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Why you should protect your baby from early sex exposure

Parenting
              Photo:Courtesy

As early as six months, children begin noticing what happens in their environment. According to Wandia, what may seem harmless behaviour, "such as undressing or dressing before the child may have an effect in what they grow up to believe about human sexuality.”

Keeping the baby in the bedroom wouldn't exactly stop couples from intimacy. Tom Lichuma, a father of six, notes that when babies reach an age when they seem curious about what happens between their parents, it behoves immediate action.

"At this point, the baby should be put in the cot throughout the night," he says. "The main bed then remains for parents only."

Tom's wife, Linet, with whom he has co-authored a book, "Parenting in the 21st Century and Beyond" says that how parents manage to control their bedroom matters may not be a one-size-fits-all formula.

"Other factors like the economic status of the family play out," she says, "because if both parents and children have to do with a one-roomed house, then the dynamics are somewhat different."

But while parents may have to do with sharing a room with the children, Linet says it is still prudent to keep a good amount of distance between them and babies (or children) who are old enough to be curious on matters of sex.

"By one year," says Tom, "a baby can follow the happenings around him. Nakedness before them or sexual activity should then move into safe space. It would not be proper to expose children to acts too complicated for their interpretation."

On the flip side, parents too, need to keep up a healthy sex life. Ann admits that intimacy "was kind of hard since I feared the baby would wake up." The months she shared a bed with her daughter were filled with trepidation; constantly worried about 'getting caught'.

"Frankly, it diminishes the spark of intimacy," she says.

But if the decision was left for Lucy, she would have three other reasons apart from early sex exposure why the baby would never set foot in the bed. "One, from conception the baby has never been alone and when it is born, it means that is its time to gain that independence," she say,

"Then there is the baby's safety against infant death syndrome. The baby is safe on his own cot. It has also been observed that babies sleep better when they are alone. A mother's body movements and the smell of breast milk are likely to keep interfere with their sleep."

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