Pre-baby Goals?

Parentberries
1

[name_m]Hi[/name_m] Momberries! My husband and I recently decided that we’ll start trying for a baby in about a year! There are a few things I’d like to accomplish before then, and I’m curious about things you wish you had done before you started having kids? I’m kind of baby hungry, so for some reason I feel a lot more motivated about this than I did when we were setting new year’s resolutions or other goals recently… This is my list so far:

  1. Pay off student loans - I think we’re on track to have this done by the end of summer, maybe a little later. But I would for sure like to have it taken care of before we have a baby.
  2. Be (almost) done with school - I graduated with my BS in [name_u]December[/name_u], but my husband has a few semesters left. This is actually what our time table is currently framed around, I’d like to get pregnant while he’s in his last semester.
  3. Buy a home - Not absolutely necessary, but it’s something we’re working on anyway, and I would like to be in our own house when we start a family. We’re looking to start this process soon, but we’ll see how it goes.
  4. Lose weight/start better fitness habits - I’ve gained about 30 pounds over the last five years, between not eating well while I was a student and getting married and not exercising regularly. This isn’t absolutely necessary either, but I’d like to be healthier and also start establishing better habits so that we raise healthier children. Plus then I (hopefully) won’t feel so gigantic when I am pregnant, and maybe won’t have to worry about losing as much weight after baby?
  5. Budget better - We’ve already started this as we’re focusing on paying off debts/saving for a house, but I feel like this will be an important skill to have and a hard one to learn while I’m adjusting to all the other things that come with being a parent.
  6. [name_f]Do[/name_f] fun things as a couple - we don’t really vacation much, and I know it’ll be a lot harder/more expensive when we have kids, so I’d like to do a few fun things together before then. Not a super high priority, but just something I thought might be a good goal.
  7. Buy a different car - Mine has some mechanical issues… It’s fine for now, but there are some problems that will probably become bigger issues later. My husband has a truck, but it doesn’t have a back seat to put a car seat in, so we need to replace one or the other, probably both eventually. This was a goal before we were talking about babies, but it’s an important one!

Anything else? Any thoughts or advice on the goals that I mentioned? There are other things that I want to focus on as well, but they’re more relationship/religious goals that aren’t really things that you can check off a list, if that makes sense. But I thought this would be a good start

2

We have a list, but it is pretty short! Our goals are pretty similar!

  1. Buy/Build our house! This is pretty non-negotiable, and until we have it, we will not be having kids. We currently live in a one bedroom basement suite, and I will never ever bring a baby home to this place. We want that family home, nursery and etc.

  2. I want to be in better shape, I have already lost over 50lbs, and would like to lose more. It’s important to both of us that we are as healthy as possible to give our kids the best possible start, from conception to birth and beyond.

  3. I need a job and enough maternity leave hours. That one is pretty self-explanatory!

All your goals sound great, but remember, if you wait for ideal/perfect conditions, you will be waiting forever!

3

Oh I’m not planning on waiting for ‘ideal’ conditions… I’m kind of terrified of waiting too long and then having difficulty getting pregnant, so the longest I’m willing to wait to start trying is 2 1/2 years from now. But that would be only if we absolutely had to wait that long. Honestly, the only real hold up now is that my husband doesn’t have a full time job and probably won’t have one until after graduation, so we’re relying solely on my income right now. I still haven’t decided what we’re going to do when we do have babies, but I’m leaning toward being a stay at home mom or doing some kind of work from home at least for a little while, so leaving my job to do that before my husband has a job is not really an option. I guess he could work full time and go to school part time, but I think the least stressful way to do it would be to wait until he’s done.

4

I’m so tired with my newborn that I read this as “pre-baby GOATS”.
oh dear.
It ties in though as goats are probably one of many animals I may have ended up with had I not had children…
I would agree with the goal of getting healthy - pregnancy can be hard on the body.
If you can then definitely take that holiday. I wish I had savoured lay ins and lounging around and watching films and not being tired 24/7 etc etc… :wink:

5

Of everything you listed, I would prioritize health (including the health of your relationship) and finances above all else.

Like you, we knew we wanted to have me stay at home with children, at least for a time. So we immediately started living entirely within my husband’s salary and saving my whole salary. This gave us a really nice buffer in savings once our son came along. There are lots of helpful calculators online to figure out your post baby budget. I would work this out and start living on it now, while you have room for error. I would advise this for anyone, whether or not you plan to stay home. [name_m]Even[/name_m] if you both work, childcare ain’t cheap.

Regarding health, it is really so easy to fall into unhealthy habits with a new baby! It’s very hard to eat proper meals and get regular exercise when you are dealing with sleep deprivation and a tiny helpless person. The more you can get that worked out ahead of time, the better.

