... is there anything you would change? Things you would tell yourself, or do differently?
I'm facing 10+ months before we start to TTC #1 - any advice for me during this long wait?
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Really enjoy the time you have with your SO and your personal time. Take a vacation but save money. Sleep in all you want!
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Oooh...I thought about this too! I prepared to TTC for over a year. I lost 50 pounds and completely changed my diet. One of my favorite books that I read last year was Deep Nutrition: http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Nutrition-Your-Genes-Traditional-ebook/dp/B004XQVKYM
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travel more!!! our travelling days are over for a while with 2 kids.
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Travel, sleep, spend quality time with SO, buy yourself something nice.
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Probably work on myself more, such as learning how to do my makeup well and quickly, working on my hobbies, exercising and eating better. Little things that wish I had gotten into the habit of doing/learned to do well before LO so that they would be easier now.
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SO and I don't enjoy traveling very much - but we are going to try to spend more time at my family cottage, which is our ideal vacation
So many things to keep in mind! Thanks ladies, keep'em coming!
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Start going to bee earlier, and train myself to sleep without earplugs! Also, enjoy just sitting around doing nothing on some weekends.
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Enjoy eating your meals hot, when you feel like eating them and without anyone sitting on your lap.
Also, enjoy personal space. You can kiss that goodbye.
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@JennyD: LOL! I'm a nanny, so I've definitely got those two figured out.
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I wish we had been better about our savings plan...we had one but we also spent a lot more money than was necessary. Now we don't have quite the savings we would have liked for when baby comes.
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I knew we were going to ttc about 10 months before we started, so I (very maturely) sspent a lot of time drinking with girlfriends, wearing skimpy clothes, and enjoying being young and free! I called it my "hot apex". I totally am glad I was aware of it being the waning days of being a 20 something childless person.
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Well I knew we'd have fertility problems so I spent much of that year anxious that I'd never be a mum and it made me totally miserable. If I could do it all again, I'd drink a ton of wine, eat sushi, medium rare steak, take saunas, more lazy naps.... drink even more wine.... and lie in any chance I could get.. Oh and totally appreciate my figure
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Change all your bad habits NOW! (The ones you wnant to change anyway.)
Go on vacation if you can!
Make your relationship rock solid. Appreciate the just the two of you time.
Set realistic expectations for ttc/pregnancy/new parenthood.
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@travelgirl1: +1 about appreciating my figure! I wasn't thin but things just fit differently now.. Shopping sans pregnancy pooch was soooo easy.
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Sleep, drink, eat sushi, travel. At dinner, DH and I mentioned drinking since it's rare for us. I almost wanted to stop drinking this year, but remembered to enjoy it before I'm pregnant again.
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Travel, go out in the evenings, and really relish the opportunity to be spontaneous. I think what I miss the very most is the ability to decide at the last minute that I'm going to get happy hour drinks w/ friends or go out to a new restaurant w/ DH. These days everything has to be carefully orchestrated with babysitters or planned around nap schedules.
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Save money, start a prenatal vitamin, get healthy, start charting and make sure you ovulate and have a healthy cycle, discuss parenting styles with SO and make sure you are on the same page, think of names you love, research good OBs or midwives and birth, sleep, enjoy spontinaity, stay up late and sleep in, have long brunches,travel, put a lot into your hair makeup and personal style, , go to the movies, be romantic, wear a bikini, enjoy your friends! Being a parent is worth giving all of this up for but its still worth enjoying yourself whilst you wait.
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Save, save, save!
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@Smurfette: I have officially named 2014 as "year of the finances" in our house. Figuring out student loans, putting more money aside - now is the time to do it!
@googly-eyes: Hmmm, changing bad habits... that's a really interesting one. I'm going to have to put some thought into that. Thank you!
There is so much good advice on this thread, thanks everyone!
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@babypugs: I still sleep with earplugs
no matter how hard I try, if I don't have earplugs I'm up all night!@PermaStudent: save money and try to pay off as much of your loans as possible! Spend quality time with your SO. I'm sad to say we haven't been out just the two of us since DD arrived in August. We used to go for dinner or drinks twice a week to the neighbourhood pub and I really miss that. If there is anything you need to do to your house, do it now! We had so many last minute projects we wanted to do, but never did and I totally regret it now. Even organizing photo albums or cleaning the closets, that kind of thing. Do it before you have a baby!
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Get those home renovations done! LOL
Enjoying going out to fancy dinners.
Go to many many movies!
