Do you care what month you conceive in?

[faithfulbird20]

I hear a lot of people saying they don't want September babies or August babies because the either start late or are the youngest in the class. Do people really care or would you just be happy with a baby?

Tried to avoid late summer (June, July, aug) - as would be young in the school year. Dd was born early Dec. Despite our family getting covid, she has been fine this winter so far

Imagine having the chance to choose

I didn't think about when I wanted my DC birthday to be, for the first we decided at Christmas we would start TTC and so stopped using precautions DC1 was born early December the following year. For the next we decided during our summer holiday when DC was around 18 months, DC2 was born the following June. They are now both adults and apart from the few years when we were able to hold garden parties for DC2 t hasn't made a lot of difference. I think it helps that my birthday is near DC1 and DH has his within days of DC2 so it is all familiar.

As for schooling DC2 didn't start reception until Jan they turned 5. By then end of Year 1 they were doing as well as DC1 and were in the top quarter of the year.

The only children I know that have had issues are the premature babies born in the summer July/August who were due October/November.

Basically what @JulesRimetStillGleaming said. I certainly thought about preferences in the past, but no longer have that luxury.

Sept-December babies born babies get a massive head start at school. Boys keep pace with early maturing girls. Our class had a noticeable spilt between Sept/ Jan born & those summer born June-August.

Genetics and parenting play a part, but often August babes often are typically smaller and just nearly a whole year behind their class mates. Sadly this does impact the child’s confidence. Our baby is Feb and managed to keep within top set.

If you have no fertility issues, and you want to plan - absolutely I would again.. I would plan with schooling and general family birthday clusters in mind.

if you want a happy, healthy baby no matter when.. go for it, whenever the mood strikes.

Wanted an Autumn/Winter baby as worked better for teaching ended up with an April delight! Don't care for baby 2 would be happy for whenever.

My kids are April and May and dc3 due next month. The May baby doesn't like being a "young" one which she isn't but statistically more of her year group friends will be older. They both get nice spring days for birthdays to break up from Xmas. This February baby will an experience!

I was due for a September birth, felt smug.
Dc turned out to be twins, so they arrived in August.
Best laid plans!

At this rate just to actually get pregnant would be nice and to have a healthy baby

Yes. I aimed for a winter baby with the first and an early spring baby with the second (to avoid hyperemesis on holiday!). Caught very quickly both times so bang on.
I'm afraid I didn't want a summer born for all the tales you hear about academic achievement etc.
A dreadful reason really. But coincidentally or not, both DC summer born friends seemed to struggle, and hated being the 'last' to do anything, eg, driving, drinking etc.

Can't believe people think that much about it and not just think of the fact they are lucky to get a healthy baby no matter what month it is due. I've been TTC for years and don't care if it's a December baby or not as long as it's healthy that's all that matters to me.

I'd rather not give birth or be at the peak of a pregnancy in July or August because of the heat. But conceiving at all is obviously more important than the month.

@DuesToTheDirt

We gave it no thought to conception dates whatsoever and nearly got a Christmas day baby .

I wasn't bothered either and had one Christmas Eve. Luckily she likes her Christmassy birthday!

I’m an August baby and love my summer birthday (and was mostly top of the class - anecdote rather than data). I never felt impacted or otherwise being one of the youngest, it just was. I assumed I would have summer babies, DH also August. No planning involved though. They are Jan, Feb and March.

My son is July which although he's one of the younger ones he was totally ready for school and is not behind in the slightest (he's 7) so we've got lucky there

Second one is due next month so very different months so will be interesting to see the difference

Summer baby was hard work in the Heat being pregnant but god maternity coats are expensive 😂

Dc1 is a summer baby and dc2 is autumn. I preferred having a baby in the summer (those sleepless nights really don't feel so bad with the lighter evenings) so we tried for that with dc3 and originally were due in spring but then I miscarried. Decided I didn't care after that so dc3's birthday is now around the exact same time as dc2! If I were to go for a fourth (absolutely not happening but this is hypothetical), I'd go for a spring / summer baby again for sure.

I think summer born is great! Apart from being young when you start school, which will hopefully be only a short term issue for the first year or so, it's fab.

Nice weather to be on maternity with a newborn, nice weather for the child's birthday, halfway through the year so easier to afford and choose gifts as not on top of Christmas, and just a generally great birthday to have for the rest of your life as you can do nicer things like bbqs etc.

My thoughts would be it's only a few short years where it's not ideal, but once you hit 13+ it's ace.

DP's birthday is in July, he didn't like it when he was younger as it was in the school holidays and difficult to arrange a birthday party as people were away, no opportunity to give invitations at school. I suppose easier now with the advent of WhatsApp though.

I have had a BFP in almost every month of the year now. None of the pregnancies survived so I would just be grateful for a living child tbh!

I didn’t really want a December baby, Christmas is stressful enough without worrying about a birthday as well.

Aimed for summer babies.

Didn't give it a second thought about school!!

I had a May and August baby. Wish I hadn't 😬

The only month I wanted to avoid was august - didn’t want to have the youngest in the year through preference as they seem so little when they start reception!
Although after trying for 3 years with zero success we didn’t actively stop trying or either actively try that month but I’m now pregnant with a baby due in august and couldn’t be happier to just be pregnant. I really don’t care! Lol
but if I knew I was the type of person who would fall pregnant very easily I would just avoid July/august and around Christmas.

My august baby is now 11. She started secondary school in September. Most of her friends in her year are already 12!!

I wanted to avoid July/August, but due to medical issues I had to put off TTC for over a year, and then when finally cleared to do so I only had about 3 or 4 cycles before I would be hitting July/August conception months. At that point, I didn't want to take any months off as I was just desperate to have a baby, but we caught on cycle 2 and DC1 is due in May.

My DH is a Christmas Day baby and loves it, has always done, but I guess others may feel differently. I wouldn't be against a December baby but it's a bloody expensive month as it is so wouldn't be my first choice!

I am an early September baby and always found school easy compared to my August brother, so that's influenced my thinking too.

If we go for number 2, I'd like to be able to start trying earlier than July, so we have a few more cycles before we'd hit a July/August baby to see if it works. If it doesn't, I guess we'd make a call then as to whether to pause for a couple of months.

It took us 9 months to conceive our September baby, you can't plan it so why worry about it.