Congratulations on your decision and best of luck!

6

Only things I wanted to do and didn’t were get my motorcycle license and travel overseas/drive across country.

That said, I’m a full time student planning on 2ish more years of school and SO works awful hours and wants to go back to school too. We didn’t really wait for things to be all set - as long as we could support our kids and arrange childcare we were happy with. I’d love to have waited to be able to be a SAHM long term but I wanted to have kids young. I stayed home 14 months with lillian (worked weekends). We didn’t “plan” but didn’t prevent. A healthy relationship and stable/safe place to live + your health is most important [name_f]IMO[/name_f]. Maybe I’d feel differently if I tried it the other way but I’m really glad I didn’t wait

7

Personally, I want to:
1- get married, and then be married for approximately a year before ttc
2- have my student loan paid off (done next [name_u]December[/name_u])
3- be at a job where I can get maternity leave (I’m currently on contract, so that’s not ideal)

And that’s about it as far as me. My SO and I have more milestones to hit and things to achieve (individually and as a couple) before we start ttc, but I figure there are the things I can control or need to wait out. There are other things we’ll do in the meantime (buy a car, travel, move) but the above list is pretty non-negotiable for me.

8

I totally agree with you. I’ll most likely be 24 when we start trying, possibly 25, which I feel like is still relatively young but is basically ancient compared to half the people I know having babies now (I live in area where 90% of people get married and start having kids in college). Honestly I’d love to be starting now but I feel bad putting that kind of pressure on my husband. But another year won’t kill me and hopefully he’ll finish with school quickly

9

I think you have some great goals that you would like to accomplish prior to having a baby come.

My biggest thing to accomplish prior to having a baby was to finish college. My DH and I had been married almost six years when I got pregnant and I finished my master’s degree 2 months before becoming pregnant. So I was 26 while pregnant and just recently turned 27.

I’d say the ones to prioritize for sure would be the finances and health, for the many reasons already stated by other berries.

I would also like to say that you are very smart to not try to pressure your DH about it if he isn’t ready. I was “ready” to TTC much sooner than my hubby, however we started when he was comfortable and I’m glad because I was that person that got pregnant really quickly, two months after starting to TTC, so if my DH had not have been ready it would have been an issue.

Good luck in TTC when you finally do! ”

10

When we decided that this was something we were feeling ready for, I think we already had most of the prerequisites (as I see them) in place: stable, committed relationship, stable accommodation, stable financial situation. I just needed to finish my degree. I didn’t want to be pregnant and trying to finish my thesis at the same time. Considering how awful I felt for much of the first trimester, this was definitely a good decision. And I had pretty mild morning sickness compared to a lot of women. On the other hand, many women handle morning sickness and all sorts of things - writing a thesis, working long hours, caring for older children etc. So it wouldn’t have been undoable, I’m sure.

The one thing I’d ideally like to manage before the birth is getting a new car. We have less than two months to sort that out, so I suppose we’d best get a move on! Honestly it won’t be the end of the world if we don’t, though. We’ll get to it at some point.

Otherwise it definitely would have been nice to go away again just the two of us at some point beforehand. We didn’t manage to find a convenient time to do this, but the way I see it it’s not like we’re closing that door forever. We can easily go away by ourselves in future, we will just have to wait a few years until our child(ren) is/are old enough to handle staying with my parents for a week or so.

We still live in a one-bedroom flat (owned not rented, though) and I don’t see it as a huge issue. We will move at some point in the next year or so, but I don’t think there will be any major problems sharing a room with baby whilst she’s still very little. In fact I think you’re supposed to have them in your room for six months anyway.

Maybe I’ll have a load of regrets once we actually have the baby and I know what parenthood is really like, but at the moment I don’t see that we would have benefited all that much from waiting longer.

11

I still share a room with my almost 2 year old. We could turn our spare room into her room (and will before the baby comes if we don’t just move), but if I wasn’t having another I’d probably just share a room with her until she’s 3 or 4. Sometimes it a little inconvienent (mainly limited time to put away laundry/clean the bedroom) but generally I’d much rather have her there.

12

@jtucker
Thanks! It isn’t so much that my husband isn’t ready… I think if I said I wanted to get pregnant sooner he’d probably just go with it. He’s said stuff before about being ready for a baby already, but I think he’s a little naive about how much work it would be for him to support a baby while he’s still in college, especially because he’s already not the strongest student. I think he could do it if he needed to, and he might have to if school takes too much longer, but I’m hoping to make it as easy as possible for him if I can.

