Are there months you’d want to avoid baby being due?

[Goodnewsday]

We’re thinking of trying for baby number 2 around new year but as a Christmas baby myself I want to avoid a December birthday. Where I stay the January and February birthdays are the youngest in the school year so I’d also want to avoid those months but it basically means starting TTC then putting it on hold for 3 or 4 months if it doesn’t happen quickly. I feel like once we start again I will struggle to wait as it consumes your life 🙈 Is there months you’d try to avoid?

As a December baby myself it's not so bad. I would have said February to avoid being youngest in the class but it's so easy to defer now that's not an issue. Grateful for healthy babies whenever they are born.

I roll my eyes at the stupidity of posters who think an August baby is the end of the world. Mine has just sat his A levels and is doing just fine. I was very happy to not pay an extra year's nursery fees too.
Honestly it's pathetic. I was lucky to have him and it was only other people who felt it was some fucking disaster.

Such hyperbole! No one said having an August born baby is the end of the world or indeed that August born babies are thick 🙄

I’m a July baby, I’m doing just fine. Chill.

I've got one at the start of September and one mid March, both born 2-3 weeks early.

I would have loved my September baby to have been an October baby, but alas. Fortunately the doctors were ok with letting me get to term, otherwise she would have been a very late August baby. At least it wasn't busy on the delivery suite when she was born, whereas it would have been ram packed when I was actually due. My March baby however was caught in a baby boom. 9 months after all Covid restrictions were lifted in England. England reaching the finals of the Euros probably helped fuel the boom too.

Both times I'd already been trying for a few months, so was just grateful to have conceived. I never actually avoided any particular due date months, but I am glad I missed November (many family birthdays + Valentine's Day conception mini boom), December (obviously) and August (I'm a July baby myself and did well at school, but the statistics don't lie - August borns on average do worse).

January, I'm a January birthday and it's miserable. Crap weather and no one has any money, skint from Christmas!

December because it will be overshadowed by Christmas.

August because they will be the youngest in the school year.

@ToCaden oh wow that’s interesting, my first was a summer baby but still very young so don’t know how his eyesight is yet! Good luck x

@Dyra it’s the opposite way round with the cut offs where I am (Scotland), I’d like to avoid January February as they’d be youngest in the year and March you could end up with them born early then December obviously due to Christmas but that rules out like 4 months in a row 🙈 last time it did happen quickly but I’d like to be able to drink at Christmas then try straight after

My first baby was a jan baby. Second baby I really didn't want to have a winter baby because I felt it really restricted us leaving the house with a newborn in the winter, the constant bugs ect were such a worry too. I'm due in a week and only slightly uncomfortable being heavily pregnant in the height of summer but looking forward to experiencing a summer baby and having a bit more freedom x

I have had issues with infertility and have been ttc for 11 years in total. I sm currently pregnant and expecting my baby in December. It us not necessarily what I would have chosen, but I am just so glad to be pregnant. We had ivf and I could have delayed I suppose, but after the clinics here closing for covid and all the delays outwith our control, we just went for it and got lucky.

I wanted to avoid December- dc1 arrived in august, not ideal but it’s not been a big issue.
the other was born in May and I felt it nice that the weather was good in their first months- more motivation to get out walking with the pram etc

only August tbh, don’t mind any others even dec/jan is fine imo, just didn’t want a youngest in the year, just for personal reasons I wouldn’t want March and would avoid it as I have 3 born in March 🙄😳

I’m so similar to you OP, being born so close to Christmas I always said I didn’t want a December baby. Also thinking of second one. I have a June baby and for second one I think we’ll try for March as that would make them oldest in school year (in Scotland). Obviously plans don’t always go as you want them and a healthy happy baby is all that really matters.

December is also further worse in Scotland as things currently stand January and February babies can be deferred a year on parents’ request, but December babies would have to go into school unless there’s evidence presented.

Crazy how many people are against December babies but if you check out the Due in December thread you'll find out that amazingly, we're not all just moaning about having December babies, we're happy to be having babies in the first place!

