How common is timing conception with the aim of giving birth in a specific month of the year?

[GossipFinch]

I read an article a while back where Davina McCall was talking about timing the conception of all of her DCs so she would give birth in the autumn after Big Brother was finished. She has 3 DCs and believe she had them all in September or October. I recall she said she couldn't bear the thought of having to go on maternity leave and having to give up the job of hosting BB when it was one of the most popular shows on TV in the early to mid-2000s.

The thought occurred to me - do 'normal' women ever try to time conception in a similar manner? I've heard that anecdotally, some women don't want August babies because they will be noticeably smaller than other children in their class who were born earlier. I personally didn't think about what month was best to conceive DCs in - I was just happy to conceive at all. Any thoughts MN?

Why?

I always loved having a December birthday.

Except in swimming races where I could be competing against kids nearly two years older. But other than that December birthdays are great!

I have a June baby and a March baby. Neither were timed. I think both times I assumed it would take a while to conceive so I didn’t want to wait for a “good” month only for it to not happen that month. It actually happened very quickly both times so I probably could have planned the month if I wanted to. I do feel a little bad for my son being born in June and possibly being at a disadvantage in school because of that. But he has additional needs and probably would have struggled anyway. We have got support in place for him starting school which we might have had to wait longer for if he’d started school later, so it worked out.

I was obviously very naive as it simply didn’t occur to me. I was 35 we we started trying for our first, so I didn’t want to hang about. She was born in the second half of July but that was never an issue.

The only person I know who gave this any thought was someone who was advised to have a caesarean. She was due in September and when the hospital was booking her in, they offered her one date at the very end of August and one in early September. She chose September so that he would be one of the oldest in the year rather than one of the youngest.

I'll take what I can get 🤣 had thought about months at the beginning but now I'd just like to become pregnant. My app says if this cycle works my potential due date is 27th Dec 🤞🏼

When I first started trying for my first we timed it in the hope we'd have a baby in September or October 2016. By the time he turned up in July 2018 I was very much past caring about the month!

We tried on and off around various things - job changes, skipping months to avoid losing maternity pay loss, months of important tickets postponed from COVID times etc. Didn't have the flex to be picky about birth month after that.

Then I got pregnant in time to have HG the one time a major event came to the UK for once, when I'd just quit my job to go self-employed!

But we had an October baby.

I have many friends who have announced their pregnancies at work the day after their bonus hits their account…

I wanted to avoid Christmas. They are 12th and 17th December...

We wanted a spring baby and she arrived in April as planned. If we ever have another I would go for autumn as being one of the older children at school is apparently an advantage - never considered it first time around.

Yes, timed both although the 2nd I had to delay a month as we realised there was a high risk of her arriving within a few days of her sibling's and father's birthdays. Good thing we did, as she arrived nearly exactly one month later. I had fully expected to have difficulties conceiving due to family/medical issues on both sides, but very fortunately I had an easy ride, pregnant the first month with each child.

My friend asked me this when we’d already been trying a year (she didn’t know). She got pregnant immediately both times so I can see why she’d think that but I just laughed. We’re still going 3 years later so for some, no, timing doesn’t work 😂

Of you start early, or know you're very fertile I guess I can see the logic but we didn't start until I was 32, so the idea of only ttc certain months of the year (not March - May due to Xmas / Jan: not Nov - Dec to avoid August) so stopping and starting contraception to ttc in Jan - Feb, June - Oct seems crazy.

Can’t you just defer summer born children now?

🤞 🤞 I'm NYE, my kids mid Dec, my nephews mid Dec and mid Jan. Honestly it's fine. It's how you manage it

Very common in my circle of teacher friends, not very common in my non teacher friends circle.
purely anecdotal!

I timed my babies births, I didn’t want a Christmas baby it’s an expensive month as it it! or one born after April as I didn’t want them to be youngest in their years.

Someone thought you'd conceived on purpose to spite the bridal couple???
I announced my pregnancy to my sister by showing her a baby sling that matched my chief bridesmaid dress 😂. No one thankfully thought I'd revenge pregnanced myself!!

As it was, baby had own plans. 5 weeks early so wedding was me springing across hospital as a surprise to manage the service then sprinting back to hospital

I'm mid November but always feel like I was early as was very small and my dad is 1st Jan. I'm past caring about what months now!

DS - no
DD - yes, I wanted her to have an Autumn bday so she wouldn't have a bday in the holidays and so she wouldn't have to go to school at just turned 4 if she wasnt ready.

So you were aiming for only Sept - Nov?

No Sep -Nov then Jan - Apr

Never known anyone to do it! My due date was early October and I was surprised the amount of people who said jt was a good time for baby to be born (school wise), thst never crossed our minds, was just grateful to be pregnant after previous miscarriages

DT’s were unplanned - born early July. Perfect time - half way from Christmas and on maternity leave during the summer. Being young in the school year hasn’t been an issue.

I wanted October babies and was luckily enough to get 2. No fertility issues luckily.

Haha yes, was going to say it can also be quite a long way out - I was due in October and my actual birthday is in August...! So you'd probably have to aim for November to be on the safe side.