Dallas-Fort Worth Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: I need a baby
My sister is five years younger than I am, and we are like BFF. It wasn't always that way, but once I got to college we started to grow closer, and we've only become closer since. One thing that I actually enjoyed about it was that we were never really at the same school, so we were able to have our own identities there. We have never been competitive with each other at all, and I think that's in part because of the age difference. I actually would love to have my kids about 5 years apart, but since Courts and I are a little older, that probably won't happen.
DH wants ours close together too, because he and his brother are only 22 months apart. I don't mind, because since we aren't starting for a while, we will pretty much have to have them back to back anyway!
Nice save.
I don't think that's selfish at all. I think this is the time in our lives when we're supposed to be selfish. I think that's perfectly ok, and healthy, and expected. And necessary! Because if you don't have that now, you're going to look back and wish you did have it. And I don't think not wanting children at all is selfish, either. We weren't put on this earth with the sole purpose of pro-creating-IMO. Just enjoy your life and do what makes you happy. If that involves having kids, great. If not, that's great too. There are plenty of people out there having 47 kids that will make up for you not having any. Do trust.
Ditto this almost exactly. DH and his brother are less than 2 years apart and I envy their relationship. Probably because I don't have any real siblings.
Ditto again. I'm an only child and if I know one thing, it's that our children will have brothers and sisters! Even if we only have 2, that's fine.
I didn't mind being an only child when i was young, because I got all the attention, and I did have advantages that a lot of kids don't simply because all my parents' money went to me instead of being split 2 or 3 ways. It's simple math.
But, now that I'm older, I wish I had that brother/sister or sister relationship. Also, once my parents pass away, I will have no family left. No cousins to speak of that I'm really close to, no grandparents, nothing.
Me, too. I didn't miss it when I was younger. I did have several cousins my age, so I was never alone. But, I really wish I had a sibling now.
I am EXACTLY the same, only child, no cousins, no grandparents left so when my mom passes I am it. I hated being an only child and if we did have kids would want two.
It does make holidays and family functions pretty simple and drama-free for my side of the family though....I will admit that.
All we have to coordinate with is my parents! Instead of my IL's.. it's his parents, BIL and his wife and baby, his sister and her fiance, and his younger half brother. And it gets really expensive at Christmas...so it's nice that my family is a breeze!
I'm late to this but we were talking about this on Friday towards my end. Bill had no idea that babies went to daycare at six weeks. Uh, hello? Who do you think is going to take care of Rankenstein's Little Monster if you and I are both at work and your parents are still thankfully in Baton Rouge?
With All the Trimmings
Just do it!
Summer, he doesn't like to plan for things (anything, from weekends to distance future), so when it comes up it's a pretty short conversation. He just isn't ready yet is all he'll say, and "we'll know when the time is right" so if I have learned anything in the ten years we've been together, it's not to push discussions... so, I am waiting. I'm only 26, so I'm okay with waiting for a little while... but not too long
Regarding this selfish discussions.... waiting to have children, or even not having them at all, is not selfish - what is selfish is having children and not caring for them the best you possibly can. I'm not saying that parents shouldn't do fun things without the kids once they come into the picture, but there are some parents who do WAY too much of that to the point that the children suffer. THAT is selfish!
I know several people who have had kids before they were ready, ( but believed they were ready) and now they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're trying to act like they have the freedom of a couple who doesn't have children, and be good parents at the same time. Doesn't work like that. Can't have the best of both worlds.
At least they're trying for both sides of the fence... I know some people who have abandoned the being good parents and are just trying to have fun now. DH said one specific person we know "should have both her legs broken - one for each kid - to remind her" lol.
I agree with this completely. Kids change things and not in a bad way.. but yes, the dynamic is very different.
Bio
Oh, I thought you were channeling your inner Bieber, Brianna.
This is what my SIL used to say all the time, and now she's having twins. So... yeah.
My friend just had twins, a boy and girl. The boy is GREAT! Super laid back. The girl? Colicy as all get out. That kid never. stops. crying. Good thing she got one that's laid back! I feel so sorry for her! She lives with her mother, or I would offer to babysit because that would smack DH right back out of this funk real quick!
....and now I've choked for the second time on this post. LMAO!
Well, I do love J Biebs.
Bio
That made me laugh too, Tiffany!
Dana,
That's awesome y'all are going to start trying this summer! I'm sure your stepdaughter will love a baby sister or brother.
ITA about the support system. We are lucky enough to have both sets of my parents, and my IL's here in town so we will have a lot of babysitters when that time comes. I don't know from experience, but I think that something changes about traveling alone once you have kids. I think some of the fun may be taken away because you are constantly worrying/thinking about your child at home, and partly feeling guilty for leaving them and enjoying yourself.
