When did you know you were ready for a baby?

Question

I’m 25 and have been with my partner for 8 years. We are quite where we want to be yet as we are about to move out of my family home.
We are always thinking about children but I’m wondering when you knew you were ready mentally?
Excluding finances and such.

Answer

Because we both wanted a baby. We talked about it since the beginning of our relationship. If you wait until you are "ready" you'll never get there.

Answer

I don’t know that anyone is truly ready, parenthood throws every single curveball in every single weak spot and also is such a blessing it’s overwhelming at times. If you are both emotionally/mentally stable and growing actively pursuing healthy habits etc. I’d feel comfortable going for it when stable in your own living situation. I went into motherhood without choice and with ptsd anxiety and depression and I’ve grown along the way and feel like I’m doing a good job with the hand I have been dealt, but certainly wish I’d had the time to work through those things and individualize (which won’t truly happen till you move out for a year or two) before adding babies into the mix. But I’m here, I have a 4yo and 18mo and they are thriving despite me still growing as a mom and human, I’m 24 and just this past august finally moved out of the separate apartment on my parents property to live entirely on my own and it’s something I should’ve done years ago. I did not even think about mental maturity in parenthood because my parents started at 17 and 19, but it is SO important in raising emotionally / mentally healthy children!

Answer

We were both at stable jobs,  making atleast 1000 every 2 weeks,  had 10 thousand in the bank and had traveled enough,  at our 5yr mark we decided to start trying,  I was 21 he was 22. Our goal was to be done by 30 for me. I'm about to be 26 and just had my second boy, and were done having kids

Answer

23/24. Got pregnant with my first right after I was 24.

Answer

My husband and I decided to wait a year before trying. However, we had a birth control mishap 3 months after wedding and thought we might be pregnant. Turned out I was not and we were both disappointed. Realized we were both ready and wanting a baby. Ended up taking a long time and medication to conceive.

Answer

Yeah took me til I was almost 40 to want kids. Shrug.

Answer

I wasn't sure I even wanted children, to be honest. Then in October of 2019, my husband and I had a pregnancy "scare".... only trouble is that when the test came back negative, we were both actually really sad. We started trying to conceive after that. Took 8 months, but we conceived in May of 2020 on our anniversary unintentionally. (We had put conception on hold because of the pandemic.) She was born in February and she isperfection. We are both so in love with her.

Answer

You’re never truly ready but you should look at your whole lifestyle - can you afford it (childcare & bills are hella expensive!!), do you have a great support network (or pay for help if you don’t), have the responsibility not to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol when taking care of a child, etc.

Answer

Agree- you’re never truly ready.
For us, we wanted to be in stable jobs (to get parental/maternity leave), finished our education, done a little traveling and have savings behind us to buy a house.
I was probably ready emotionally a year or 2 before my husband. He was really ready when our friends started having kids and he spent more time around babies and kids which he hadn’t done much of before.

Answer

I know it's cliche, but you are never really ready for a baby. And it's true. You can never really prepare yourself. You will never get into a perfect place with your mind. That said, if you have everything in order in your life, such as a supportive partner, decent home, financial stability, Etc... mentally is really quite simple. You should not be actually mentally unstable, you should want to have a baby, you should look at where you are in life and make sure that having a baby won't keep you from some sort of goal that is more important, such as going back to school, or traveling the world, or something like that. And you also take into consideration  how you would roughly like the timeline of your life of having kids and being done with having kids to go.
When it comes to figuring out if you are in love or not, people will often tell you that " you just know." But I really don't think it's the same with having a baby. When you are dating a partner, and getting to know them, it's very different than trying to picture a life with a theoretical baby that you are not desperately in love with and don't have any emotions for other than thinking it would be a nice addition to the family. I think it's more important to know that you do want kids, and that your life is in the right place to have them.

When did you know you were ready for a baby?

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