All of our kids slept with us until they were about a year old. During that time, we’d make use of a couch or the spare bedroom. Sometimes we’d get the baby to sleep in the crib, which was in our room, and we’d have sex in our own bed. I’m sure if a 6 month old baby would happen to wake up, that baby wouldn’t have any idea or memory of what was going on with his or her parents. A toddler or older child, though…out of the question.
Our room now is very close to the kids’ rooms. All the bedrooms are in one hallway. We close our door and keep it quiet. Once or twice one of the kids has walked in on us, but thankfully we were just making out and not even undressed yet. Both times it was my middle child, and in each case he didn’t even seem awake or at all aware that we hadn’t been sleeping. We try to be discreet, but I don’t really worry about traumatizing the kids. I’m sure I can come up with a true, but age-appropriate, response if one of them were to really catch us in the act.
One of the more disturbing things I’ve heard was from someone we know whose daughter slept in their bed for several years. She was five or six at the time, and the parents would have sex while she was in the bed with them. If she woke up and asked what was going on, the father would say, “I’m just rocking Mommy to sleep. You go back to sleep too.” WTF?! It’s not the worst thing you could do as a parent, but I was still pretty disgusted.