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Instead, Julia discovered a strange arithmetic followed the arrival of baby No. 2: Fatigue, stress, and general chaos somehow increased by a factor of 10. Was the rumor she'd heard true? Do kids obliterate their parents' sex life forever?
No doubt about it: Where parents of one child outnumber their offspring, a second baby shifts the whole dynamic. "The balance changes," says family therapist Carleton Kendrick. Or, as Julia puts it, "The couple should be the pillar of the house. Instead the house becomes a giant toy room."
Usually, by the time a second child arrives, the first is old enough to be somewhat independent—and a handful. Nursing the new baby is hard enough, but add a kid in the "terrible twos" and the workload more than doubles. Meanwhile, the consequences are real: On average, parents with kids spend just 20 minutes a week being intimate, according to Anne Semans and Cathy Winks, co-authors of The Mother's Guide to Sex.
According to Kendrick, the solution is in seeing these issues as opportunities for a new kind of intimacy: "In my experience, sex is actually better for couples with kids, after a little work."
Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD
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