I'm writing this question to those of you who don't have a baby, how do you imagine it will change your life. To those of you who already have a little one, how did you think it would change your life and how different did it turn out.
In fact to anyone on BnB!!!

I think about it quite often and think the first thing I will notice is moneywise. We are always struggling with expences and a LO will defo make a difference. Also my job, my morning job is fine, I think I will be able to handle it (unless I get bad back problems as I get problems quite often). But my weekend job is dancing on a stage at a hotel so that will go down the drain as soon as we TTC. I've been dancing sats non stop for almost 6 and a half years and I love it so it will make me sad, but it will only be 9-10 months and I can go back!!! Or not, maybe my weekends change so much I won't be able to miss sat nights...

Also my house is tiny (a 1bed) and I plan on having 4 kids so baby number one will have to sleep in our room and that means when he or she is around 2 we will have to move house... That is another problem as the crisis will make it real hard to sell our place for good money and even more to find a place for 6 people (4kids + us). I know you guys in England and States or Canada are used to having massive houses on average (with exceptions of course) but here in Spain, or at least in Tenerife, houses have sky high prices and we can't afford a big house so it's wealthy people or tourists that get to buy the ones that are well located... I will have to go higher up (I live close to the center of town and the coast at the mo) and look in some town closer to the mountain and therefor colder and not as well comunicated. That is a big issue on my list at the mo, also DH getting a driving licence!!!

I expect my family to be all over excited as I am an only child and my DH sisters don't have kids yet (youngest 12, eldest 34) and I expect the 12 year old to be jelous... I know you might think being 12 she should be mature enough to take it easy, but she is used to getting all the attention and is aware a LO will devide it or she may even think she will lose it. Anyway, I am prepared to get her enthusiasm up and she will prob change her mind as usually she loves kids... Also a friend of her mums is having a baby girl soon and that might get her used to it...

Friend wise, I am the first of my circle of friends to be married and none of them seem to be doing it soon so I will also be the first with a LO and miss out on the partying and so on. But on the other hand, everyone is so busy studying abroad that we don't get to do that either. Couple life will also be affected but I'm sure we can get the grandmas involved to have us time now and again....

Well enough babbling and get writting girls, do you feel like I do?? xxxx

Hi Cinnamon,

I think the main things that will change are my levels of crankiness as I am not good without sleep or food and I am sure that babies tend to disrupt both sleep patterns and eating habits!!

Other than that I will probably get a lot more excercise running around after LO and plan to attend lots of mother and toddler groups.

Finances will obviously tighten but hopefully still be comfortable.. I plan on exploiting all the second hand baby toys/clothes at bootsales and see how far that gets me.

I just worry that the years of baby and toddler-hood will fly by so fast and I really don't want to miss them so definitely hope not to work for at least 4 years after birth if we can afford it.


xx

I dont think it will change my life all that much. Money has been tightish as iv been paying off some debt but that will be paid off next week so i know i can survive on minimum money.
I dont go out that much but if i wanted the odd night out iv got plent of babysitters.
I think it might make mil stop being such a cow because it might make her realise im not going anywhere and theres nothing she can do to split us up.

I think the only way it'd affect us is money-wise. We just about get by with money at the moment- but that's because we spend everything we have (on unimportant things). When the time comes to have a baby, we'll just have to stop spending on the house, or saving for big holidays. We've lived like scrooge before, we can do it again!

We dont really like going out on the town- never have. We tend to prefer to go round peoples houses, or have them come round ours. Im expecting this to slow a bit when we have a baby, but to be honest i dont think it'll stop completely.

In fact, i think a baby would make our life much more interesting! Im fed up of watching tv everynight like robots, and of doing nothing with our weekends. When we have a baby we'll be going to the beach, or a farm, or visiting relatives and watching the kids play together! Fair enough, inthe evenings we'll still watch tv, when the baby's asleep; but we'll appreciate it so much more when we do get those 5 minutes to ourselves!

If im honest, I thought having Lucy would affect my everyday life sooo much more than it has. Or maybe ive just got used to having her around?!

Lots has changed though, my once tidy house is now covered in toys, walkers, play gyms and baby clothes and sure, everything takes 10 times longer than it used to. Theres no more running to the bottom of the road to get a pint of milk, now its put lucys coat on, make sure shes warm enough, get the pushchair out the car, unfold it, get her in it, strap her in, take extra 5 mins to try and manouvre the pushchair round the gate, walk slowly down the hill instead of running...

Also I was always a career person, I loved my job and thought id return straight away once maternity was up, but now have decided to take extra time off and think about baby number 2. (I was made redundant tho so maybe thats helped my decision!)

