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?

My husband and I are both 44 and we have an 8 month old baby boy. It took us 4 years and 4 miscarriages. I’m hoping he keeps me young 🙂. My sister was totally the other end of the scale and had her 3 boys at 16, 18 and 20 and was a grandma by my age twice.

I don’t think there’s a good or bad age to have your family in respect of life stage but sooner is better due to biological health of eggs etc.

40 with a 17 month old little boy. Husband is 42. Took us over 6 years to have him (lots of ops and IVF for Endo and adenomyosis). I look around baby groups and other mums all seem to be mid/late 20's to early 30's but I'm not bothered by it. Feel really lucky to have finally got pregnant and has our little boy. Would love another but realistic of chances xx would have loved to have become a Mum at a younger age but it wasn't too be... I've learnt its swings and roundabouts really as yes I'd rather not have gone through all the heartbreak. But now he's here and we're more financially stable and lucky for the economy to have not put too much pressure on us.

At 40, mine were 6 and 12. 35 was my cut off for having babies, I'm perimenopausal and on HRT now at 44 and, looking back, some of the peri symptoms started at 41 so not sure I'd have been able to have another past 40 if I'd wanted to

At 40 my kids were 12, 10 and 6.

I'm 44yo now and I read those stories of women thinking that they are peri only to find out they are pregnant with the same kind of horror that filled me with dread as a teen on reading about some girl who got pregnant through some improbable and convoluted means, (shared towel anyone?) that filled trashy magazines in the early 90s.

At 40 I had just had baby number 3 but 1 and 2 were 18 and 15. Number 3 19 now but I feel ancient.Number 1 is 37 with a wife and 4 kids. How the heck did that happen?

I have SC so I didn't have my first at 14 but all of them when I'm 40 will be 26, 19, 18 and 14.

At 40 I’ll have a 10 year old and an 8 year old (part of me thinks I’d love to have another in a couple of years so that would add a 5/6 year old but DH and the rational side of my brain say no!)

My sister will have a 20 year old at 40 - I think we are both jealous of each other - she wishes she’d had my 20s, I am jealous of her early freedom!

At 40 I had a 3 year old. 41 now, one and done though if we were planning to have another that would have been no earlier than last year (due to nursery fees).

Most of my friends have small children (under 7). I don't know anyone with teens, the oldest child in my friendship group is 10.

It does blow my mind to think I could technically have an adult child and grandchildren, but that would never have been my life choice as I would have had an abortion if I'd got accidentally pregnant when I was young.

I am 42 with 3 year old twins. I’d love another but having been bless with twin through IVF I know how lucky I am.

At 40, had a 5yo. It was great. Right time for us.

At 40 my children will be 11 and 8

Currently 40 with a 10 year old. I am very broody but realistically starting again terrifies me - we have freedom now, dd is good company and life is good.

She was a hard baby who fretted a lot and didn't sleep, I had pnd and our lives were unrecognisable from now. I like to think that if we went again, I would handle things better as I would know what we were in for, but I worry that I would end up resentful. Also I am too tired to contemplate sleepless nights again!

That said, dd being an only child is a source of huge guilt for me. I wish I had been brave enough to go for a second child but realistically I didn't feel ready until she was about 6 and a lot was going on with life at that point. If we did try now, there would be such a huge age gap. Plus DH would be 48 and he feels that is too old for him to have a newborn

My son will be 6 when I'm 40. He has severe SEN.
My worst nightmare would be to be pregnant again.

At 40 I had one adult DD and one gc. At 50 I had 2 gc. Now 3 gc 2 years later. I don't think I made a conscious choice to only have one child but it worked well for me. I've never felt broody at all.
I was a single parent and remain single. Suits me.
I couldn't imagine having a child at 40, I was getting my life back by then (sort of)

41yo. My DC are 12, 16 and 21. DGC is 3

At 40 mine were 12, 8 and 5.
By 45 I’ll be able to leave them all home alone and have some freedom again!
Never had babysitters so can’t wait. Hope they’re sensible teens though!

At 40 my children will be 10 and 8. Ideally there would also be a 5 year old in the mix too :)

This thread is so interesting. I just cannot get my head around the fact that I could technically have a 20 year old daughter, while at the same time wondering if I should have another baby (I shouldn't!).

All of our reasons for having no more are boring, practical, pragmatic and head driven. I do have brief fantasies of peeing on a stick one more time and seeing that second line, having another scan, another bump, choosing another name etc. I'm in the thick of it now anyway! Alas, I'm already very blessed and 4 kids under 9 might be a bit too much.

I am currently breastfeeding the baby I had last year and I just can't seem to stop, because once that's finished, it's all finished, all of the physical changes that come with creating, birthing and sustaining a baby. I don't remember feeling so desperate to hang on to that childbearing aspect of myself with my other kids. The next physical change for me will be the menopause, which is so jarring because I feel like a fertile woman of that age range but I'm actually at the end of it. I keep having to remind myself that I don't have my thirties ahead of me to keep having babies!

It's a really weird Venn diagram kind of experience!

At 40 I had two teenagers. Now at 44 one is an adult and the next one too in a month. I am absolutely loving my independence and I value it so much more now and I actually have money to do fun things which I didn't in my early 20s. I am really glad that I had kids early and I now have two additional adults to hang out with.

I'm 39 and mine are 9 and 12. I'm pleased I had them when I did. It's a nice stage now and am bracing myself for the teenage years but feel I will hopefully have the energy to cope with it all.

At 40 I had newborn twins, 4 year old, 12 year old and 17 year old.

I am exhausted but absolutely love having a big family. DH and I been together 20 years and we never imagined we would have this many and we still pinch ourselves over the twins 🙈🤣 but there will be no more for us.

At 40 I’ll have a 15 year old and a 10 year old. We are definitely on the younger side of older DDs classmates parents though, don’t think anyone would bat an eye at a 40yo with small children round here.

desperate for a family. struggling with complete male factor infertility. considering adoption.

Had no children. I had just met my DP and wasn't particularly bothered about having any. He actually wanted more children and is hands on with his existing DC.

My siblings have had their children at a variety of ages, with oddly my brothers generally having them earlier than my sisters.

Totally agree with you! I have friends in their early 40s who are having their first babies and others who are grannies!

I'll be 40 next year and I'll have a 9yo, 7yo and a 5yo. I'm quite happy with it as had time to have fun when I was younger and time with just me and DH before our kids came along, time to build our careers, get on the housing ladder etc... but also won't still be doing the school run into my 50s. So for me (personally! the perfect balance!