Would you wait to ttc to avoid a summer birthday

[justthinkingxx]

We want to try towards the end of this year and if we are lucky straightaway that would mean a summer birthday. I read it on here on other threads that people think it is the worst time to be born in, for the place in school year above all else

I can see some advantages though like maybe being off school for your birthday , always having good birthday weather , and importantly whilst cost of living is so high you would pay nearly a year less of childcare fees when lots of the first year of school is relaxed and play based anyway , so best of both worlds only you’re not paying for it ?

We’re in our mid20s so can wait if summer is truly disadvantageous !

Paying a year's less nursery is one of the unspoken benefits of a summer birthday 🤷🏻‍♀️

People get too worked up about this. Every child is different. Birthday date makes a bit of a difference but not huge, especially when accounting for all other factors.

Life is long. Don't be the parent obsessed with attainment in reception.

6/10 of my friend group at school were July or August birthdays. All got straight As at A Level. Start trying when you're ready but don't obsess over timing. As PPs have said, you have no idea how long it will take

Yeah it took me 5 years to get pg so I think just practice relaxing and letting go of this level of control... it'll be helpful when the children are actually here.

I'd aim for Feb to May, purely because being pregnant in a heatwave was absolute hell.

Honestly if you want a child it really wouldn't matter 🙄

I have summer borns - all born before eldest started school - and frankly though they are ultimately fine I do think being that youngest in school year has been a disadvantage and continues to be so even as eldest creeps to 18.

I probably still wouldn't delay TTC if I'd was older or been trying a while but otherwise with benefit of hindsight if few months made little difference I would.

That's not to say all summer borns are badly affected but it has proven to be a disadvantage to mine and we didn't have option of deferring school start which I think has come in more now.

If you have time on your side, I’d avoid a summer birthday. There are always ‘my child is 31st august and top of her class’ comments but statistically, the figures speak for themselves.
Yes the difference reduces over time, but still a statistical difference at 16.
I think school is hard enough and they start early in UK as it is. I just think it makes it easier being a bit older.

I'm a former teacher and I did this. We want September-March birthdays and deliberately lined up starting to TTC. We have a late September son and will do the same for our next baby.

I don't know if I feel strongly enough about it to have stopped TTC once we reached a potential May birthday. Luckily we didn't find out the first time.

No. I had a pregnancy and birth which made me realise this isn’t important - to me anyway. And I have a few friends who have unexplained infertility/secondary infertility so I won’t do it with subsequent pregnancies either if we’re lucky enough to have more. We didn’t conceive straight away and while it caused worry at the time, I now look at my DC1 and think about how we wouldn’t have her if we did.

I'm a summer baby. My birthday is next week.

From what I remember and from what I was told, I took a while to settle into school but once I did I thrived and in fact with another pupil (namedropping Tamsin Grieg, who sat next to me) was the best reader in the class.

I did sometimes feel jealous of the kids in my class who were older, but I got over that. My bday was always in the last week of the summer term so it was a nice time as we were winding down. I nearly always have glorious weather on my bay....on my 40th and 50th I had barbecues. Last year it was 40 degrees c in London where I live on my birthday. I joked at work it was the heat from my birthday cake candles!

My husbands birthday is in January, when in the UK it's guaranteed to be cold, were, dark, and with everyone broke or doing dry January, Veganary or down the gym. I think he got the short straw. Summer birthdays rock!

Oh and another good thing about being a July baby (well July 66 specifically!) I arrived just in time for England to win the World Cup. I was obviously a good omen 😂

Yes I would prefer baby’s birthday to be between September - December for some reason, it just sits better in my brain 😂
But obviously it’s a hard thing to try and control and if I was struggling I’d be happy with any date.

I have an August born child - most of my family birthdays are either end of Christmas so it breaks things up a bit and we're not having to sort out 2 lots of presents in quick succession or deal with a big influx of toys. I also find celebrating her birthday easier as we can have a family barbecue rather than struggle to book a restaurant in the run up to Christmas and enjoy it more as come New Year when my birthday falls everyone's skint, fed up and run down after Christmas.

My child had less time in school nursery than her peers - when she started some of the older ones had been there nearly a year and seemed so much ahead of her but now they're going into Year 5 and she has caught up a lot more and likes the same things they do.

