Me and my SO are planning a baby. Advice.

[ArtemisLogic]

I'm new here, so this is my first post and introduction, me and my girlfriend are loosely planning a child within the next 3 years, and I came here to do some research.

What does DS and DH mean, I see these terms thrown around a lot and i have no idea what they mean.

We have spoke about children for a while, we talk about them all the time but just feel we aren't financially stable enough to have them right now, we're both full time students, she's 19 and I'm 25.

But as our life settles down in the next few years, we're looking to have them, we already have a long list of potential names, boys and girls, and I would love to start a family with her.

Feel free to give whatever tips and advice come to mind.

DS = dear (or darling) son
DH = dear (or darling) husband

In each the dear (or darling) is kind-of tongue-in-cheek.

Even in 3 years you may not be quite ready. I would advise waiting longer.

Parenthood in early 20s will have a significant impact on both your careers and your lifetime earnings potential. Your girlfriend is still a student and may not even know what she wants in a career. Many career options require a lot of dedication in the early years to prove yourself and build up trust and a professional reputation. Early motherhood could mean she never achieves this and finds herself stuck on a path of low pay and few opportunities.

My advice would be to both focus on careers for at least 6 years, during which time build up some good savings by living frugally. Then plan to both move to working flexible family friendly hours short-term so that you can split all childcare 50:50 until DC old enough for nursery/preschool at least - supplementing income from those savings if need be, though working hours will be able to increase again as DC get older.

If you don't split everything equally like this, and have one of you sacrificing long term earning power by taking a bigger career hit while the other person earns more, then you both need to fully understand that all income and assets are morally the property of both of you because it is only possible for one to earn more because the other has taken that hit. This arrangement to agree that all assets and income are equally shared is a fundamental part of marriage so getting married would be a good idea.

It is worth focusing on other aspects first, such as jobs, housing, marriage. These things aren't essential for having a baby, but make life much easier. Then to be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about baby stuff until you are ready to start trying. There is enough time in pregnancy to figure out the finer details.