Making Time for Intimacy

A few months ago, I was laughing with some girl friends about how hard it is to find time for intimacy when you have small children in the home.  You will undoubtedly find yourself getting right to the good part and someone will pound little fists on your door.  You will whisper sweet nothings into your husband’s ear, promising him of things to come after the children go to bed, only to have said children resist going to sleep until eventually you wake up in the morning, fully clothed and in your child’s bed.

Physical intimacy is an integral part in a marriage or committed relationship.  Without it, you simply become good friends or roommates.  Sharing physical intimacy creates a unique bond between partners where trust and love can abound.  While women will often joke that men need sex way more than women do, which might be true in some sense, women also need to feel needed and wanted in that way.  I think most men and women are happy to accommodate their partner’s physical needs, it’s just that life gets in the way.

Being a mother of 4 to a couple of tweens and a couple of younger ones means navigating intimacy with my husband takes some strategic planning.  We want to be discreet to avoid unnecessary awkwardness with the older children who know about sex but still think it’s weird.  However, we also need to take advantage of any time the opportunity presents itself (i.e. any time the small children are sleeping).  Well, we’ve figured out a few ways to make time for intimacy with children in the home.

First of all, I would say to have an open discussion with your partner about what their physical needs are.  Men might say they need some form of sexual release on a fixed interval, i.e. once every 4 days.  Women might say they need physical contact like hugging, kissing, and cuddling daily while agreeing to sexual contact of some form on a schedule her and her partner agrees on.  This scenario might not be anything like what you and your partner come up with.  This is just what’s been typical for couples I’ve spoken to.  This open discussion and agreement might seen tedious and you might not like the lack in spontaneity.  However, this is a time in your life where it just might not be realistic to have sexual spontaneity and better to schedule sex than to never have it at all.

Once you figure out you and your partners sexual needs, it’s time to move onto logistics.  If you only have small children in the home, anytime they are sleeping is obviously the best time for sex.  It doesn’t matter if they are asleep in your bed, there are other places in the house.  The other bedrooms, the shower, the couch, or the living room floor will do nicely.  If you have an infant, don’t bother waiting for them to sleep (it might never happen).  Just make sure they are safe and content and get to it.  You won’t be damaging them if they happen to see you guys getting it on.  I promise.

If your children don’t seem tired but you know it’s the best time for a little somethin somethin, put on a movie.  The kind they zoom in on and can’t take their eyes from the screen.  Set them up with a few clean snacks that present no choking hazard and shut the door.  During your quickie make sure you have the covers pulled up so if someone walks in, they won’t actually see anything.

Perhaps the most awesome tip ever to is schedule a babysitter.  No, I’m not saying to have a babysitter in your home while you are doing the nasty in the other room.  I’m saying ask someone to watch your children at their house while you “go to dinner and a movie.”  Go to dinner, skip the movie, and head on home to a quiet house.  If the babysitter is at your house, there’s always the car right?  Just make sure it’s way, way, WAY off the beaten path where no one will accidentally sneak up on you.

If you have older children, it’s not so much how, when, and where you have sex, it’s more about what you TELL them you are doing.  If you just can’t wait till they are asleep or out of the house, consider the following excuses.  We need to change our clothes.  We need to talk privately.  We are cleaning.  And my personal fav, we are wrapping presents.  Yes, people!  Take advantage of Holidays and birthdays to get intimate while wrapping presents.

All in all be kind to each other when it comes to physical intimacy.  Even the best laid plans can go awry with sick children or last minute school projects.  The important thing is to make sure you both are always striving to keep connected and sex is just one form of connection. And always keep in mind that it’s not the end of the world if your children walk in on you or if they know you are having sex.  Just yesterday I thought we were alone and asked my husband if he thought my boobs looked good in the dress I was wearing.  My 12 year old daughter was behind us and said, “Hey, children in the room…” I just laughed and said, “You should be grateful you have parents who still love each other.”

Do you have any tips for making time for intimacy?  Leave it in the comments so we can all enjoy.