To wonder what it is like having a baby at 40?

[jasmineseas]

Is it really notably different to when you are younger, or is it all much of a muchness ...?

I had my first at 38 and my second is due just before my 40th birthday.

I got the impression that the younger mums I knew had a bit more energy, but that I was a bit more relaxed about parenting.

However, I know that wouldn't be universally true.

I had my first at 38 and second at 41.

I was very tired after my first, but full of energy after my second. The difference I think was the epidural which really affected me strongly. I don't know if it was an age thing, but I was too late for an epidural with ds2 and was so glad that I was. My body recovered so much quicker.

Three big differences for me.

1. We were much more financially secure than when we were younger. We are not well off, but had things in order, knew exactly what we could afford, and were both established in careers which made life afterwards easier.

1. My skin/muscles lacked the elasticity of a 24 year old and really did not ping back into shape easily.

1. It was harder getting support than many of our younger friends. Our parents had health issues, lived a long way away and were frail so had little involvement with our kids. Our friends had had their kids earlier and were very much past the baby stage, so we found ourselves with lots of good advice, some useful hand me downs, but out on a limb a bit.

HTH

First at 26, 2nd 29, 3rd 36. The last one has been utterly exhausting but brings such amazing joy to our lives. I had a more difficult pregnancy and ended up with an emergency c section, which took me a very long time to recover from.

We've never had much family help due to location, but would agree that it is harder for grandparents to help out as you get older due to increasing health issues. Of course, that won't always be the case for everyone!

I'm tired all the time but no 3 gets very relaxed parenting because I've done it all before! No 3 has not been the cause of any woes and difficulties though, that has been no. 1.

I had mine at 27 & 34 - which was fine for me... but DH is 14 years older than me and he is thinking about his age and how long he will be around for DC. He is in his mid 50's now and a very hands on dad. I think there is a real price to pay by our children, if we have them later on in life.

Yes, Ylvamoon, this does haunt me a bit, that I could die and leave no 3 at a much younger age than no 1 and 2. My sister had her boys later than me at 37 and 39 and the thought she might not see her grandchildren makes her really sad sometimes.

My sister had one at 20 and one at 41 and said it was awful second time round compared to first, energy and tolerance levels way lower and she didn't remember it being as hard as it was 2nd time.

I had my first at 33 and my 2nd at 43

I was so exhausted all the time in my pregnancy at 43. I was working though and worked right up until 2 weeks before I gave birth. Had emergency C Sect and had to stay in for 8 days in hospital. I felt so ill all the time and in pain and was breastfeeding but as soon as 6 weeks passed I felt much better and was able to start enjoying my 2nd baby with help from my 1st baby who was 10. In hindsight I think 33 was a good age to have a baby and 43 wasn't. I can def see now why people have babies in their 20's.
I think if you have your first baby in your 40's it's great as you have nothing to compare it with, you are just thankful you got to have one.

They are 15 and 5 now

Just my opinion on this - could be triggering

Honestly, I wouldn't do this again if you paid me. I am 40 and have had nothing but problems for 4 years TTC with my DP.
I have two DC from my previous marriage who I had when I was 26 and 30 and apart from being really hard to conceive, I never experienced what I have the last 4 years. They were easy pregnancies with no problems (until I had to give birth but not many people have it easy)

In the last 4 years I've had 3 MMC at 9 weeks and one spontaneous MC at 4 weeks. Two of those babies had chromosome issues, despite there being nothing wrong with DP and I.
I am currently pregnant again (8 weeks) and having sporadic very heavy bleeding and clots even though, so far, baby seems okay (at least at my scan on Friday). Even if baby gets through this, the risk of problems are so much higher so we will be having a Harmony test at 10 weeks.
I am convinced all these problems are age related as I didn't have this when I had the DC when I was younger, even though I like to kid myself it isn't.

If I had my life again I would never have started this at such a late age and I certainly won't be trying again after this attempt.

I hope this doesn't upset anyone but I had to share my experience as I'd hate for anyone else to go through this and I think being 40 you're at such a high risk of all these complications and more.

I have no comparison to what it would have been like when I was younger as I was 42 when I had my one and only (now 3). Took a long time to conceive and we ended up having IVF (my own eggs). However pregnancy was a breeze, all tests came back low risk, and birth fairly uneventful too (above 40 it’s standard to induce on your due date so I calmly went to the hospital in the bus when the day came). After years of working in a high pressure environment I found the maternity leave with sole focus on my baby absolutely blissful and I was lucky enough to have no financial or career worries. I was also hugely happy to have squeezed one out at the last possible moment before my ovaries gave up the ghost.

Big advantage of course was having no other kids to think about. I am not the fittest person in the world but so far I have had as much energy as my fellow Mums who are ten to 15 years younger.

First baby at 38, didn't do it again. Easy pregnancy and birth but for me I found it very hard to adjust to the sleepless nights and lifestyle change . I'm not sure if that was 20 years of putting myself and my career first , so it was more of a shock- or it could just be me.
Ds is 6 now and I love having a young child he keeps me young !

I had first at 39 and second at 43. No problems conceiving. I did pay for a private CVS test for each though, as I wanted to be as sure as possible that everything was fine.

Worked up to my due dates.

Had 2 uncomplicated deliveries, (both on Saturdays), and was back at home very quickly, and driving DH to his work again on Monday. No relatives around to help at all, so I just got on with it. I would have liked some help, but it wasn't an option. Story of my life.....!

I don't remember feeling particularly tired - I mean I WAS tired, but perfectly able to function. I was pretty careful with my health and weight gain during both pregnancies, and was back down to my normal weight within a month.

And yes, I know this makes me sound like a smug, self-congratulatory cow, but it's still true!

