Crib Notes: one motherhood memoir and three novels about sex

Welcome to Crib Notes: Succinct book reviews for new and busy mothers.

This month’s Crib Notes is inspired by one book: Clover Stroud’s new memoir, My Wild and Sleepless Nights, a visceral account of motherhood which I think will speak to you as much as it has spoken to me. You can read my review below.

Amongst other things, My Wild and Sleepless Nights offers a frank exploration of the relationship between sex and motherhood; the close proximity between birth and sex; the heady pleasure in which a child is conceived and the druggy oxytocin-hit triggered by labour.

What I want to discuss here is not the locker-room talk about ‘whether you are getting any’ post-baby. Not only do these conversations perpetuate the ludicrous and damaging assumption that men live in a perpetual state of libidinousness, but they reinforce ignorance about the mental and physical changes a woman experiences during pregnancy and birth. Exhaustion, pain, disinclination: there are many reasons not to engage in sex…