Is it normal to not want sex after having a baby?

Yes, and for longer than most people expect. Exhaustion, physical recovery, feeding, hormonal changes and being touched all day by a small person all push desire down. Many couples describe a year or more before anything like their old pattern returns, and some find a new pattern instead. A GP can check for pain, low mood or physical causes if it goes on and troubles you.

How do we get our sex life back after kids?

Lower the bar and raise the frequency of touch that is not sex. Most couples who find their way back do it by rebuilding closeness first, protecting a small amount of time that is not about the children, and talking about what each of them actually wants rather than what they used to do. Pressure in either direction tends to slow it down.

My partner wants sex and I don't. What do I do?

Say so plainly, outside the bedroom, with what you would like instead if there is anything. Wanting less is not a failing and wanting more is not a demand. If your partner hears no and it costs you nothing, this is an ordinary mismatch that most couples go through. If saying no has consequences, or you have sex to avoid them, that is a different problem and not one that time will fix.

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Sex after children

Almost every couple's sex life changes after a baby. What tends to happen, why it is rarely about attraction and how to talk about it without scoring.

Nobody tells you. The antenatal classes cover the birth and the first feed and nothing about the eighteen months afterwards when one of you wants sex and the other wants to be left alone in a dark room. Almost every couple goes through some version of this. Almost none of them talk about it, including to each other, which is how a tired, ordinary patch turns into something each of you is privately frightened about.

What tends to happen

In the first months, the body that gave birth is recovering, often from more than anyone mentioned, and is being handled all day by a baby. Being touched one more time, even kindly, can feel like one more demand. Feeding changes hormones in ways that flatten desire. Sleep goes, and desire needs sleep more than almost anything.

The partner who did not give birth is tired too, and often feels moved from the centre of someone's life to its edge in the space of a fortnight. Reaching for sex is sometimes about sex and often about wanting to still be wanted. A no, heard in that state, lands as a verdict.

So one person feels pressured and the other feels rejected, and neither has said anything out loud. That is the pattern, and it is remarkably common.

Why it is rarely about attraction

The fear underneath, for most couples, is "they don't fancy me any more" or "I don't fancy them any more and what does that mean". For the large majority it means they are exhausted. Desire for many people is responsive: it shows up once something has started rather than announcing itself first. When there is no room for anything to start, it stays quiet, and its quiet gets mistaken for its absence.

A body that has changed is also a body its owner may not feel at home in yet. That is not about the partner at all, and reassurance from the partner, however well meant, rarely reaches it. Time and feeling like yourself again do.

Talk about it somewhere that is not the bed

The worst place to raise this is lying next to each other at 11pm after a no. Choose a walk, or the car, or the twenty minutes after the baby has gone down and before you both fall asleep on the sofa.

Say what is true for you without a score attached. "I miss you and I don't know how to say it without it sounding like pressure." "I want to want to, and I'm so tired I can't find it." Both of those are a beginning. "We haven't had sex since March" is a charge sheet.

Then ask the small question rather than the big one. Leave "when are we going to be normal again" for another year and try "what would feel good this week". The answer might be sleeping in on Saturday. It might be lying down together with clothes on. It might be nothing yet. All of those are answers.

What helps in practice

Touch that is not a request. A hand on the back, a proper kiss at the door, lying together for ten minutes. If every touch has become a question, the person being asked starts to flinch from all of them. Agreeing for a while that touch does not lead anywhere takes the question out of it, and desire tends to come back into a room it is not being chased around.

Time that is not about the children. Not a date night you cannot afford or arrange. An hour, after bedtime, with the phones in another room.

A GP, if there is pain, if low mood has settled in, or if nothing has shifted after many months and it troubles one or both of you. Pain after birth is common and treatable and widely unmentioned. Low mood after a baby affects both parents and desire goes with it. These are ordinary things to see a doctor about, and the doctor will have heard them that week.

What this might mean for you

If you recognise the pattern and the fear under it, you are probably in the long, tired middle that most couples with small children pass through. It needs talking about more than it needs fixing. If one of you has carried the rejection quietly for a long time, or one of you has been saying yes to keep the peace, those are worth saying now rather than in a year. The member module When it is simply a mismatch looks at what it means when two people want different things and both are allowed to.

When this does not apply

Everything above assumes that no is a complete sentence in your house. For most couples it is, even when it stings. If it is not, if saying no leads to sulking that lasts days, to being told what you owe, to pressure that does not stop, or to sex you have to stop it, then this is not a dry patch and time and date nights will not touch it. Is it abuse if they never hit me? describes what pressure looks like when it is part of a pattern. If you are the one doing the pressuring and you have just recognised yourself, that recognition is where change starts.

For everyone else: lower the bar, touch without asking, and see the GP about the pain.

Where this leads

Updated 2026-10-29. This page is information, not legal, medical or clinical advice. Clearr is a paid reflective service run by a company, not a charity or crisis service.