..to think that, except in very special circumstances....

[BertrandRussell]

....you should not have a baby with someone you have known for less than, say, 5 years? And you should both be at least, say, 2 years away from the relationship with the parent of your other children?

The most common methods have perfect use failure rates of between 0.2%-2% and average use failure rates of 9-18% (condom/pill - coil/implant average use is unchanged from 0.2% perfect)
All these statistics are pointless as they can only go by what people admit to be true. Who knows that the person who says they took the pill every day at 8pm were actually flushing it in the toilet every day they got pregnant.

And even if indeed these figures were reliable, how many of these failures result in the woman deciding there and then they want to keep the baby rather than being shocked and upset and resulting in an abortion because after all, they were using contraception because they didn't want to get pregnant in the first place rather than the unfortunate, but so happy outcome of these accidents on mn.

You don't have to be together for five years to be in a stable relationship. Also, just because you have been together five years, that doesn't mean your relationship is stable.

BertieBotts is absolutely right re contraceptive failures. Even with perfect use, no method is 100% reliable. Chances are, a large number of women will have a contraception failure throughout their lifetime.
DD2 was conceived while I was on the mini pill after the birth of DD1. I was still exclusively BF-ing, we’d only had sex once that month, I hadn’t missed a pill, or been late taking it, no sickness, no antibiotics etc. No explanation. It does happen.

I think more than an arbitrary number of years people should actually wait until the 'honeymoon' phase is over in the relationship and should probably make sure they've lived together for a while before having children.

I was aware of some of my DH's silly childish idiosyncrasies (as he was aware of mine) after we had been living together for around 6 months or so, but I knew that whilst we both had our daft areas of selfishness, that he would still make a great Dad and I hoped I'd make a halfway decent Mum. We had our twins after being together 2.5 years (or so) and have had our share of moments since, but the important thing is trying to see without the rose-tinted glasses, whether the person you're with is actually somebody you could see being a parent.

Easier said than done, but after coming out of a particularly nasty abusive relationship (3 years before meeting DH) I knew very quickly that DH is a good man.

Difficulty is the number of times people are lulled (women especially) into a false sense of security before the real nature of the Man they thought they knew comes to the fore. This happened with my shitty Ex, except instead of trying to get me pregnant to tie me down, he did it financially, I didn't see any of the warning signs until that "WTF am I doing here?" moment and I thank the universe I didn't try for children with him - if I had, I honestly don't know that I would have ever escaped.... I did have to completely wreck my finances and credit history to get away, but that pales in comparison to having a child with him.

I don't think time matters at all. A one night stand with a stranger can lead to a pregnancy and a long and happy relationship for life.

You just never ever know do you?

Difficulty is the number of times people are lulled (women especially) into a false sense of security before the real nature of the Man they thought they knew comes to the fore.

This is it. Knowing a man for 10 years vs a one night stand. You never know how they'll be as a dad, as a long term husband. It's all a big gamble. The ones who have stable, happy marriages (if they really do exist) are very lucky.

Chances are, a large number of women will have a contraception failure throughout their lifetime
And most of these will have not taken it as prescribed, ie. same time every day, will have genuinely forgotten to take it but chose not to take the map, will have not used another method of protection when ill, or will claim high and low that they were on the pill when they never were because they don't dare come clean about it to anyone.

I expect a large percentage of mn failures fall in one of these categories.

@gamerchick

legover does not in these days = having a child

I am sometimes surprised by the eagerness to have a new child with a new partner as soon as humanly possible

@BertrandRussell

I still think that time out of a previous relationship if there are children is important though. Introducing new siblings while everything’s up in the air just has to be a bad idea. And it seems to happen a lot. Both here and in real life.

Sorry but it’s a from me this time!

I was 32 when I met ExH. By your reckoning we should only have started trying when I was 37.

I was 32 when I met ExH. By your reckoning we should only have started trying when I was 37.

OP would approve of me. I got pregnant with DC1 when I'd been with DH for exactly five years, and we're still together 26 years on. Do I get a prize?

I'm seriously sleep deprived here but if you have to be 5 years into a relationship but only 2 years apart from ex doesn't that mean you've been cheating for 3 years. I have probably totally got the wrong end of this as my toddler is sick and I haven't slept for a week I'm honestly not thick.