@jackal
I don’t know how people deal with being pregnant and finishing school! I’m sure it’s doable, but I think it would be so hard. My sister-in-law is trying to get pregnant (at least that’s what I heard from our other sister-in-law), and if she does in the next few months, she’ll be going to her last semester of school while pretty heavily pregnant, and her husband is going to be gone doing military training for most of it. To me that sounds like a pretty miserable first pregnancy experience, but I guess it’s up to them!
Also, you sound a lot like I expect I’ll sound when we are ready. Especially the ‘I don’t see that we would have benefited all that much from waiting longer,’ since we’re basically only waiting until the minimum requirements are met.

13

What a great thread! I’ve had baby fever for a few years (I turn 24 next week) and it is SO hard to talk myself out of seriously TTC. I have a lot of the similar goals that you have as well. Our main goals right now are saving for a down payment on a home. We rent a house now and while it’s nice, we can’t do the decorating that we want. We also have a room mate so that’s not really ideal for any of us. I’d have to say that health and finances are the two big goals. I think finishing school is a big one mostly because you never know where you will end up working in a career. My cousins thought they would live locally until they couldn’t find jobs (even ones they thought were sure fire) and they had to move a few hours south. Some people probably don’t mind moving with a baby but I would like to be in my own home first. Moving is terrible enough without a little one too.

It’s so hard to wait, especially when everyone around you keeps having children. A few years ago I felt like 23-25 was just SO ancient to be having my first baby. I’m so glad I didn’t stick with that idiotic idea! Waiting until you’re a little more stable is great and I think its important to know the difference between stable and waiting for the perfect time. After a certain point you don’t really gain anything from waiting and it can actually be a bad idea if you plan to have multiple children and want to space the ages out or have difficulty getting pregnant.

14

Great topic! We are actively TTC, but still have a few goals we’re working on, as well as some we already checked off the list.

COMPLETED GOALS:

Traveled! - We were very lucky to have our wedding (elopement) in [name_f]Scotland[/name_f] 2 years ago and spend some time exploring that (gorgeous) country. We also went to the Outer [name_m]Banks[/name_m] with family as a fun vacation and then just had a major splurge to [name_m]Costa[/name_m] [name_f]Rica[/name_f] over the winter as our Last [name_m]Chance[/name_m] to Travel before TTC adventure. It was great, it was expensive, but well worth it, especially since my husband had never been out of the country before our wedding.

Got a Promotion/Benefits - My husband and I knew we wanted to increase our income before babies, so we have been working our butts off during the last few years and he got a job with benefits and I got a significant promotion in my field. (Whew!) It was exhausting but it luckily worked out and we’re at that next rung in the career ladder before having kids. There is technically one other rung I could get to before having a baby, but I’m okay either way. (We’ll see what happens and how long TTC takes!)

IN PROGRESS GOALS:
Paying Off Debt - We reduced our credit card debt by half over the last two years, but we still have a little bit to go. We’re hoping to have it all paid off by [name_f]July[/name_f].

Saving - I work freelance, so there’s no maternity leave to speak of. Thank god we’re in CA, where there’s paid family leave for a few weeks, but after that we’re on our own. I’ll definitely spend 3 months at home before returning to work, but we’re hoping for 6, though that is $ dependent. We have enough squirreled away right now for 3 months, if nothing goes awry or is more expensive than expected. But after our credit card debt is paid off, we’ll be aggressively saving throughout TTC and my pregnancy (whenever that happens) and hoping to hit enough for 6 months.

Creative work - I’m a writer and hope to (eventually) transition from my current field to writing full time. I know writing will be very difficult to find time for once we have our first child, especially once I return to work full time (which is, unfortunately, non negotiable, money wise.) So I have a four writing projects I want done before giving birth, including finishing my first novel. One project is about a week away from being finished, three to go!

Losing Weight - I have an autoimmune thyroid condition and my thyroid has been off the last year, which has made it very tricky to lose weight. However, my meds have recently been adjusted, so now it’s up to me. I’d really like to lose 8 pounds this month and then (if I don’t get pregnant this month) another 8 next month. I also really would like to get in better cardio and strength shape. I’m just started a light weight training and cardio program and it’s going well so far. Fingers crossed I can drop some weight before getting pregnant.

NOT [name_m]EVEN[/name_m] GOING TO TRY:

Buying a house: Sigh. We live in Los [name_f]Angeles[/name_f]. Housing is crazy expensive. So that is on our list for 5 years from now, but there’s no way it’ll be sooner. Our only housing related goal is to move to a 2 bedroom from our current tiny one bedroom, and that’s happening [name_f]July[/name_f] 1. Ideally, we’d wait to TTC until then, but I’m 34 and have an autoimmune disease that can sometimes impact fertility, so my doctor suggested we go ahead and start now.

Anyway, great topic! [name_m]Just[/name_m] writing this all out has made me more inspired and motivated! Good luck to all of you ladies in crossing your goals off the list!