OP, I think all you can take from threads like this is that everyone is different. Good luck with what you decide to do.

After several MCs I had my one and only DS a month before my 40th birthday, DH was 44.
I had 2 further MCs at 42 and 43.
Only 1 GP with health problems and my family all worked so couldn’t be of any support.
DS was a terrible sleeper and when he got older wanted to run all day.
He is now a 15 year old strapping lad with a heart of gold.
DH has always been sporty and they share the same sporting hobby so don’t feel DS is missing out on anything having an older Dad.
On weekends they’ll be out in the garden throwing a rugby ball, frisbee or cycling.
Would I do it again? 100% yes.

I had my first at 25 and it was honestly a breeze. Sleepless nights didn’t bother me at all and I was so laid back about everything. I had my 2nd at 30 and I remember being a lot more tired and I developed post natal anxiety which was pretty horrible. I’m 40 now and I reckon if I had a third I definitely would struggle to cope.

First at 21, second at 30, third at 40. Had sickness and tiredness with all three, physically my body coped much better first time as in not putting much weight on, remaining active, no aches and pains, snapped back to being slim straightaway. Second not much weight, lost it pretty quickly afterwards, but suffered crippling postnatal depression and severe anxiety throughout the pregnancy.
Third, I was advised to take anti depressants to avoid what happened second time, so mentally sailed through it, lots more patience with newborn, but, I was in agony with my hips and back, my bump was huuuge and really low, had to wear a support belt, put loads of weight on, lots of aches and pains, got stretch marks for the first time in my life! Left with a huge apron stomach and lots of excess weight, difficult labour and birth, baby had to stay in nicu, so all in all I'd say I don't regret it but my body coped so much better when younger.

Pros: financially much better.

Cons: no family support whatsoever. We have 3 out of 4 grandparents deceased.

I had no problem with pregnancy or birth or breastfeeding. To all intents and purposes it was textbook. And I had nothing to compare it to, never having had children before.

But I had 2 back to back (as time was running out) and that means I essentially didn't sleep for 4 years. In my 40s. That was horrendous.

That said, I'm now 45 and we are in a lovely stage. All sleeping very well and playing together brilliantly and lockdown has been actually great. So a few years of just gritting your teeth and getting through it is really paying off for us now.

We have no mortgage and so can afford to both work just part time so we are able to be around a lot. We feel very lucky.

My aunt had her first at 23 and second at 42.

She enjoyed it much more second time. First time she was young, ambitious career minded and her son was kind of a trophy. She wasn't a bad mother but wasn't very present and years passed by very quickly.

Second time she took longer maternity leave returned only PT. Her second husband was retired and helped a lot more. She loved it, was much more dedicated to raising her DD and her life was centred around her. She felt much more like a mum second time.

I had mine at 40. I had 3 miscarriages before that and a complicated pregnancy and premature baby, however he is fine now.

In terms of energy, I felt fine. In my early 20s I worked crazy shifts (530 starts and night shifts) and remember feeling like I was so tired I thought I would collapse. Having a newborn at 40 wasn't as bad as that.

Twins at 41. Early days were exhausting, but that may be because there were two of them rather than my age. My only children so no idea how much energy I would have had in my 20s etc. Took less than 6 months to conceive, no complications, c-section 10 days earlier than planned. I think the things is, you will never know! The child you have in your 30s might be harder work/non-sleeper than a child you have in your 40s. The only thing I can think is that 25 seemed to be the cut-off for me not getting hangovers, so something changed at that point that meant I needed “recovery time”. I’m a lot more confident than I was in my 20s/30s which has helped with parenting/navigating life with partners and children.

I can't compare as had first at 18, third at 26, all were easy pregnancies and I was young and energetic.
I'm now 40 with a 8 month old grandchild and spending a day with her is exhausting! Definitely wouldn't do it again at this age, not for a million quid and I really mean that.
I have good money coming in now, travel a lot (prior to these weird times) and really really value sleep and fitness time.
I LOVE being a young grandparent though, it's bloody brilliant.

I remember my aunt telling me about her 2 pregnancies 9 years apart, late 20's v mid to late 30's and said she wouldn't do it again and in hindsight would have stopped at 1 in her 20's. Utterly exhausting didn't even cut it.

I think it depends on how much family input you’ll need etc. If you would be happy having close friends or paid help having the baby for you when you need to, and you can pay for all childcare like nursery or a nanny and wrap around care when you’re at work and have no need to have involved grandparents etc then I’m sure it will be no different to having a baby at 21 except for the potential to be more tired and less elastic !

But you have to bear in mind looking after elderly parents etc. I’ve got a pal with an 89 year old MIL and a two kids in Primary school and it takes up a lot of her time. Appreciate that she may have a DH issue there too!

I had mine at 29, 32, and 42.

There wasn't much difference in any of it. The middle pregnancy was the hardest because the first baby wasn't sleeping well. I fully indulged myself at 42. The pregnancy and births were more or less exactly the same, breastfeeding was the same, I made more or less the same parenting choices. I hated being pregnant all three time in different ways, but it wasn't harder in my 40s.

I stay fit so I can keep with with the last baby and all is well.

My parents are dead.

I had my 4th at 40. It was fine. Easy vaginal birth, no more tired than the others. I put on more weight but lost it all in the usual time frame.

I had my first at 25 and my fourth at 37. I had 4 easy births, but I did lose a boy at 18 weeks to a chromosomal anomaly between dc3 and DC4.

All my babies were / are horrible sleepers but I haven't noticed a difference in my energy levels.

I think the baby stage is OK, but I must say I am worried about dc4's teenage years. Will I be able to keep up?