I don't really get how you can plan that much unless you're going to completely rule out unprotected sex for several months of the year.

@User000111 ahh good luck!

@Snugglemonkey oh how lovely, choosing which month you’d like your baby to be born is totally secondary to just getting a healthy baby out of it ☺️

@AllyCatTown ahh I’m Scotland too. I’m even wary of March in case they arrived early and ended up in February! But then you can’t rule out an entire chunk of the year, especially if it takes a while 🙈 Probably holding off for another baby in spring or summer would be ideal for me as the age gap would be nearer to 3 as well but I can already feel myself getting impatient and I haven’t even came off the pill yet 😂

@Frazzled2207 yea that’s true, you kind of forget how much you rely on a walk with a newborn just to guarantee a nap. Now he’s older I’m just taking him a walk for something to do and a change of scenery but he’ll almost never sleep in the pram now. You forget how important a walk is in the early days 🙈 although he was late summer and I had a section so by the time I was out decent walks again it was probably October, spring would have been ideal

First of all where did I say thick? Secondly look up the number of threads where people are querying whether to defer their summer born starting school. The replies do insinuate it's a terrible thing so bore off with your hyperbole. BTW. I'm chilled. I'm not the one getting my knickers in a knot about which months to avoid having a baby.
Have a good day!

I started trying for that September baby...
Ended up due Christmas Day but miscarried.
Got pregnant again for a May delivery... Miscarried again.
Got pregnant again for a 31st August due date (Jackpot potentially)..miscarried again.
Got pregnant again for a 1st December delivery..miscarried again.
I'm now due 12th January..

All I'm saying is you can plan all you like but it might not all go to plan. Good luck OP x

I wouldn't delay for an arbitrary reason like this.

Oddly enough there aren't generations of December babies miserable at the month of their birth.

I have a late summer baby (so youngest in her class) and she's not had any problems at all.

I had a baby come weeks early at what you would class an inconvenient timing and I'm just glad she's here safely.

Babies are a blessing, as a PP has said, and I'd take a healthy baby whenever it comes. This thread is almost distasteful.

Go with it!
I love Xmas and wouldn't chose a baby to come around then.
My first was due 25th December, born on the 19th, I'm currently due baby number 2 for the 22nd Dec.
We were TTC a year so no way I'd have had a month off at that point.

I'm pregnant with what should be a September baby, but will probably be an August one (not growing well, likelihood is they'll need to be out at or before 37 weeks).

I was surprised how many people expressed their sympathy that baby would now be in a different school year! (As it happens, we'll probably home school anyway so it's not an issue.) But preferring September to August is clearly quite widespread. Would be interesting to see whether there is any effect on birth months across the population as a whole.

I hope things go well this time and I'm sorry for your losses x

Fwiw my niece is late August and has just completed reception year , no issues academically or socially, quite the opposite.

When people ask these questions obviously they know that some people struggle with fertility and that others have premature babies and that lots of summer babies do well at school…there’s no need to come on to the thread specifically to say this stuff.

It’s a hypothetical question about an ideal scenario where you CAN choose when your baby is born.

personally, we chose to avoid ttc when the baby would have been born in July/August/September (to avoid summer birth including in case they were born early). In English school system I think Oct-April is ideal, and within that I’d say Feb/March because you’re not heavily pregnant over summer, spring comes as the baby is born which is lovely, and you get the 30 hours about 6 months earlier than if they were born in April.

Joking really because we didn't have the luxury of "wasting" any months by skipping them, but I had 2x August babies. Incredibly hot and uncomfortable during the last bit, and peak morning sickness at Christmas! Also hard to hide pregnancy if you don't want to share early due to cultural expectation of drinking.

We are not in the UK so my 3yo (!) isn't due to start school in September but if we were he would be. I think he'd be fine with the academic content as he's already interested in letters and numbers, but he would absolutely struggle with the expectation to sit still and line up for things and follow a timetable etc rather than doing what he wants when he wants to. He just seems sooo little for that.