How do you approach your OH about ttc?

[Earthylove]

Hi everyone!

I get the feeling we all have very different approaches when it comes to discussing timelines/baby making/desires for a baby with our OH. I was just thinking the other day about how I approach my husband when it comes to ttc and I wonder sometimes if I need to start changing things up.

For example, i tend to not let on how desperately I want a baby. I don't cry about it in front of him or express sadness openly to him about having to wait..I am also verrry calculated in how and when i bring it up to him to have discussions. I think this has worked fine so far, but part of me wishes i were more open. like maybe he should know how deeply this affects me.

How do you guys approach your OH? are you very open with your thoughts and emotions? do you talk about it a lot or do you keep it to yourself?

 

[LoveCakes]

My oh was keener than me and wanted to start as soon as we were married but I was only in a temporary iob and wanted some time to ourselves first.

I suppose we discussed it generally when we got married then oh left it up to me. I knew he'd be on board any time. In the end I planned to wait a year after getting a permanent job but only lasted 6 months.

Do you think your oh wouldn't be keen?

 

[skycastles]

Good question to bring up; I'm really curious what others have to say too!
Well, in my case it's hard for me to talk continuously about babies with him as he mostly ignores it . We've had a couple of open discussions to set a vague date but other than that, he's not interested. I'm just like you earthylove, I'm quite calculative in how or when I talk about TTC. I guess it's because I want him to think it's his idea haha.

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

I'm lucky to have a partner that loves kids and has already said we can have as many as we want (I'm thinking 2 will be our limit though). For DD, I snuggled up to him in bed and just said I wanted a baby now (after we had both agreed to wait until we were closer to 30). He had a few concerns, but I was able to counter them, so he agreed that we could start. I got pregnant two months later. After she was born, I was incredibility broody and constantly told him how much I couldn't wait until we had another. He was gone for 10 months so that made it easier to wait, but we did agree we'd start at the end of this year if everything was going well and he wasn't deployed. Now that we're at the point though I'm the one happy to wait while he's mentioned another one several times lately.

Maybe ease into a conversation with him and bring up how much you want it. Is there a specific reason why you're waiting?

 

[butterbaby]

Calculated.. perfect word for how most of our discussions have gone. I've always taken the careful approach to avoid scaring him away from having a baby. He's always been open to having kids but has wanted to wait for things like travel and paying down debt. Before getting married we said probably 2-3 years after was when we'd start trying. Well almost 2 years after getting married I started to "plant the seed" as my mom puts it.. so basically giving him time to come around to the idea. It seemed to work as he became more engaged in conversations over time and recently when I candidly said I wanted a baby now he said 'okay! whenever you're ready I'm ready'. Now I feel guilty that I want to wait a few more months after all my persistence haha.

 

[meg_bellamy]

I didn't let on much in the beginning how broody I was, maybe only mentioned it a couple times a year. Finally a few months ago we had a serious talk, and I think he realised how big a deal this was for me, and agreed that we had to compromise. He just wanted to make sure we could afford it, and that we were going to do a few things first with the house and travel etc.

I think it's important he knows how important it is to you so you can work together to make what you both want a reality. It shouldn't just be what you want or what he wants, but a compromise.

 

[sherwood]

...

 

[aidensxmomma]

I'm always very open with my OH about wanting to have a baby and I've talked to him about it quite frequently. He's fairy disinterested at this point. But he never stops me from opening up to him about it. Our discussions usually start out of blue, mostly with me saying things like "I hate waiting. Why can't we TTC now?" Even before we got together, I would talk to him about my desire to have more kids (we have been best friends for 15 years), so he knew that was in the cards when we did finally start dating.

I don't typically calculate out conversations with him about it...that's just not the way that I am or that we are as a couple. I share everything that's on my mind, so babies come up fairly often. We don't have serious conversations about when exactly to try nearly as often as candid conversations though.

That being said, I have tried to tone it down a bit; he was feeling a little overwhelmed by me mentioning it so often. So now I think conversations will be more calculated and that I'll plan them out more than just saying whatever comes to mind.

 

[MummyKP]

I'm very much like you aidensxmommy, I often just come out with how I feel to DH. So,stiles he's happy to chat about it with me (like our conversation about names for an hour in bed recently) and other times he just cba to chat about it lol and recently he said it won't happen before Christmas, maybe new year, but we'll chat in December, so I've tried to keep quiet since as I know he's thinking about it now he knows how much I want one already so I'm just trying to keep quiet lol

 

[Earthylove]

wow, thanks everyone for the responses!

before we got married, we were at serious odds when it came to time frames for ttc. I wanted to start right away but he wanted to wait like five years or something. I was like.. i am not waiting five years! And he said well i'm not ready for kids right away! So we decided to wait till our 1st anniversary to discuss ttc because we could at least agree on waiting a year into marriage. So for almost a year, i didn't bring it up to him at all and i just focused my energy on other things like work and the apartment and our relationship. but at some point, i felt like it wasn't practical to just not talk about it at all.. so i would ask him subtle things like "what are some personal goals you would like to accomplish before having children?" and stuff like that. He had some pretty lofty goals and i was thinking agh! that'll take forever lol. but i didn't say that and really tried to make it a point to listen and understand where he was coming from. We talked about our goals and where we are now and he started to acknowledge that he is going to have to compromise on his time frames and some of his goals don't really need to be accomplished before ttc.
so.. a few months ago, I made a proposition for a time that was further into our 2nd year of marriage. I explained why this would make sense and he agreed on the date, which is august 2015. I chose that date because OH will have accomplished part of his goals by then and I would be closer to the end of my grad program..Waiting sucks and its super hard, but i am cool with the date we agreed on. It does make sense at least.

