Chances are, this will happen to you at some point. Most of the cases I’ve heard about from friends involved very young children, toddlers and preschoolers. Those are the easiest to handle. They just need to be reassured that no one was getting hurt and to be sure to knock next time they get out of bed to find mommy.

It happened to us when our daughter was about five or six. That one is a little more tricky. I’m pretty sure I just ushered her back to bed and said something along the lines of, “Mommy and Daddy were having special married people time”. She never asked about it again and has not brought it up since then (she’s now nine).

WebMD has a great article that addresses this very situation. And they give some great, practical advice for handling it depending the age of the child:

A 3-year-old might wonder if anyone was being hurt (based on the sounds and actions), so it’s a good idea to reassure him. A 5-year-old is likely to be quite the scientist and try to get as close as possible — while going undiscovered — to figure out exactly what is happening. (Offer some information to “the scientist” and this should suffice.) An 8-year-old may have hit the “cooties” stage and think that it’s weird that anyone would ever want to do that. A 12-year-old is likely to be “grossed out” and turn on his heel because his parents were having sex!

If you’ve experienced this phenomenon, how did you handle it?

photo credit: nevit