Ma femme viendra nous rejoindre après avoir couché le bébé.
My wife will come and join us after putting the baby to sleep.
(HINT: Use 'coucher' (to put to bed))
I put:
Ma femme viendra nous rejoindre après être couché le bébé.
I thought coucher takes être as its auxiliary. Does that only apply when its reflexive? Or is there some other problem?
Patrick - you have answered your own question. You are correct that, as with any verbs in pronominal form, ‘se coucher’ takes ‘ être ‘ as auxiliary.
https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/agreement-with-pronominal-verbs/
In the non-reflexive form ‘ coucher ’ takes ‘ avoir’ as auxiliary.
There are many conjugation tables available online that are useful references.
Example from wordreference :
https://www.wordreference.com/conj/frverbs.aspx?v=coucher
https://www.wordreference.com/conj/frverbs.aspx?v=se%20coucher
Just to add to Maarten's answer:
The sentence you quote has a COD, namely le bébé. A verb with a COD always uses avoir as auxiliary verb.
coucher qqn. -- to put somebody to sleep (lt. to sleep somebody)
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