Like I said, I could be wrong because I'm not a parent. But, that's just my .02.
My sister felt this way until this last week when she took her 7 and 9 year old on our cruise. She said next vacation is kid free! DH went 11 days without seeing his daughter. It was hard but we wouldn't have been able to enjoy our honeymoon with her there. I think it all depends on their age, where you go, and how long you are gone for. My step-sister and her husband travel all the time with his company. Last year during spring break they went to Italy for 10 days. They left their 2 children with the grandparents. At this point their kids actually like them going on vacation because they get to be spoiled at the grandparents. They take the kids on the ones that are kid friendly. The company offers 4 trips a year, 2 adults only and 2 family trips. They take 1 of each.
Ok, as someone with a small child, I can tell you (from experience)... leaving them is NEVER that easy. Even if you have a great support system that is willing to keep them whenever you want, you won't want to (no matter how much you think you will). We went on a 5 day, 4 night honeymoon in Hawaii (we picked that location so that we could have cell phone coverage), and called her every morning and every night. Before that, the most we had been without her was one night.
I hope that you don't take this in a mean way, and I may be opening a can of worms here but here goes: I think that if you're still concerned with traveling like that right away (or even in the next few years), then you should hold off on having a baby. IMHO, I don't think that's the best way to approach parenting and I don't think that makes you ready to have another baby. I would reassess, figure out where you want to go, and when you want to do it... and then plan on a baby.
For us, obviously Cadence wasn't planned, but now our life has had to readjust to having her. We will try to have another sometime within the next year or so (to conceive one), and we also understand that means we don't go anywhere for a while. That's a sacrifice that we make to have our kids.
I'm obviously no one to judge how or when anyone has their kids and how they plan to arranged their lives after the child is here... but IMO, if traveling is still high on your priority list, then you should wait.
/steps off soap box
Bio
I agree it has a lot to do with age. My mom traveled with my father on his company trips when I was little, and she said she was miserable the whole time because she hated leaving me. And I was 6 and 7.
I definitely think it depends on the couple. DH and I are realistic and we understand that we can't possibly go every single place in the world that we want to go before we have kids. But we do want to get the majority of our international traveling out of the way before that happens.
To add:
Going on trips with other couples? Won't happen anymore (not unless they have their own or are related... no one WANTS to be around kids on vacation).
Things YOU want to do on vacation? Won't happen anymore.
Bio
From my perspective, now that my child is almost an adult, it is nice to be able to think about traveling, retiring, and doing all of those things with my husand at this point in our lives. To start all over holds no appeal for me. At all.
Remember the story I told about not wanting to have to worry about whether a vacation was "kid-friendly" ever again? I have been there and done that.
Sings in her best Faith Hill voice "A baby changes everything...."
With All the Trimmings
Just do it!
We took the cruise last week with 4 kids. We know that vacations revolve around the kids. We do still want to travel. We are also ready for a baby. I want to be able to take family vacations. DH wants to travel to the different baseball stadiums and be able to share that with his kids. The only place we want to travel without children is Europe and even if we want to do that now or within the next 5 years we have 2 factors that will keep us from going even without a new baby. DH does have a child and his ex is not willing to work with us on more than a week vacation and we want to do 10-14 days. And that wouldn't be an option unless DH found a new job. He worked last week on vacation. He is the only one who does his job at his company.
We even talked about waiting until the kids were old enough to go with us (like teens) and taking them with us. If not there is always time to travel after they get into college. My mom has just recently (past 3 years or so) travelling to places outside the country.
And Brianna I didn't take offense to what you said( and I hope you don't take any to what I say). I understand that there are a lot of things that will change. A lot changed in my life as soon as I started dating DH and I didn't have the 9 months to prepare to be a mom. My everyday life is a mom already. I also know that leaving a child will be hard but I know lots of people that do it and as hard is it will be I don't feel like life has to completely stop because you have children. I'm not a "real" mom yet but I do have parents that taught my siblings and myself you have to have a life outside of your children or you go crazy. If we take a long weekend trip here or there once the baby is old enough I think that is fine.
I also firmly believe grandparents are a very important part of children's upbringing and I loved spending 2 weeks each summer at my grandparents house in San Antonio. My grandfather was my hero as a child and I think losing him in 8th grade really helped me see how important that is to a child.
ITA with Brianna. We would have more great babysitters than we'd know what to do with (in fact, they would probably fight over who got to keep them), that doesn't mean we would want to go anywhere without them.
Especially not for at least 5 years, maybe more.
Bio