When Mr. Chocolate and I were thinking about starting a family, we sat down to discuss what would be ideal for us as far as timing. Mr. Chocolate is a teacher so he mentioned how many of his female co-workers often tried to have babies from April to June so they could roll their maternity leaves right into summer vacation, and maximize time with the baby. At the time I worked as a nanny and also had a similar schedule, as my kids went away for summer camp from June through August. As a nanny I didn’t have any form of maternity leave built into my job, and if I didn’t want to leave the family I cared for in the lurch with my pregnancy, trying for a baby right around that schedule made the most sense for me as well.
Mr. Chocolate and I were very fortunate and lucky, as we know that it’s not always easy to time a pregnancy, when we had Drake in early June. I was able to have three months off in the summer with him as a newborn before returning to work in September with him in tow. When we decided to try for Juliet, we once again figured that June would be best to allow me to work for the longest time possible, as I did not think I would be returning to work the following September, and we were extremely lucky to have another June baby.
While I am not ready to have another one right now, I still like to dream ahead like I did when I used to plug in my period date to find out when a baby would be due.
I really like June for many reasons:
- Parties can be done outside and you don’t have to worry about anything worse than a rainstorm.
- It’s a summer birthday but school hasn’t ended yet, so kids will still be around to attend parties.
- Our town doesn’t have a cut off date so it wouldn’t have affected Drake or Juliet either way, but June isn’t too early or too late to worry about cut off dates or red shirting.
- June is 6 months from Christmas so it’s nice spacing and better on the wallets for mom and dad too!
But even for all those wonderful reasons, part of me hopes that when we do have another one, it won’t be born in June. Drake and Juliet will forever have to share their birthdays and parties with one another, and it’s a lot of cost at about the same time. So if I can avoid it, I would like to try for any of the other 11 wonderful months in the year.
I wonder what I would prefer if I had the chance to choose. I always hear pros and cons about all the months, and it’s also interesting to hear people’s takes on their own birthday months and what they would choose if they had the chance to change their own birthdays. I think about how nice it would be to have an early spring baby, maybe April? What about a November baby to welcome the holiday season?
In the end a baby will be born when a baby will be born, and of course will be thrilled and grateful for whenever that baby joins our family.
If you could choose your baby’s birth month or change your birthday what would you choose? Why?
pomegranate / 3225 posts
I think June is also a perfect month. We had try for a May baby but it didn’t work out as planned and so we were just thrilled with our November baby
this time I will have a July baby and I’m happy about that because I don’t want to be stuck inside all winter with a newborn.
honeydew / 7504 posts
When we were first TTC, I was hoping for either an October baby, so I could be off for the entire holiday season, or an April/May baby so I could be off for warmer months and be able to take baby out for walks. I ended up with a January baby, which wouldn’t have been my first choice, but ended up being pretty great. We spent my maternity leave hibernating from the cold, snuggling and getting to know one another.
persimmon / 1165 posts
I love June personally, as it’s my birthday month.
My boys have a January birthday, which is great for Florida since we can still have outdoor parties. But, their birthday is just two weeks after Christmas, one week after New Year’s, so I have a feeling they’ll have to fight a little bit of the holiday fatigue in the years to come when celebrating their birthday. At least they have each other to always celebrate with!
For pregnancy purposes, I am so glad I was able to skip being super duper pregnant during the summer months. Again, because we live in Florida, it would have been absolutely miserable for swelling with the heat and the humidity. For my maternity leave, I was able to enjoy comfortable temperatures for lots of outdoor walks without having to worry about them overheating. And, they started daycare right after the winter months finished, so they had as long as possible before being exposed to winter daycare germs, which I believe has helped minimize how often they get sick.
guest
We have four, three boys and a girl, May, June, December, and September. The hardest in terms of pregnancy was being so big in the summer. December pregnancy wasn’t too bad but birthdays can be tough because people are hard pressed at that time and don’t want to attend. My May and June boys are 13 months apart and are best friends so they love having birthdays together. Finally, we haven’t even discussed our September baby because she hasn’t even turned 1! I’m excited to see how it goes!
cherry / 175 posts
I tried for Spring babies and got Summer ones (August, July).
The worst part about getting pregnant in November was being in the throws of morning sickness during the winter holidays. I still haven’t made some of those homemade Christmas presents I bought supplies for so long ago!
I loved having summer babies and wearing maternity dresses. I loved my babies being tiny in the summer when it’s warm and onsies are all you need. They were a little heartier by the time the first cold season rolled around. I love that their birthdays are a two weeks apart so I can pay for professional photos once a year on their birthdays and they can be outside!
admin / watermelon / 14210 posts
I’ve always loved my October birthday because it was right around Halloween! I was usually the smallest or second smallest in my class, but it didn’t bother me too much.