I must admit, despite it being quite chaotic (??) anyway, I did think it would be a lot harder than it is and thought a lot more would change.

I think about this all the time.

My husband and I are real partygoers, he DJs and I love socialising with friends. That is going to be the biggest thing that will change when we have LO’s as we don’t have anyone who lives near us that would be able to babysit if we wanted to go out on our own. My family live about 2 ½ - 3 hours away and hubbys family live in Scotland. We are the first people in our group of friends to be married and none of our nearby friends have children (nor do they want them). I think it will be the time where we find out who are real friends that want to spend time with us and our kids rather than just out on the town and I must admit I worry about how many people will want to do that.

We have already agreed that I will give up work until our kids are old enough to go to full time school, then I will probably work part time. It makes more sense as my hubby earns much more than me and due to the lack of available babysitters we would have to use nurseries and to be honest that would probably cost more than I earn. I have a few ideas on how I can earn money whilst at home so hopefully if they turn out well I should still be able to bring some cash into the household.

Hopefully eventually we will move house, we’d like to do it now but the economy isn’t really in the best state to do that at the moment. We could cope with one child in our current house but definitely not two – it would be far too cramped.

I hope that when LO’s come along it will change our life in a way that doesn’t mean we can’t do things that we do now, I think it will mean that we will just have to do them less often that’s all.

I completely agree with you on that one, we sit watching tv everynight and I sit here thinking it would be great just to hear the baby cry and then one of us say "I'll go" and then go and get him/her.. It's the little things I look forward too

xx

Me too Sparky!!

Brooke hasnt made that much difference either-I mean, yes there's the lack of sleep but its rare the baby is up literally ALL night-she wakes every 3/4 hours for food so not really too bad. Plus the shopping bills havent really changed as much as i thought-one packet nappies (£4 max) and tin of formula (£7.90) not too bad imo!

the only thing she has REALLY changed is my social life-i was a right little party animal before but now i havent been out since ttc a year ago!
tbh your priorities change with a lo-and i wouldnt want to be out somewhere partying anyway. I treasure time alone with my Fiancee now-even if it is just getting some quick shut eye on the sofa!!

With our next baby, we will hopefully have moved into a 3 bedroome house by the time s/he arrives but if we havent then its no biggy. Brooke has an ENORMOUS room all to herself at the mo!! haha Think thats it?

xx

It's strange, I have thought about having kids, and what we'd do with our time and where we'd take them etc, but I've never really thought of it in this way, like a list of what things would change. Let me see...

The in-laws live in Spain and so we a lot to them, as well as taking a couple of holidays a year. Obviously, there'd be a good 6 months where we wouldn't fly, but that's not so bad a they could come over here. We'd generally need to cut down on the holidays, but we'd make it up with just trips to the in-laws

We've already decided on a years maternity leave, and then I'd go back to work 2 days a week. DH works compressed hours and so that would only leave 1 day a week to find childcare.

We live in an apartment, but it is 2 large bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms, so it's actually quite spacious and we'd not need to move until no 2 was on the scene. It's also close to town and work, so in the long term, I wouldn't have to worry about commuting times when I do go back.

Dh is a bit of a hoarder, so he may have to do some throwing out of stuff to make room for LO in the spare room, woohoo! No more 'junk' (aka treasure if you ask DH )

We're not really into going into town, although we do like meals out. Neither of us have a problem with cutting this out, plus my family is close by for when there is something we don't want to miss.

We like to go for walks, and I'm a bit of a photography geek. We also have an allotment, which is child friendly (one of our neighbours brought their LO with them 2 weekends after she was there with a bump. So baby could only have been max of 2 weeks. It was lovely to see them getting out in the sunshine and fresh air )so generally our pass times are child friendly.

So, all in all, I don't see it stopping anything we usually do. It may slow us down, but that can only be a good thing. We are forever rushing through our lives, and I would appreciate the opportunity to stop and smell the roses

The baby really hasn't changed our life too much. DH and I are of the belief that you don't change your life because you have a baby - you incorporate the baby into your life. Meaning you still do mostly everything you used to you just bring your kids with you. That's the way we were raised. We still hang out at the same bar - not necessarily for as long or at the same times, but we do still spend time with all the same people. When I go on my girly trip in June the DH will take the baby. When DH wants a week of man time during hunting season - I'll have the baby. There really isn't that much extra expense especially if you're already used to living modestly. I have no qualms about buying everything (almost) from the second-hand shop. I'm still working full-time and actually have managed to find a great work/life balance. I can't wait until Danny gets a little older so we can take all of trips we want to take him on.