Lol. At least goady life instructions are a slight change from your unyielding, slightly creepy and sycophantic posts in defence of Meghan Markle on Every Single Thread about her.

Contraception statistics are probably harder to gauge with methods that require user intervention such as the pill or condoms, but not at all difficult to gauge with methods such as the coil - how on earth could somebody lie about that?

The 0.2% refers to contraception such as these. That in fact is the industry's answer to poor failure rates. Hence there is no difference between real world/average use and lab condition "perfect" use. That still works out to 1 in 23 women over the course of her entire fertile years. If you really don't want to get pregnant you should double up on contraception. In reality I don't think most people feel THAT strongly (or perhaps they also don't really understand the statistics).

Yes in reality if you're using contraception poorly it's much more likely to happen. In fact that's more like 1 in 20 - 1 in 10 per year of life meaning you are almost guaranteed to end up with a contraception failure pregnancy sooner or later, assuming you have both normal fertility and you continue to use contraception poorly for your whole life.

Plenty of people post on MN with an unplanned pregnancy in distress, not all happy about it at all. Some of them go on to have abortions.

My DH and I were together for 10 years (4 years married) before having a baby. We’re finding having a baby very, very tough on our relationship. In all honesty, I think the long tine together before having a baby has made it harder. Ten years of having each other’s undivided attention has made it incredibly difficult to adjust, whereas other couples who haven’t been together as long seem to have found it easier.

Accidents do happen - I was one! My parents had been married for over a decade but had decided to be childless due to the congenital condition of their first child. The pill wasn't around then and it was well before the Abortion Act so there were probably more accidents due to correctly used contraceptive failure than now. However, so many people seem to be completely cavalier about contraception now.

You can't guarantee that someone won't turn into a dick after children but there also seems to be so much ignoring of red flags, and serial relationships and pregnancies amongst certain people too.

I do think if someone chooses to get pg after only a few months they aren't taking the whole business very seriously. I waited 5 years just to move in together! Unplanned pgs or meeting late in fertile life aside, I don't know why you wouldn't want a year to two at least together before bringing anyone else in.
And some people (men as much as women) seem to need to have a baby with every new partner.

(I fully realise how judgy that all is and would never say any of that in rl but some of the car crash situations you read about on here..)

A one night stand with a stranger can lead to a pregnancy and a long and happy relationship for life. You just never ever know do you?

Just to be clear. Are you saying that a pregnancy resulting from a ONS and a pregnancy that takes place in a long term established relationship are equally likely to end up with the couple staying together and happy?

Been with DH 9 years... and Dc1 is 6. I was 34 when we met. So I should have waited till I was 39 to start trying? yeah right...

I think a lot of people have kids earlier in a second relationship because they are already in a parenting frame of mind through looking after the child from the first relationship together. It naturally turns your mind to children faster.

From someone who is in one of those "second" relationships I personally wish people would think more carefully about their first relationships - everyone I know that has kids and has separated were incompatible with their first partner and should never have rushed into things or assumed that first relationship was the best partnership for them. It's always easy to judge when you're on the other side, the truth is lots of people have children with the wrong people and time isn't always the best gauge of that.

In the theory way I agree this is possibly the best way to do things.

However, Life is very rarely that simple. For example, I met DH (then DP) and fell pregnant 8 weeks into our relationship. Not something I had ever done up to that point in my (then) 27 years. We agreed after a week of thinking through all eventualities, that we would give it a go and keep the baby.

However as it turned out DH a year a bit later, when DS was nine months old, developed stage four cancer, and the chemo he was on resulted in him being infertile.

A year and a half later after battling cancer, dementia, death in the family and other illnesses we tied the knot in front of 50 close family and friends, three years after meeting.

Had we not kept the pregnancy, and waited even half the time you are suggesting, we wouldn't of being able to have any. And being a mother was the only thing I had ever really, truly wanted.

So six and two threes, and all of that. In theory YANBU, in real life I think you are beinga bit. Circumstances dictate more than theory.

I'm seriously sleep deprived here but if you have to be 5 years into a relationship but only 2 years apart from ex doesn't that mean you've been cheating for 3 years. I have probably totally got the wrong end of this as my toddler is sick and I haven't slept for a week I'm honestly not thick.

That was my thought too! Strong rules for having children but not around faithfulness within a relationship it seems!