Things you should do before you have children

Pixiechic

I edited my post as I thought it better to say that with all the negatives I'm sure they are outweighed by the positives!

Just have fun before baby comes as others have suggested.

fluffnutter

sassyblue wrote: »

Going to the toilet without someone shouting 'mummy where are you' and/or the door opening and then asking 'mummy what are you doing - a wee or a poo?'

Brilliant! They want to know everything don't they? You just want to shout 'DOES IT MATTER? Leave me alone!'.

Bangton

plumpmouse wrote: »

Anything is possible if you really want it to be (and have money)

I've traveled more since having my children than before (NZ, USA, Dubai, quite a bit around Europe).

As we are moving over to Asia this summer we fully intend to take advantage and travel around Thailand, Malaysia and China if possible in the next couple of years.

Having children does change things and it does make things harder but you can still do it. It's wrong of people to imply you have no idea what you are in for and that your plans and goals will alter.

Traveling with my 9 year old is a piece of cake, my 3 year old not so much but certainly possible. I would say the hardest time to travel with a child is between 1-3 years when they are toddling and a bit harder to contain!

Enjoy your travels, your child certainly will!

Thank you Plumpmouse and also Robin for your input. Good grief though if I can only go to China as a retirement present..my child will be about 34 by then! :eek:

In all seriousness I have heard it many time and I do know life will change. It's nice to see that Plumpmouse has managed to do exactly as I plan to even when baby's here.:D

If my plans fall flat so be it but I'm going to give it a go!

Bangton

Cowgirl13 wrote: »

My husband and I both have good jobs, don't have any debt, but still don't consider ourselves in a position to have children and time appears to be running out very quickly! The cost of childcare would probably mean I would need to leave work, or work part time and that would mean our income would be halfed. How do people with kids manage to go back to work, put there children in childcare and for it to be worthwhile? Maybe we're still slightly selfish in the fact that we want to afford the house, nice cars, holidays etc and not struggle my parents had too.

It depends what sort of lifestyle you want to have I guess. Personally I'm £800 a month better off for working full time (once I've had a year off for baby) than I would be if I quit to be a SAHM. We won't struggle greatly although we won't have all the money in the world either. But nice things to me don't have to be the cream of everything...we are stable in our home, a nice car would be a Fiesta, DS3, Leon etc rather than an Audi or BM and we can still afford trips away ... once yearly/18 months. We share a car as it is relatively convenient for us to do so. I'm not the sort of person who buys tons of clothes, shoes or handbags (although I have the odd moment) either. I could have more without a baby but for me I look round and I'm happy with what I have although I'd take more no questions asked!

I will say it depends on you though and your earnings/outgoings. Do you know the true cost of childcare in your area? For both a nursery/childminder? I do have debt which I also pay £433 a month towards. If I could wish for anything it would be to be rid of that but we can't have everything and every month it works it's way down!

bylromarha

Spend time with friends without kids as much as you can. Once you have them, you end up at a common denominator of only able to talk about poo, food, nappies, sick, sleep and school.

If family aren't close by, cultivate friendships now which you can rely on for babysitters in the future.

Would second the poster who says travel with kids is amazing. We've travelled far more with our 2 than before we had kids. Took our 15month old to NZ and had a tour of Asia this summer with them aged 6 and 8. Amazing times.

Enjoy this time of your life. And enjoy the season to come too. Both are amazeballs!

fluffnutter

bylromarha wrote: »

Spend time with friends without kids as much as you can. Once you have them, you end up at a common denominator of only able to talk about poo, food, nappies, sick, sleep and school.

Only if you're unimaginative. I don't talk about poo and nappies to my friends who don't have kids. We talk about their lives, politics, what's in the news, our mutual friends, the things we've always talked about. Sure, the boy gets a mention now and then, to pretend he doesn't exist would be weird. But people who think the entire world revolves around kids simply because they've got one themselves are a bit rude IMO.

bylromarha

fluffnutter wrote: »

Only if you're unimaginative. I don't talk about poo and nappies to my friends who don't have kids. We talk about their lives, politics, what's in the news, our mutual friends, the things we've always talked about. Sure, the boy gets a mention now and then, to pretend he doesn't exist would be weird. But people who think the entire world revolves around kids simply because they've got one themselves are a bit rude IMO.

I agree - our friends who don't have kids think we want to talk about the kids all the time and we don't!

ANY time we steer the conversation away from our kids, the majority steer it back again. :eek:

And we wanted a night being ourselves, not mum and dad!

Williamf1989

ilovelondontown wrote: »

Title says it all,

Husband and I are "getting our ducks in a row" (aka financially) before we look to start a family next year and getting ducks in a row is taking longer than I'd like, so I've got time on my hands before life changes forever so I decided to starting a fun thread for anyone to comment on - if you have kids or not / if you want them or not / if you are a big kid...

Can I have your suggestions please?

Enjoy the lay ins while they last !!!

claire16c

I went travelling for 8 months, backpacking and stayed in some places I wouldn't bring kids or doing activities that would have been a lot harder to do or would have involved needing some kind of baby sitter etc

Just waiting for the kids part to happen now!

moneysaymoneydo

Oh bangton if I had a pound for everytime I've heard the "baby wont really change our plans we will take it with us" long haul flights and babies sounds like a good idea baby will sleep all the way but nothing better than a mum panicing hemmed in on a flight with scowling passengers and baby needing fed/changed to sleep, once your little bundle of joy is in your arms, sore ears them crying etc we just don't want for them, caravan will do :rotfl: