Your stage of parenting at 40

[Isthistherealworldisthisjustfantasy]

Where are you at?
How do you feel about it?

I'm 40 and have a young family. I had my last baby last year. Still breastfeeding.

In my mind, I feel like I'm late 20s/early 30s and my stage of parenting kind of fits in with this delusion.

A few days ago, a father and son were on Instagram. The dad was 41 and the son was a big strapping 22 year old man, and at first, my husband (who is 41) was a bit discombobulated. I reminded him that we are old enough to not just have adult children, but grandchildren too. We sat there with our minds blowing. We do understand the maths, obviously, but we feel in such a different stage of life to our biological ages.

We started talking about how a woman has quite a long season where she can potentially get pregnant. I just saw on the news that Natasha Hamilton, who is 41, is pregnant, and I had a moment of feeling a pang of envy before I reminded myself that while I'd love another child, we are stopping at the 3 we have. I know that lots of 40 year old women would be horrified at the thought of pregnancy as their children are teens or adults.

Anyway, I think around 40 is a unique period of time in a woman's life where she can technically be a grandmother and still get pregnant and I was wondering where you all are by 40!

How old are your kids? Have you any grandchildren? Did you have all of your kids when you were young, spread over time or not until later? How would you feel if you got pregnant now? How would you feel if you became a grandmother now? Has anyone experienced both at the same time?

At 40 I had a 6 month old (my first). I remember having a conversation with a taxi driver telling us he was double celebrating his 40th as he was finally a grandad!

I think if you’ve had children earlier you’ve aged in a different way to if you’ve had your children later. There’s no right/wrong about it. But I see friends with their 25 year old v us with our 7 year old (we’re all
the same age) but even their kids treat us like we’re the young aunty and uncle!

I’m 44 and my DC are 27 and 23... so 23 and 19 when I was 40.

I’d have been absolutely horrified to be pregnant at 40, there’s no way I could have started again at that point, too old* too tired. 🤣

*I’m not saying 40 is objectively too old btw, I’m saying I was too old... because I’ve already raised children tbh, that’s what makes you old and tired 😐😂

At 40 I will have a 10 year old and a 7 year old.
I'm 33 now and had my DD last month.
My DS is 3 and I feel done with babies now 😅

At 40 mine were 11 and 9. Great years.

Mine were 9 and 7. Now 17 and 15. Very glad I didn't have a third at that time as we talked about back then. I love having almost grown up kids.

I'm 40 (Ekk only just tho) my kids are 15, 13 and about to turn 11. Been a single parent for the last 10 years mind, so feel older than that.

But I love my kids, and life is finally starting to come good for me :-)

I'm 40 and have a 21yo, 18yo, 11yo and 9 yo.

Two relationships so had a ten year gap.

Praying I'm not a grandparent before I'm 50 🤣 and my work colleagues think this possibility is hilarious!

I couldn't have a newborn now - too tired from teaching!

At 40 ( me) and 42 ( dh) had a 9 year old and a 6year old.
My friend ( at 40) had a 21 year old son who was just left uni and a 19 year old dd who had just finished her first year. Our other friend had had a 24 year old ds and was ( and is still is ) with ds' s father. Another friend at 40 was unable to have children.
We are all in our mid to late 50s now.

At 40 my kids will be 10 and 7.

I do wish I‘d had children earlier, because I would quite like to have a bit more freedom in my 40s.

I don’t feel like I enjoyed my freedom in my 20s enough!

Fascinating thread!!
At 40 I had my first child (dc was 4 months as adopted), then number 2 came the following year (also adopted). We were literally partying the weekend before she came so although I was very ready for it, our life changed dramatically very quickly! They are now 7 & 6 and in the throes of primary school and I love it!

There's definitely swings and roundabouts to being an older parent, I get so tired now, in bed by 10 most nights but I do think I'm a much more patient parent than I would have been 20 or even 10 years ago.

If I'd have started earlier I'd have liked more children but now I'm 47 I really don't want to go back to the baby years. I love the ages of my two now.

At 40, mine were 3 and 6 and I was desperately trying to conceive another (and had been for about 18 months). I never managed to! And that ship has sailed now.

