Awkward…(Picture: Dave Anderson for Metro.co.uk)

When I first thought of writing about sex after children, my initial response was, ‘Ha! What sex?’

But I was exaggerating. Of course, my husband and I still have sex, but we don’t have as much time or energy for that sort of thing since the kids.

Spontaneous quickies are rare. These days, we have to plan it and even put it in our shared calendar.

Gone are the halcyon days of all-night shag-fests, and weekend lie-ins until noon with a brief pause for a full English and a leisurely browse through the Sunday papers before going back to the woopie.




These days, it’s rare that I don’t fall asleep while putting the kids to bed at eight, but if and when I am awake there’s the distraction of TV. The quality of box-sets on Netflix has improved considerably – Billions and Gomorrah are arguably better than sex, anyway – so the problem is multifaceted.

Sex while pregnant is an interesting challenge. Personally, I was throwing up or thinking about throwing up for the whole of the first trimester.

Sex was the last thing on my mind for the first three months of both pregnancies. It was sex’s fault that I felt this s*** so, in a way, I resented it.

During the second trimester many women ‘glow’. I didn’t, I mostly slept, but this is the stage when you’re most likely to have sex because, hopefully, the woman isn’t vomiting and the baby isn’t yet so big that you feel like you’re having the wrong kind of threesome.

During the third trimester, women’s hormones do crazy things. This can often lead to the woman having a higher libido than usual.

This was great for me as I was inspired to write my bonkbuster novel, but it’s one of nature’s great ironies. You are the horniest you have ever been, but have the dexterity of a double-decker and can often feel the baby’s head pushing down in your pelvis – this is very f***ing weird.

At this late stage, men are afraid that they will poke the baby’s eye out if they enter you.

Yet one of the recommended ways to induce labour is to have sex. If, like me, your baby is ever two weeks overdue, you’ll find it is the only time in life when sex is medically prescribed and you will beg your man for a shag. He will flatly refuse.

Sex immediately after having children is a unique kind of hell.

I’ll spare you all the gory details, but suffice to say that, after the first baby, my husband referred to my vagina as ‘Ground Zero’.

I no longer had two holes, but one epic superhole, thanks to an episiotomy and third-grade tear. No sooner had I got over this – about five years later – the second baby came along and it was f***ed again.

Boobs do frightening things like leak milk. They are practical, not hot

They say that for men, watching your wife give birth is like watching your favourite pub burn down. My husband says it’s worse. The experience put him off ‘pubs’ for life and the mere mention of a pint now makes him turn pale.



But I can’t complain. I am one of the lucky ones. I can still run, laugh and sneeze without peeing myself and everything is fine down there now. Thank you for asking.

Then there are the boobs.

Boobs are unequivocally a man’s favourite toys and normally one of the stars of sex. Not so after having a baby.

They may be the biggest they’ve ever been. You may have ginormous Katie Price-sized watermelons attached to your chest, but your man will recoil from them in fear as though they belonged to an alien in a Ridley Scott movie.

They are no longer his domain, but the property of the baby. They do frightening things like leak milk. They are practical, not hot.

Still, there are reckless moments at the weekends when we try to have sex in the middle of the day.

Overcome with passion or, more likely, pushed by abstinence, and naively believing that our daughter is downstairs engrossed by Paw Patrol, we assume we have a generous window of five to ten minutes to exercise our lust.

‘Finally asleep, shall we…?’ ‘Not now dear, it’s 3am’ (Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Every single time, however, a child will barge into the bedroom just before we climax.

She’ll invariably be riding a plastic lorry and doing her own loud sound effects in the manner of a fire engine. She’ll drive the lorry onto the bed and the hastily pulled-up duvet and meet us by the pillows.

Needless to say, all shagging will cease and the sexy mood will be gone.


On the lucky occasions both kids are asleep and we do finally get down to it – silently so as not to wake them and with one eye on the bedroom door – we regularly find that one of the cats has come to cheer us on.

We’ll collapse, aglow in our private ecstasy only to discover kitty sitting on the end of the bed. She’ll be there, staring without blinking.

It wouldn’t be quite so unsettling if the cat didn’t then proceed to lick herself out in front of us. I have no idea if this is normal or if other people’s pets are also voyeurs. Perhaps our cats are uniquely perverted with an unusual taste for dogging?

The moral of this story is, if you like sex then don’t have kids. And definitely don’t get cats.

Chloe Esposito is the author of the Mad, Bad And Dangerous To Know trilogy. Bad, the second in the series, is published in hardback by Michael Joseph on 26 July priced £12.99

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