Co-sleeping Piggy Back: How Do You Have "Adult" Time?

Well, the funny thing is... Sex doesn't HAVE to happen in the bed...

We either moved DD to her crib, or did the deed elsewhere.

We did not/do not cosleep. I remember being at a friend's house and she was talking about cosleeping. They had 1 king bed & 2 kids. No other bed in house. As she telling me how awesome it is, I can't help but think they must have sex all the time on the couch I'm sitting on....

Well, who says sex can only be had in bed? At night?

:)

Easy. The babies always started the evening in their own bed. The co sleeping didn't begin (for us anyway) until baby woke up for the first feeding, at which point baby would come to bed with us (no way was I getting up out of my warm bed several times a night.) So we always had at least a few hours to ourselves to talk, watch TV, read and have sex :-) It was a win win all around for us!

On behalf of cosleepers everywhere, I have to say that Ronda's experience was definitely NOT the norm. If kids are in our bed, the bed was for sleeping.

We coslept with my kids both until they were around 2, and there were always plenty of opportunities outside of the bedroom for adult time (guest room, shower, date night, and others).

That part of co sleeping actually was fun for us. It kind of made it seem like we were teenagers sneaking around (sorry if TMI).

We co-slept with the kids when they were babies/toddlers. They had cribs/beds in their own rooms and usually would start the night there (because we went to bed hours after they did, they'd fall asleep after nursing and I'd pop them in the crib/toddler bed). If we wanted some "adult" time, we'd fool around during that time and by the time we were ready for bed, the little one would be awake again and that's when we'd go to bed together for the night.

And as others will chime in...there are other places in the house to be intimate than the bedroom...shower, couch, living room floor...I'm sure you get the gist ;-)

We never had trouble finding other places for adult time. Why does it have to be limited to our bed or even our bedroom?

I've been with my husband for over 20 years, we have plenty of time. He hates sleeping with me because he says I snore too loud and gets a little ugly (with his words) when I wake him up. Plus I'm a cuddler and he's not. So I enjoy sleeping with my kids. When we want to have adult time and we do have it at night in the other room that he sleeps in, but more so we do it all over the house, any time of the day we feel like it. Sometimes it's a morning thing, sometime an afternoon thing, just when one or both of us are in the mood. To be honest, I need my sleep, I get up early and my husband goes to bed very late, I usually wake him up in the morning if I need too. Plus we've been together for so long, that we don't need it every night. We average 2-3 times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less.

I do understand at some point, besides not looking right for a mother to sleep with her son, I'll have to stop. I see my kiddos as my babies, I sometimes forget how big they really are. I figured probably this or next year I'll be sleeping without my son, which he too, loves sleeping with his momma.

It has never even occurred to me to have "adult activities" when my kids are in the room/bed, even asleep. As others have said, that's just a major mood killer even aside from the ick factor.
Frankly, even before we had kids there were hardly ever adult activities right before going to sleep, so the timing has never been a problem for us. I concur that sneaking around can be kind of fun :) I am willing to bet that Netflix is to thank for many a sibling in this generation!

I hear this question a lot when I tell people we co-slept with our kids. I agree with the others, we had/have sex way more places than in the bed. How boring to think it can only happen there.

And, you know, we knew it was temporary. We moved them out, each at age 3, but there were babies in the bed for like 10 years. It wasn't like they'd be there into their teen years. Just like not having sex during my fourth pregnancy and beyond...for about 9 months from the middle of the pregnancy I did not want to be touched. We found ways to be intimate without stressing me out (I tandem nursed for a year after the last one was born), and not once did we think it was bad for our marriage, it just was what it was - a temporary situation. No big deal. I find your question amusing, actually. It was such a non-issue for us.

ETA...
For those that are wondering if we were worried if the kids would walk in on us, no we weren't. We could hear them if they woke up, and our bedroom door has never had a lock on it. I don't lock my kids out of my room, they know to knock. And yeah, sleep was the main priority during those years, I hardly felt like having sex at all, so it was unusual for us to sneak off during the night. Usually we sent the kids to their grandparents' if we wanted alone time like that.

Oh, thank you for asking this. I'd like to hear from more people like Ronda who have been the kids in this arrangement. I don't get it.

Thank you for being brave enough to ask this, I have ALWAYS wondered!

I nannied (nanny'd?) in college for a very "attachment parenting" style mom. It was the first time I'd seen a baby that had no bed. Mom would nurse him to sleep then give him to me to hold while she went and ran errands or work upstairs or whatever she would do. I would doze off right there with him because I was often hungover in college (haha). Easiest money out of the three jobs I held in college. That's also why I would nap with him, I had 3 jobs at once plus school... Anyway he never had a bed until he turned 3 and they transitioned him straight into a twin a bed. I was surprised how "no big deal" it seemed to the kid.

Anyway, I always did wonder how the heck the parents ever got it on. They had two other kids roaming around the house too, it's not like there were THAT many other places to go.

I hope parents who co-sleep will rethink this. I was a co-sleeper with my parents...I have memories that I wish I did not have...

Just a side note....
For the ones saying "why does it have to be in bed?"
Because if it's NOT behind a locked door then the chances of your child walking in on your husband and you in a position they NEVER want to see is much higher!!
And then you will be on mamapedia asking "what should I do?! My child walked in on my husband and I!"
Hey....if moms and dads feel comfortable getting it on when their baby is in bed with them or in the living room, or shoot...on the dining room table...more power to ya!
But me? It's all much more comfortable in my room, behind a LOCKED door.
L.

I only co-slept for the first six months when the babies were still waking up to feed at night. They went to bed in their cribs at bedtime, and that is when my husband and I had alone time. They didn't come to our bed until they woke up for a night feeding and then they would stay with us for the rest of the night. I must say though, that before my babies were sleeping through the night in their own beds, "sexy time" wasn't a huge priority for me! "Sleep time" was way more important!

My oldest loved bob the builder. So me and hubby usually had a "special" time to put on that DVD. New crayons and paper "at the table down stairs", DVR their favorite show, etc. Our bathroom sink has needed to be fixed by mommy and daddy multiple times in the six years we've lived here.....

Ronda, Wouldn't it be nice if the Mr. Clean magic erasers worked on memories too? LOL

I sleep in the middle. My son goes to sleep first. It doesn't take much; we're not swinging from the curtain rods.

We cosleep and love it. Sex does not just have to be at night. We can also get up after the kids are asleep and have adult time in another bedroom in the house and then go back to our cosleeping bed. Co-sleeping is awesome and safer. When my daughter got a fever of 103.5, I was able to wake up and treat her before it climbed higher or ended in something bad like a seizure. The only clue that she was sick, was a very low whimper she made that would have been too low to pick up with a baby monitor. She had no sign of illness when she went to bed that night. Everyone is different and every family has a different need. My parents cosleep with me and I am fine.