I turn 42 next month and I’m on maternity leave with my second baby; also have a four year old. My neighbour is 40 and her youngest is four, with the same age gap as my two, and she has buckets more energy. Yesterday I met a teen mum to whom I was giving away baby equipment and she was the bloody Energiser bunny, I felt envious that once she’s my age her children will have left home! What a pleasure. It recently
hit me that just as this baby becomes more independent and easier, I’ll hit perimenopause, so another energy suck.

I had wanted a baby since I was 26: the biological I MUST HAVE THIS kicked in. But I didn’t meet someone worth having one with til I was 36 and had my first just shy of 38. I do think I’d be better off energy wise if I’d had kids when I wanted them. On the other hand, I have a house and career I’m not sure I would have managed with small children.

I'm 40 with a 22, 22, 17 year old and a 1 year old grandchild.

Found out I was pregnant last week

39 with a 20 year old, 10 year old and 8 year old. I have a 1 year old granddaughter.
Being a grandparent is amazing but sets off weird morbid thoughts more so than having children did. It's probably just me but I'm so happy that I have all this extra time to spend with DGD but then I think about the fact that if my other children don't have children until their 30 I probably won't get to know their children very well. It's not like it haunts my every thought but it does creep in every now and then!
It's lovely having another baby in the family and I would say it's massively made us spend more time as a family together. The age gap used to be a problem for finding things to do with all of us but a baby has somehow closed that because we're all besotted with her and happy to do whatever!
I think if I had had a choice I would have had all my babies young, but then I wouldn't have had children with my husband and he's an amazing Dad, first time round I ended up on my own.

I’m 40 in a few months and my children will be 6 and 9.

Whenever I see new mums I shudder at the thought of doing it all again at my age.

Me and DH had a scare a few months ago and I felt sick with dread and I was so relieved when the test came back negative.

I think for some people like myself who can’t imagine having a first child in their late 30’s to early 40’s, it may be because we are already knackered after God knows how long of parenting the children we already have and the idea of going back to square one is terrifying 😂

I imagine some 40 year olds who haven’t already had children probably feel a lot more sprightly, active and energetic than women who already have children, and so they don’t feel dread at the thought of having a baby 😂

This is all said light heartedly by the way and certainly not intended to cause any offence.

My husband’s cut off in terms of the age where he’d not want any more children was 35. That probably seems very young to a lot of people but he was adamant about it.

At the age of 39 I do feel too odd to have another baby, but like I said, I think that’s because my current two have already drained me and I want to start recapturing my own life again…..and my energy levels 😂

I was 4mths pregnant with my first on my 40th birthday and had my second at 43. I'm 47 now and I have quite a few mom friends at the school gate who are young enough to be my child. My best friend has grandchildren who are older than my children. Luckily our friendship group covers quite an age range so there's still a lot of others with young children of similar ages

I'm 41 with a 21ds and nearly 17 year old dd

I’m 46 now, but at 40 I had a 24yr old, a 12yr old and an 8yr old. No grandchildren, still, eldest is nearly 30 now. A pregnancy at 40 would have been horrifying for me! My brother is 48 and has adult children, but also a 1yr old, he’s absolutely exhausted!

Mine were 10 & 12 - I have a twin brother and his DC were 15 & 17 when we were 40.

42 now with an 11yo and 6yo
At 40 it was peak covid with a 9yo and 4yo

Congratulations!

At 40 I’ll have a 9yo and a nearly 8yo, I’m quite looking forward to it.

Had my babies a bit sooner than my friends and most will still be in the baby stage by the time they hit their 40th. Personally I’m glad it’s behind me, I’m really not good at babies. I remember crying on DH when we were exhausted with newborn DC2 and my friends went on a girls holiday, I felt like I was missing out on so much. He pointed out that we’ll be in the Maldives by our late 40s while our friends will still be doing potty training. So it’s swings and roundabouts 😂

My kids were eleven and sixteen when I reached the age forty , I'm now fifty-odd and free now 😁.

My oldest was 7 , youngest 3

It was a good time. I felt like I expected to in my 30s.

Now I'm in my 50s I fell like I expected to in my 40s.

I'm in denial 😂😂😂😂

I'm 40 this year. I will have a 3 year old and a 6 year old. Would have liked them to be older, but we had fertility issues. I'm very grateful for our daughters.