The 5 Stages of Sex After Baby

1. Keep that thing away from me. This stage begins as soon as you feel your first labor pain and doesn’t end until you’re getting more than five hours of sleep a night. When you’ve got rug burns on your labia, are wearing disposable panties, and sweat through your pajamas four times a night, it’s actually hard to believe that sex is what got you into this position in the first place. Unfortunately, there is a strong possibility that your husband will find those disposable panties alluring and will attempt to get frisky. If that happens, I suggest you show him graphic photos of you pushing a baby out of your vag — guaranteed to kill any sexual desire in even the horniest of men!

2. Sex is too much work. After about six months or so it begins to seem possible that you will want to have sex again…someday. You remember that it was fun and enjoyable, but at this stage of parenthood, when you haven’t slept for longer than five hours at a stretch, doing anything at night other than brushing your teeth and crawling into bed is daunting. Your spouse, on the other hand, may be chomping at the bit and wondering what’s taking you so long to get back on the horse. If this is the case, I suggest you bust out those birth photos again or get him the gift of a membership to a porn site. Sure, porn is damaging to women, but you will not care if it keeps your husband from trying to hump you while you sleep.

3. Let’s try it. Your baby is finally sleeping through the night, you’ve begun to regularly shower again, and you’re getting used to your post baby figure. You’re starting to get your groove back! You shave your legs, have some wine, get all romantical with your spouse and then you both realize that your lactating boobs are no longer in play. Nothing kills the mood quite like squirting your beloved in the eye with breastmilk, am I right? You do your best to work around this obstacle and you find a way to make it work and then — OH MY LORD THIS IS PAINFUL — which is when you remember that your OB said your first time at the rodeo after the baby might hurt but that’s pretty much the understatement of the entire decade. You both decide maybe it’s better to take it slow and try again another time after you’ve had quite a bit more alcohol with a Tylenol chaser.

4. Get reacquainted with your old friend sex. You’ve adjusted to having a child. You have a schedule for this child. He naps at a certain time of day. He sleeps through the night. You’ve slowly reentered the world and more closely resemble your old self. You and your partner actually spend time alone once in awhile and go out for dinner or drinks. You’ve successfully navigated postpartum sex a few times and your lady parts no longer feel like they’re being set on fire when you try to use them. You might even be done breastfeeding and your body is once again your own, which you celebrate by having sex more often. All of the sudden sex after baby is amazing! You can’t believe that you took so many months off from having sex just because you had a baby and were tired; that’s crazy! You and your loved one decide that you should have sex more often.

5. We should have another baby! When you are sleeping through the night and you’ve had a margarita (or two) this sounds like an amazing idea. Why not try? At the very lest we’ll get to have lots of sex, which is great! We should definitely do that! Babies are so cute and adorable and won’t it be incredible to have a second child?! Don’t worry, having a baby will be so much easier the second time around and we can totally handle it — now, TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.

Remember, friends: sex is great, but so is sleeping through the night. Use a condom!