Tips for great sex

Once you've had children, it can be hard to find time or the privacy to fit in your sex life. Here are our tips on how to keep your sex life going after having children. 

• Don’t feel selfish to want a life of your own – or a love life – once a baby is on the scene.

• Strengthening your relationship will benefit the whole family and your children – it’s not just for you. Children are happier when their parents have a strong physical and emotional relationship.

• Be honest with each other about difficulties you are finding with the new baby or the children. Don’t feel you have to ‘know it all’.

• Talking together and admitting what you are finding difficult eases resentment and will in turn directly benefit your sex life by improving your feelings for each other.

• Think about sex in a different way: it doesn’t have to be penetrative sex. Try touching, cuddling, holding each other. It’s never too much effort to have a cuddle. When you are being tender with each other, sex is more likely to be on the agenda.

• If tiredness is the problem, get a friend or relative to have the baby for a while so you can have some alone together – even if it’s only to have a cuddle in bed!

• Whatever age your children, plan time in each week you can be alone together. Remember, in the early days, babies can accept other people looking after them without too much fuss.

• Start gradually: hand-holding, hugs and kisses.

• Ban sex for a while: allow yourselves to hold hands, talk together, cuddle. Gradually build up the intimacy but don’t go as far as full sex.

• If you’re a single parent, don’t feel you have no right to a sex life because it’s more complicated to organize. While it’s true your children could be unsettled by meeting too many new partners, and it’s best to keep your sex life away from home at first, you can do this with the help of family or friends. Ask them to have your children while you establish your relationship away from home.

• Parents of teenagers: your teens will probably be keeping longer hours than you and you may worry about never having privacy. If you have room, try to make your bedroom more of a sitting room – so you can have a ‘private space’ together.

• Make it a priority in your life to think about time when you can be on your own.

• Plan weekends when you can send them off to stay with family or friends – or plan a getaway of your own, maybe to stay with relatives if money is tight.