I wasn't really thinking straight with no.4 and I thought it'd take a while as I was almost 42 but the worst birthday is definitely the end of December. She was actually due the middle of January (probably not much better) but came slightly earlier. Middle and end of May is not great either (I have 2 dc born then) and it's lovely when they're young but then SAT'S, gcses and A levels are all that time of year which makes things like 18th birthday parties difficult. Eldest is October like me and dh and that was fine.

I was dreading having a summer baby as he was due right at the end of August. Other than him having to play catch up a little at school when he first started, he's the sweetest boy and is actually a lot more mature than many in his class. Birthday parties/celebrations are easier IMO
I wouldn't worry - I'm a December baby and bloody hate it!!

Once they're in your world it doesn't matter when they were born :)

I’m a summer baby. Didn’t really like it as a child because people tended to be away so hard to have a party but as an adult I love it, especially as I work in education so it’s easy to take a week off over my birthday.

To be honest though, getting pregnant may happen straight away or not. There are much bigger things to worry about

You can always try, but bear in mind it can take some time to conceive. I understand you, because I didn't want April/May/June baby for personal reasons. Everyone has some preferences. Good luck conceiving, hopefully it will happen very soon for you.

Btw. I'm winter baby and personally don't like it. Summer birthday would be my dream- you can have outdoor party 😄

It never occurred to me to avoid summer BIRTHS. I just am not sure how I would cope with being heavily pregnant in the summer, with the heat!!!
Im in a mediterranean country, so we can easily get 40+ degrees in the summer. being 8/9 months pregnant in that seems horrific!!!

The one I am 100% actively avoiding is Christmas. Dont want a christmas baby, not only for the child themselves, as the curse of the joint gifts is real, but also because I dont want to be in hospital over Christmas, if I can avoid it at all!

So I didnt start trying until May. hoping to have an April baby!

Definitely not. I’m a summer baby and bone idle and naughty at school but managed to get straight A’s and a first from a top uni. My DC has SEN and is a May baby and copes fine. I think if the child is really emotionally young for their age I can see why you’d do it. If it’s to try and give an academic advantage why would you bother? You can push and tutor and fuss over their education all you want to get the best out of a child but everyone is limited to a range of achievement according to how naturally smart they are. Some kids will never achieve academically and some will despite putting no effort in. Better to foster a sense of personal pride in doing their best and to enjoy the social experience and a 3 yr old could manage that in a reception class . And by the time they take exams they’ll have stopped listening to a word you say anyway and you just have to hope they show up and do okay. December or June birthday won’t make a jot of difference.

A friend did this, stopped ttc to avoid a summer baby. Her baby was due in October but was actually born in August. Backfire! As it happens they've never had any issues with being the youngest in the class.

There are pros and cons no matter what.

There are pros and cons to having birthdays at all times. But there's no guarantee you're going to conceive when you first try, or even the few months following that. Before you know it, you're back to looking at a summer birthday again.

The most important thing when you're trying for a baby is having a healthy baby. No birthday will ruin a child's life. My friend who was born on Christmas Day always had a birthday party in the summer holiday (back when she wanted bouncy castles and things), so you can get round it whatever happens.

There are pros and cons so it doesn't really matter what time of year a child is born, if they're healthy and happy that's all you care about and it's only something you can really plan so much anyway. I always said I wanted a baby born in September or October and the months I actively wanted to avoid were August (heavily pregnant in summer, youngest in year) and December (due to Christmas.) However things took a lot longer than I expected and ended up having DD1 in January and DD2 is a June baby. If they had been December and August it would have been fine too. Just start TTC when you feel ready, they'll turn up when they turn up.

When we had our first we didn’t know any of this ‘poor summer born kids they’ll be so disadvantaged’ claptrap. So I suppose it was a surprise to all the people who couldn’t wait to tell me how behind she’d be that she’s actually in the top form her year ( currently in year 8) and has had a great academic history right through and we’ll socialized as well. With our second we suffered from secondary infertility so we were just grateful to be pregnant no matter what time of the year they were due.

It's impossible to plan when you want baby to be born, it will happen when it happens!

This is so patently bollocks