15

@trippindippy
25 feels pretty ancient for me to be starting! But I think it’s mostly because I’m currently 23, so it seems like a long time to wait! My mom got started at 21 or 22, she had two already by the time we’ll get started! They’re actually the main reason we’re for sure waiting until school is done, they had a pretty horrific time with work schedules and child care. So I’ve got her encouraging us to wait for a while, and my mother-in-law is basically itching for Grandchildren, so we’re getting nudged both directions. But where we live it is VERY common to start having kids early. I know of three babies born recently, their moms were 22, 22, 23. Luckily none of my close friends have started yet, I’m betting we’ll probably be among the first since everyone is about where we are with school. But my sister-in-law will probably be starting soon, she’s 21 I think, and if they do get pregnant soon I’m going to get even more baby hungry!
I’m glad I’m not the only one with baby fever! Maybe we should start a pre-TTC group or thread?

@maureenmce
That’s so exciting that you’re trying! I am very excited for us to get to that point. We’ve got friends in CA who are paying 4X as much in rent as we are for roughly the same apartment, I can’t believe how expensive housing is over there! It’s definitely only a goal for us because it should be pretty attainable in the near future. Also I’m glad this thread helped you be more motivated! I’ve definitely been more motivated about the weight loss part since we talked about it.

Another goal I decided to add is journaling. I think I’ll be sad if my kids are all grown up and I didn’t write about it. I was a fairly consistent journal-writer before I started college, and I’d like to get back in the habit so I can remember all the little things, because I’ve already noticed how easy it is to forget. So journal writing, and also picture taking. I have a great camera that I barely ever use, I need to get a handle on it before we have kids so I can photo-document everything. Some of this may translate into better blogging as well, because I’m betting a lot of what gets shared with family and friends will be in that format, but it’s mostly something I want to have for myself.

16

Well I didn’t have any goals before my son was born as I was only 18 but this baby was planned so I had a few things I wanted to do. We moved house & decorated it up which is something we knew we wanted to do before having a second as our last house was tiny. One thing I did before TTC was sky diving. Crazy but I’m so glad I did it! A few friends and I went. My husband finished college, we’ve been travelling a lot recently as we imagine it will be a lot harder to do that with 2 kids! I’m pretty happy with what we’ve managed to do.

17

@shalexis A pre-TTC group/thread is a wonderful idea! Venting frustrations on waiting to TTC as well as encouraging each other to reach our pre-baby goals :slight_smile: [name_m]Trust[/name_m] me, some days 25 feels like 40 and others knowing I’ll be 25 in a year makes no difference as I still feel like I’m 18! My area is super common for babies at a very young age. We had a lot of people in HS get pregnant right after graduation at 18 while a lot of others got pregnant about the time we all turned 21, and now all of the others are having their first child and even more have their second!
It’s so hard, and now my cousin and his wife (who are 1 year older) are having their first baby in [name_u]June[/name_u] and I’m so excited but I’m also a little jealous (in a non-spiteful way). I just have to sit back and think “how happy would I be sharing a room with a baby and sharing a house with a room mate? Would I really want to rush and put off owning my own home? I can’t even decorate a nursery as we have no nursery room to decorate!” So it’s sort of good to remind yourself that a little planning can go a long way. My best friend had her baby at 22, she turns 2 on my birthday. It makes me frustrated sometimes because I want a little one but then I babysit and realize I love my free time and naps :3
Seriously though, keep your head up. We’ll all get our goals and before we know it we’ll be on the “expecting” forums! :smiley:

18

@trippindippy I definitely think I’m only really thinking about the positives… I know that having a baby will be worth it, but no one has ever said that parenting was easy. I’m actually really grateful I got married relatively early (again, I knew like a million people who did that before me too… We live in a crazy place!) and will get to spend a few years with just my husband and I, both his parents and mine didn’t get to do that. So waiting is good, even though it’s hard!

19

@shalexis I’m glad I got married young as well! :slight_smile: It’s nice to have that extra time together. We have been together for a few years, but we moved fast with everything (we moved in together 2 months after dating) and it worked out but we dealt with a lot of hardship and I just don’t want my child to go through that because I just couldn’t wait. My mom had my brother young and my dad had my other brother young as well (both before they met each other) and my mom has really talked to be about the struggles. I think I would be okay but DH needs to really mentally get on the baby having level as he thinks a baby will be happy sitting on his lap while he plays computer games. Poor guy has no clue! I actually want to talk to him when he gets home about TTC next summer/fall as I do well with time tables and goals. It’s so easy to think about how fun and amazing everything would be with a cute little one (pinterest is the WORST about showing me only positives!) but you do have to think about the hard parts as well U-U

20

I would be there so fast! :smiley: