in with a far, far better chance of getting down and dirty.
Strap on those marigolds, cowboy, and put a bit of bleach down the toilets while you’re at it. (Nothing sexier than a clean bowl).
- Empathise
The true key to a better sex life this summer is empathy. Suck it up, and you might even get sucked off. It might not even be your birthday!!!! It’s gotta be worth a try, right?
You’re going to have to listen to some of that crap running through her head. And most crucially, you’re going to have to resist giving her solutions. Yes, yes, I know you don’t get it. Just trust me on this. Go with sympathetic validation of her feelings unless SPECIFICALLY asked to express an opinion.
Nope.
Nuh uh.
Not even then.
Just do it. Your boom stick (and more importantly your spouse) will thank you for it.
- Get inventive
It is likely that your pre-partum sex timetable has been significantly disrupted by the baby’s schedule. Lazy morning sex is out, and by the time you actually get to bed no one feels like it anymore. That’s why nap times are now your new best friend! Think outside the box to get into the box!
This goes for the where as well as the when. You may have small interlopers in your actual bed, where it was traditionally sort of convenient to get horizontal. Time to repurpose the sofa/change table/cot the baby never actually bloody sleeps in anyway.
- Romance has changed
She doesn’t want flowers and for you tell her how pretty her dress is. She wants a tumble dryer, and for you to tell her the body she no longer recognises – with one with the jelly belly and stretch marks that hasn’t been out of a dressing gown for three months – isn’t completely repulsive to you.
Don’t tell her she’s sexy – tell her she’s doing an amazing job of parenting your children. Don’t tell her she’s gorgeous – tell her that you’re proud of her. That you don’t know how she does it. Tell her you love how she loves your babies. That she’s the best mum you’ve ever seen. That she made and nurtured something so ridiculously beautiful and perfect. That seeing her with your children in her arms hurts your heart and makes you love her bigger and deeper than you knew you could. Tell her that motherhood has made her more beautiful to you than ever.
That sh*t is bound to get you into her mat-pants.
Good luck out there Dads!
You can do it.
And her. 😉
Mumonthenetheredge
Mumonthenetheredge 