How has having children affected your sex life?

I keep reading all these polls on sex. Teens having it, older folks having it, and parents craving more of it.

Do most people’s sex lives start to fizzle after they have children? Does the arrival of a child ring in the end of romance and the start of fantasising about a night of uninterrupted sleep? Despite the fact that I was more in love with my husband than ever after our boy arrived, I could not believe how exhausted I was. Finding time for making love, something that I once could not get enough of, was a challenge.To see my man as a father was a total turn on. To watch him nurture our precious baby with warm essential oils on the wash cloth when he bathed him and sweetening the aroma in the bedroom with scented candles was amazing. He even placed a heating pad on the bed so it was as warm as my body when Wyatt fell asleep nursing. He would remove it just before I "made the drop," so possibly the baby would stay asleep awhile.After my husband died suddenly when the baby was 17 months old, I was still nursing and I remember feeling so cheated. Why did he have to die when my erotic self was sidetracked? When my body was still in major mommy mode, nursing and sleeping on the baby’s schedule? Why not when we were having a blast daily? All questions without answers.Now I’m in a different boat trying to find time alone with my sweetheart with a nine-year-old in the house. Having a private conversation is not easy, let alone time for the extremely pleasurable gift of expressing our love physically. We get away every now and then, which is a huge blessing. And we’re happy to make hay while the moon shines, when Wyatt is sleeping like a baby.But how is it for those of you with more than one child? I can’t imgaine the exhaustion ever subsides for those with multiple children, even when they are older. I appreciated a weekly date night this spring, when we reserved time once a week to go for a bike ride or out to eat and catch up on all that was happening in our lives. With this chance for lots of great communication, opportunities for sex would arise more often. But now it’s summer, and that’s a whole different story.I just saw a survey from the UK that attempted to shine light on this private area of couple’s lives. About 1,700 men and women answered questions that range from how often they have sex and how long it lasts, to how many children they have and whether the children have affected the quality of their sex lives.  For me, when Wyatt was a baby and now, the quality and length of time is amazing, but the frequency is less than I’d like, certainly less than before children. One guy who answered the survey said he and his wife don’t have the spontanaity they once enjoyed before their three children were born because they are too busy keeping up with the children’s needs.His experience seemed typical, according to the surveyors. Most of the respondents agreed that having children meant having less time for love-making. But despite news reports about the rise in sexless marriages, the majority said they still had a sex life – and rarely a complaint about its quality. In all, 1,675 respondents - 54% of them male - filled in the survey on the Times Online’s blog. Though not a scientific survey - because the respondents were self-selected - it shows folk are still having fun in bed even after the children arrive. The majority of parents said they had sex more than once a month; and 63% said the frequency of their love-making ranged from several times a week to two to three times a month. For 46%, love-making sessions lasted 20-45 minutes, while 34% made love for up to 20 minutes and 3% for more than an hour. Exhaustion was the top reason for having less sex now than before having a family, with caring for children, disturbed nights, early starts, pressures at work and general stress listed as the causes, according to the site.How has having children affected your sex life?