Flaunt that body!
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Do home renovations.
Go on local dates more often (movies, eating out, exploring).
Lose weight!
Start TTC earlier! -
@delight: @locavore_mama: @SugarplumsMom: House renos!! This is a huge thing on our list. We just crossed off our biggest task (new flooring over a big chunk of our main level), and got a lot of the painting done that we wanted to. The list is getting smaller!
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@SugarplumsMom: Start TTC earlier.... gonna run that past my SO! Haha. I'm not sure that it will fly
He is so ready to have kids, but he is stuck on November for some reason! Being very pregnant through the summer does not sound fun to me....
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This is a good thread! I've been TTC for almost 10 months now and have been frustrated at how long it's taking. I have a tough time staying positive, but one of the things that helps me is reminding myself that I get one more month of just the two of us doing non-pregnant things. Thanks for the suggestions ladies!
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Go out to restuarants (i'm a foodie)
Be spontaneous (if friends invite you to meet up at a bar - Go!)
Home reno/ yard work- once pregnant I felt limited to what i could do because of restrictions and lack of energy
Go to the gym- I did this while pregnant but now that baby is here i havent quite figured out how to fit that into my life
Work on Personal Projects - if your like me I have 10 crafts/books to read/recipes to try etc
Travel - Or at least have 1 big last hoorah of a weekend where you can truely relax
Do things that is typically adult only - visit an art museum, a play, go to the movies
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Get healthy! Exercise more, eat well, make it second nature. I can't even begin to imagine what getting pregnant a year before we did would have looked like. I was overweight, unhealthy, and generally miserable. It hasn't made pregnancy easy, but I'm confident that it made it so much easier than it would have been!
Work, even a bit, on your finances. Ours aren't spectacular in that we don't have a lot of savings, but we started budgeting and paying down debt before TTC. It has helped a LOT!
Chart your cycles. We did this for 2 years before actively TTC, and I swear by it. Knowing my body before I was hell-bent on getting pregnant was empowering and really, really helpful.
@HolisticMama: go you!
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Save more than you think you'll need to. Go to the dentist, get your annual physical done, etc. you'll be at the OB/midwife enough, you won't want to go to a GP for yourself on top of everything else! Really, honestly talk with your partner about expectations during pregnancy and after the birth; talk about the nitty-gritty stuff. Go on romantic weekend getaways and enjoy each other.
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I did a pregnancy premester, I started accupuncture, went to the dentist, got a physical, began taking prenatal vitamins with folic acid.
As for money, talk about what your expectations are. Make a mental plan for all scenarios, what happens if you can not return to work, etc.
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@looch: what is a premester?
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I would have got into a great home-cleaning routine so that it was second nature by the time baby came.
I would have fought harder to lose more weight pre-baby.
I would have started exercising so that my back/core was stronger (thanks, back labour).
Slept in every single Saturday just cause I could. -
I would go out. a lot.
and maybe spend money on a few quality items for myself because since baby, we only spend on the kiddos.
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I would've worked harder to get in better shape, and maybe get some more house stuff done before I had to be all psycho about fumes and whatnot.
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@PermaStudent: a premester is just a made up term, pregnancy is broken out by trimester and you sometimes hear the first three months of a baby's life as the 4th trimester. So premester is the three months before pregnancy.
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@looch: Gotcha. Thanks
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I would have organize, organize, organized. Now that LO is here, I have sooooo much extra stuff (gear, toys, etc) and so many things that no longer have a place (need to be put up for baby-proofing). I wish that I had taken the time to find a GOOD place for things and to set up some sort of organizational systems. As it stands now, I just have piles and piles of stuff with no "home".
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Decorate the entire house apart from the baby room, it will be a long time before we get to do that again!
Cleaning every little space in the house, it's unlikely I'll ever get into those places again for a long time with a LO.
Really learn about your body, understand when you are ovulating, I had no idea it would take us 8 months ttc, I could have used some extra time before getting to know my cycle. -
@cyan: I am working on this now. I am absolutely not an organized person by nature, so it is an uphill battle!
@Mrs tartan: I started a thread a while ago about how far in advance of TTC I should start tracking my cycles. A lot of people told me to wait and see how it goes without tracking first, while others said that starting to track early was very helpful and not stressful like I thought it might be. I think I may start to temp next cycle just so that I know if/when I'm ovulating. Thank you!
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Start trying sooner!!
and maybe spend money on a few quality items for myself because since baby, we only spend on the kiddos.
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