QUESTION: My libido has disappeared following the birth of my second son. A year on, I try to respond to my husband’s advances, but feel switched off. I can see he feels rejected and I am baffled as I felt fine after my first son arrived three years ago. What should I do?
ANSWER: Cut yourself some slack. You have a babe-in-arms and a toddler to chase, and you don’t feel like a red-hot sex goddess. Well, that sounds completely normal to me.
The main reason for your despair is that you didn’t feel this way when your first child was born. I wonder if the arrival of your second son was harder than your first?
Long, difficult births and medical interventions, such as episiotomies or C-sections, are linked to loss of libido.
There’s also the question of ownership of your body. You have a baby, who might still be breast-feeding, and a toddler clinging to you — it’s easy to feel resentful when your husband reaches out to touch you.
This is such a common story that it would be hard to find a mother who didn’t relate. Forty percent of mothers in a 2012 survey said having small children had driven them further apart from their partners.
This is why more couples separate in those fraught, infant-dominated years than at any other point in relationships.
However, if you can weather the storm of nappies and broken nights, you will almost certainly find that your libido will return.
So, the real question is how you can speed up this process. First, you must absolve yourself of all blame. Second, your husband and you need time alone to be man and wife for a short while, instead of parents.
The key thing is re-establishing intimacy. Don’t rush things — it may take another year to get back in sync. But what’s 12 months in a lifetime together? - Daily Mail