 

[ottergirl]

I'm a little flippant about it, honestly. The first time it came up was 1 1/2 years ago when I had surgery on my back. Apparently the first thing I said upon waking from the anesthesia is, "I want another one." He was like O.O and I guess the nurses laughed. I don't remember any of that, though.

Since then I've casually mentioned, "I wonder if...I kind of think we could..." etc. He got the idea. And he never just says, "no." He would just say, "We'll think about it. See what happens in the future."

When we made a more solid decision, it started with us talking about poor Rowan being the only boy, and I said something like, "We should give him a brother." And he just as flippantly replied that if it means having sex with me every day, then fine. Seems silly, but I think we're both really relaxed about the idea of family size. If I want another, then he's pretty much down with that. He loves the babies, too. Despite any reservations he has, he's agreed that four would be a fun number.

Even this month we ended up NTNP because I said, "Maybe you should just...not pull out." And he said, "You don't have to ask me twice for that!"

 

[Emiloo]

We have been together for nearly 5 and a half years, me being broody for pretty much all of it lol. I found it hard to not talk about it but OH god fed up of it and I learnt to keep quiet. Now I know to bring it up playfully when he's clearly in a good mood. At first he just stopped saying no and keeping quiet but then he started saying things that sounded like he was coming round to the idea. We discussed trying once debt has been paid off in May but he has now said he's more of a yes than a no to trying after christmas!

 

[bcos21]

My h sband has multiple sclerosis and we had the discussion coming home from a dr appt. He had a really bad brain scan and they wanted to put him on aggressive meds so we decided to ttxc before those meds. Luckily I got pregnant fast so he could be on meds. The morning at gave birth, we were sitting in the hospital holding our son and I said we have got to do this again lol. We are ntnp and have been since he was born but I'm still nursing and am not ready to stop just to have my cycles return. I prefer the honest approach when it comes to the TTC conversations

 

[Earthylove]

Yeah, bcos21, I think you're right that it's best to be honest. And I totally hear where you're coming from Emiloo, about scaling it back when the OH starts to get fed up with all the baby talk! I try not to overwhelm him with baby talk because if i didn't put any effort, i would bring it up alllll the time. lol. but congrats on possibly starting after Christmas!! thats great news! And it sounds like good news for you too, ottergirl. Do you think you'll keep up ntnp for a while into the future?

 

[cupcake.]

I'm definately not calculated when it comes to that topic i guess.. sometimes i wish i could control myself more.

The conversations started when i had a pregnancy scare and my period was super late. I was scared at first but when i tested negative i was shocked at how disappointed i was. It definitely wasn't the right time to get pregnant and i'm glad now that i turned out not to be (it was almost 2 years ago). But it did open up conversation about what ifs.

I didn't really talk about it for quite some time but eventually i was like "remember when we had that pregnancy scare..? It made me realize how much i do want a child. " and we just went from there i guess.

A couple weeks ago we finally decided on starting to ttc in august 2015

I know that if it were solely up to OH we would still wait a couple of years, but he knows how deeply it affects me and we are already financially stable. Obviously not super rich, but the bills are paid and we don't have to turn every penny and can afford to splurge on things like vacation, eating out, date nights, etc. We calculated a bit and he said since he does want children anyway, he is ok with starting next august

But i'm pretty sure that if i hadn't really explained to him how important it is to me (and had a good cry a couple times... Can't help sometimes haha) we would not be at this point. I think (most) men don't think about babies the way we do, so maybe try not to be entirely calculated all the time.
But a good medium is probably the best approach since i know OH was at times really frustrated with the topic when it made me super emotional haha

 

[LynAnne]

I find it difficult to talk to DH about it because whilst I'm 99% ready he's no where near that and still wants time to act like a kid. We got married this year after being together for nine years but whilst I've been actively wanting kids for two years (thinking about them for five) he still wants to wait another year or two. I'm quite an emotional person and sometimes I just get so fed up that I end up crying about it which makes him feel bad and the I feel bad and then I shut up about it for a month before it starts again. I rarely actually bring up the conversation now because I know he'll either ignore it, roll his eyes, get grumpy or sad. I'm trying to be patient but it's so freaking hard!

 

[Leggiero]

My OH and I talk about TTC freely and openly. I approach TTC conversations playfully with OH since that's just the way most of our conversations go. To be honest, he is the practical one and so when we occasionally have a serious discussion about TTC, such as budgeting for baby, it's OH that initiates. I do try to dial back on the TTC talk a bit sometimes, but it's not because Im worried it might scare him off, I just don't want to bore him! At the end of the day, he knows I have baby fever, and he wouldn't want it any other way.