Am I too young to want/have a baby?

[skyler1]

I'll be 20 in August and I want to have a baby too. Unlike you though, I have not always wanted to have a baby so badly. I knew I probably always wanted children, but it's only been the last 6 months that I feel like I want to have one right now. DH and I have been married a year. I've been bugging him about having a baby, but he wants to wait years and years. Of course, my family tells me I should wait. None of our parents were happy that we got married so young. My friends also think I'm crazy. None of them have kids. I don't really like to go out and party and stuff. Sometimes I think I would like to travel and do whatever I wanted, spend all my money on myself and what not, so I don't know.

 

[johnson1212]

I joined BnB when in 2010 when I was twenty. At the time, I was baby crazy, thinking about starting a family and being pregnant all the time! I was still at uni, and we were living in a one bedroom flat. But I thought, yeah it'd be fine, we'd cope etc.... But my sensible OH was so good, he put up with me blubbering my eyes out cos I wanted a baby. He made me wait, he knew this wasn't the order I wanted to do it in, it was just my hormones taking over. And at times it did cause a bit of a strain on my relationship. I'd always said that I wanted to own a house, and have a good job etc.

As I said, at the time I was at uni. My job was as a cleaner part time in the evenings, and the OH was paying off loans etc.

4 years down the line, I'm still waiting. We now live in a lovely two bed house, I've left uni and am now a contract manager earning a really good wage. Next month we will have paid off the OH's final loan. And we'll have a deposit to buy our own house by May next year. In the last four years we've been on around 8 amazing holidays (just this year we've been to Mexico and lanzarote, which we're going back to in September), and we've got another two in the pipeline for next year.

I'm so glad we waited. Our relationship is the strongest it's ever been, and life is good. By the time we start our family I'll be 25/26, OH will be 36 and we'll have been together around 9ish years. We'll be giving our LO the best possible start that we could. And that's all I ever wanted.

Sit down and really think about it, enjoy your time with your OH, and work on building a fantastic relationship. As strong and together as you can be.

But as other posters have said, it's completely up to you and depends on you and your situation.

Hope my little bit of waffle helped!

Thanks for sharing your story! It is very relevant for me right now as I'm having baby fever. I keep reminding myself that waiting will actually make providing for our babies so much easier when we eventually do have them ,which in turn will reduce the amount of stress on my marriage and family!
I can think of this time as a gift to them in the future!

 

[tinkerbelle93]

Honestly, i think if you have to ask if you are too young, you probably are. Not trying to sound harsh, just honest.

I think it shows maturity that she's considering and asking, although I can see what you're saying

 

[Samiam03]

Perhaps this won't be received well but I had my first at 21. I was married and stable and I honestly thought I had it all together. I never partied and was never like others my age. I had my second (an accident) at 23. At first I was fine with all of it and being a young mom. When I turned 25, however, I started to really see how much I missed out on. I regret only getting a 2 year degree and wish I had the real college experience. We can't afford for me to go back now nor do I have the time with two young kids.

I wish I had waited until I had a good career and could support myself. When we had number 2, the relationship between hubby and I took a major hit. We are finally overcoming it and are happy now but at the time I realized that if I wanted to leave him it is 20 times harder because with the cost of living here, i would have to work 60 hours a week to support two kids on my own thanks to my low salary potential. I really hate how stuck I am and it didn't help that hubby knew I was stuck too because he didn't bother to clean up his act. Like I said, we are 100x better now but things were way harder than they needed to be.

I am starting to wish I could travel more too or have more experiences at least. I have a pretty good support network (better than most) and we get two nights a month for a date night but honestly, I wish I had more.

Most days I feel exhausted and frustrated with myself and I realize I'm not as good a mom as I should be because of it. I ended up not being as mature as I thought I was and I wish I had waited at least until I was almost out of my 20s. I changed so much in just 4 years and I am just now starting figuring out who I am and who I want to be. I realize now that 21 year old me didn't know shit...I thought I was ready but I wasn't.

 

[funinthesun]

I know everyone's goals and expectations in life are different, so I thought I would just share my own experience.

I had my first baby at 32. Looking back and reflecting, I wish I had my baby a bit sooner, at say age 28, but not any earlier than that.

I had a fantastic time in my 20s. I went to uni, then worked, I went out all the time with my friends, I had spare money to buy clothes, make up and jewellry for myself. My husband and I travelled all over Europe and went out for nice dinners and movies whenever we wanted and did not even need to think too much about money as we were both working and had enough money. I am so glad I had this time as I consider probably the best time of my life.

Now I am a SAHM and we are living on my husband's income. So we need to be careful with money. We also don't get to get out to dinners or movies very often. We have travelled a bit with our baby, but it has not been the same. I love my baby heaps, but I do miss a lot about my old life.

 

[LovemyBubx]

We had our DD when we were both teens. We were immature at the time & made quick decisions.

But I'm am so lucky that the person I made those choices with has stuck by me & our relationship is still so strong after 6 years. (Even after some low points we continue to work through them together)

We have been good parents we did everything for DD & always put her first.

We have never been on holiday just us yet. We can't afford to drive yet. We would love to get married but that's in a distant future. We can't always go out when we want. We can't buy all the clothes we want, we have to make sure DD has all she needs first.

It is very frustrating at times but we chose this life & we have to make the best of it.

We are looking forward to getting better jobs & when our children are grown we will have that 'us time'

 

[tverb84]

At 29 I don't feel ready to have a child mainly because I still live at home with my mom, I want to go back to college next September, I love having time to myself still and I need a job. When I walk by the baby section in any store I feel giddy inside and sometimes I walk through it. I love looking at the baby clothes there sooooo cute. Oh and I want to live on my own when I have children.

 

[NewBeginins]

I was 19 when I first got married and was all for having a baby. However, we spent the next 7 yrs suffering form infertility. I now realize that I am glad we didn't get pregnant back then. Yes, financially we could have dealt with it, I was very mature and had raised my younger siblings. I am not saying you are too young at all. Yet, I am saying you may not want the same things in life in a few yrs that you do now, including the man you are with. Just think hard before you make such a huge decision. And good luck with whatever choice you make!