But now that I have kids, I do wish they were born earlier in the year rather than later (October and December). Charlie is already small and a December birthday doesn’t help. He is going to be the smallest kid in his class (he’s already smaller than all the girls).
blogger / pomegranate / 3201 posts
We totally tried to do this, as I am a teacher and wanted to maximize my time off by taking off the last 12ish weeks of the school year so I could also have the whole summer off with the baby. While it didn’t work exactly how we planned, we did end up with perfect timing, just one year later. We started trying in May 2010 and conceived in July 2011. Liam was born at the end of March 2012 and I got my nice long maternity leave.
We tried to do the same thing again and did conceive in July 2013 with a due date of March 2014, but lost the pregnancy. After that loss, all timing plans went out the window and now we just want to have a healthy baby whenever we can. We will make it work whenever it happens and we will be so thrilled with a baby in any month.
blogger / grapefruit / 4836 posts
I am a June baby and it was a great birth month
guest
I think on baby 2 I’m going to try for June or July. Baby one is currently due in May, but probably appearing in April and as a wedding planner in Florida, a little later in the summer would be ideal for a second, since April and May are huge wedding months here. Although it took us so long to get pregnant, I’ll take whatever I can get
pear / 1696 posts
We have tons of June birthdays in my family (including my mother, myself and my son!). I think its great, but didn’t really try for a specific month. I just hoped to avoid Nov/Dec so the dreary Seattle winter didn’t get me down during the immediate postpartum time. Although I suppose with the next baby (hoping to try again next year) it won’t really matter since I’ll have a toddler to chase and with get out an about no matter what.
clementine / 948 posts
My LO was born right before Thanksgiving – I would avoid that if possible. Too depressing being stuck inside all winter. I want to try for a Aug/Sept baby next time
blogger / pomegranate / 3491 posts
I will just be happy to get pregnant. Not much I can seem to control regarding the month.
guest
A friend told me March was the best, because February is so short that the last month of her pregnancy felt like it went faster! Personally, I think April or May would be ideal, because those months have the least other celebrations already going on for us.
pear / 1657 posts
I was born in June and my baby is due in June too – I’m pretty excited about it! I’m really looking forward to having maternity leave in the summer and not being pregnant when it is hot.
hostess / wonderful honeydew / 32460 posts
I have March and December babies.
It’s pretty cold here in December and his birthday’s close to Christmas. :T If I could choose, I’d exchange Dec for May!
guest
Our first child was born in May, a beautiful month for a birthday. We started trying for baby #2 when he was still very young. We had gone through one miscarriage and many, many months of trying before we had been able to conceive him, so we anticipated another long road ahead of us the second time around. We didn’t worry of think for a second about the month in which our second baby might be born, as we were just so hopeful to become pregnant.
We conceived and our second child was born right on her due date: Christmas Day! We will celebrate her special day with all of the excitement, love, and family tradition with which we celebrate our son’s May birthday! We are just so happy that she is in our family.
pomegranate / 3595 posts
It is funny that so much depends on where you live! Your reasons that are pluses for June would be minuses for us out in the heat of AZ! School is already out and it is waay too hot for an outside party. On the other hand, my December baby will be able to have an outside party as long as we live here.
I was supposed to be due next month, which would have been great as I love having a May birthday, but I lost the baby at 12 weeks so now I am just hoping for a healthy baby no matter the month.
blogger / persimmon / 1398 posts
I clearly didn’t have any say in the matter for my boys… but I love their June and July birthdays for all the reasons you outlined!
blogger / nectarine / 2687 posts
May was my ideal birth month and our little girl has a May birthday! CB has a September birthday which means he’ll be the youngest in his class, but I do love that both of them have birthdays in warmer months!
guest
No one has mentioned this reason, so I’ll add my 2 cents.
We never tried to plan for a specific birth month at all, and with the time it took us to conceive, it’s a good thing we didn’t!
But I had always said that I hoped my baby had a birth month with no holidays or other family birthdays. NOT because I didn’t want her to share, but because I wanted an excuse to have our birthday/holiday family dinners once per month. There were only 2 months – Feb. or Sept. where we didn’t have an excuse to get together. But now my purely-by-luck February baby gives us a reason too!
guest
We did not plan, but I am really excited for our baby’s birth month November (early). What’s nice is I’ll have off for the holidays and my pregnancy will be in one fiscal year! Many people don’t think about this but I will only have to pay my deductible once!