Tuesday, June 22, 2010
When Is the Best Time of Year to Have a Baby?
By Rachel H
Both of my children celebrated their birthdays this month. Their birthdays are just a few days apart, and my husband and I both have birthdays in August, so our summers have always been a lot of fun. It got me thinking about what times of the year are the best times to give birth.
In a perfect world, we’d count back nine to ten months from the month we’d like to give birth, and try to conceive somewhere in that area. But in the real world with miscarriages, infertility, and just bad luck, unfortunately we know that cannot always happen so easily.
Just for kicks and giggles I thought it would be fun to have our readers chime in with their thoughts on the best time of the year to give birth. I will share my viewpoints on June, since I have double the experience with that one!
“Pros” of giving birth in the month of June:
~ You can pretty much do anything you want for birthday parties as they grow older – indoor, outdoor, pool, backyard, etc.
~ It is exactly halfway through the year after Christmas, so just as everyone gets tired of their gifts from the holidays, you are ready to re-stock with presents and weed out the ones that they haven’t played with since December.
~ You don’t have to invite the entire class to a birthday party if you don’t have the funds or the space. No one is talking about the party at school and hurting other kids’ feelings!
~ As far as pregnancy, you get to have a summer baby without carrying an extra 30 pounds throughout the entire summer.
~ When you are preggos, you get to wear a bathing suit and be perfectly comfortable with how much weight you have gained because you are pregnant and you are SUPPOSED to be fat this summer!
~ After the baby arrives, there is not too much of a chance of getting stuck indoors with nothing to do and no visitors. Everyone is out and about, germs are not in full force, and you & baby can get out as well!
“Cons” of giving birth in June:
~ Kids don’t usually get to celebrate their birthday on the actual day at school.
~ Since June is close to the cut-off date for Kindergarten Registration, you will have to deliberate over whether or not to send your child to Kindergarten the fall after they turn five, or wait a year and send them to readiness instead. (Both of mine went straight to Kindergarten after turning five that June, but many of their friends with June birthdays did not.)
~ As far as pregnancy, you don’t get to hide under big sweaters if you are uncomfortable with your weight gain.
~ After you have the baby, you still have two months of summer left where you really don’t want to be caught dead in a bathing suit with your pre-pregnancy body.
~ If it is not your first child, you don’t get the few hours of solitude when the older one is at mom’s morning out or school.
After weighing out my thoughts above, I think June is a great month to give birth!
Now it is your turn to chime in. Please share the month(s) you gave birth and explain why that month is or is not a great month to have a child! If you are unsure how to leave a comment, click here.
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10 comments:
I have a Feb. and an Aug. baby. As far as being pregnant goes, the Feb. baby was much better. I was not huge in the summer! With my Aug. baby I thought I was going to DIE in the Atlanta heat those last few months plus I was HUGE since he was over 9 lbs! But, the Aug. baby has more party choices since he has a summer birthday. We have to stick with inside parties for my daughter.
May was great for a child - pregnancy months were great, and it is a nice time of year for people to come visit after baby is born. My other child was December - not many perks with that one!
My babies were born in April and February - both great months! April was great because I was not pregnant in the summer and the weather was great to go outside for walks with an infant. And February was great b/c - again - I wasn't prego in the summer and in the south it wasn't too long before I could get outside with a stroller! Plus diamonds and amethysts are nice birth stones ;)
Having had 3 birthdays in 2 days (yep, twins + big brother) I can say that June was a great month to have babies (although I don't have any other months to compare them to). One big perk was that it doesn't get dark until late. Somehow with a newborn (or two) at home, when the sun went down, I felt like EVERYONE was getting ready to get a great night's rest except for me and it really compounded baby blues. Being light until around 9 was helpful! Can't imagine in the winter!!!
I would've loved summer birthdays b/c it's not flu season and there are so many more party options, but I have Feb. and Dec. babies. I was one of those who struggled to get pregnant and had a couple of miscarriages though, so really I'm just so thankful to have my children, no matter what month they were born. If we have more, I would really aim for a summer birthday, but if it's in the winter, at least that helps prevent swelling - I really didn't have any except just a little face puffiness in my last few weeks.
I have late October and early April babies. Both had their challenges as infants. Cold and flu season was bad with the first one—isolating to stay away from all of those germs. But with the April baby, we had the hottest, most miserable summer we have ever had, so we were just as isolated. Now, I think i prefer October. The weather is wonderful that time of year, and he always has one of the first class birthday parties.
I had September and December babies. September was a wonderful month to actually have a baby (lots of walks during the Fall months), but being pregnant during the Summer months were brutal. My December baby was hard then and hard now. My then 2 year old brought home every Winter preschool germ known to man and passed everything onto my newborn - RSV was the worst. We try to seperate birthdays and Christmas, but it is really hard. It always works out that we get our Christmas tree on her b-day weekend.
I too have a February and an August child. I'm a teacher, so the February birthday (the last day) was nice.... since I only came back from maternity leave about two or three weeks before summer. As a new mom, it was nice to have the time to adjust, then come back, then have the whole summer to continue to adjust. The late August birthday was nice too, though. No morning sickness during the fall/winter holidays. The summer I was pregnant it was not a tremendously hot one..... so I was blessed. I will say that I agree with the one who posted about June birthdays being 6 months from Christmas. I loved that about my birthdays!
My first baby was August - not a great time to have a baby in the hot weather. Second baby was May - totally recommend it. She was born before summer heat but after flu season. My older child was in school for a couple weeks when the baby was first born, and then we had lots of time for her to adjust to the new baby when she was out of school.
This was really helpful to read! Thanks for posting. We're thinking ahead for having our first child and I had been wondering about this.
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