When is the best age to have your first baby?

Well, I'd had four children by the age of 25, but didn't mean to, guv, honest!

(Seriously, when I consider how casually and easily we had children, I feel irresponsible and somewhat guilty, especially with infertility problems in the family. It has all turned out brilliantly, thank whoever, but not to be recommended.)

Its my observation that you become emotionally ready for children when, or in the months before they arrive. My first was unplanned but I grew up emotionally with her. There is something about being needed that makes you grow up. I know some never do, and I feel sorry for those kind of parents but most people would be happier avoiding the fertility problems that come if they wait too long. Before 30 for instance.

I first became a mother at 29 and that was the right time for me. Before that, I was too busy living and getting those things out of my system which should have been got rid of in my teens, but for various reasons weren't.
I don't regret putting off having children until then, and wish my own DD hadn't been in such a hurry to have a family so much earlier, given the problems she's now facing.
I think it all depends on circumstances and the parents involved - some women (and men) are more emotionally and financially prepared to have children earlier than others.

I was considered to have left it quite late by my family - I had been married four years and was nearly 23 when my first DD was born. Both my sisters and both my daughters had theirs when they were 19 or 20. My mother, on the other hand, was 30 when she got married but went on to have five children in the next ten years. She was lucky to get married - there were two million surplus women after WW1.
I had always wanted children from the time I was about nine - I used to ask neighbours to let me wheel their babies in their prams. However, I wanted us to have our own home , car, etc. before I gave up work. Then I just got so broody I was haunting babywear shops - my arms ached to hold a baby. My husband would have liked to wait a bit longer, for a better car, a caravan, a boat.....but once I made up my mind my baby was born ten months later.
I am not sure that anybody who has not experienced that overwhelming need for a baby can understand it.

I was 30. I was enjoying life in my 20s, not that I didn't enjoy having babies, and if I'd met the right man earlier, I suppose I might have been a mother sooner. I was ready by that time to settle down and we had enough money to put a deposit on a house, buy furniture and appliances and so on.

Exactly, Annobel - we were lucky in that the timing all came together. We were actually trying for a baby for a couple of years before it happened, but I do think that in the 70s couples still tended to wait until they had the basics before starting a family (in general). These days there are no 'rules' imposed by society or even tradition any more.

I think some are well organised these days. Both my DiLs were in their 30s before having babies and well established on the property ladder and career paths.

The convention was to get married and then think about starting a family so I was 27 when my first child was born, and I discovered I was regarded as 'elderly' in obstetric terms! My children have had their babies at this age and over, too! By the time I had my twin girls at the age of 33, I had started to think I was getting a bit too old for crawling round on the floor and getting up in the middle of the night! Little did I know!

My sister, who is 61, still fosters tiny babies, so she does all that now.

I had my first at 20 and then 2 more before I was 28, first was quite by accident and the other two just because we wanted them.. not much thought went into whether we could afford them , luckily all worked out well for us but I hope my grandchildren will put a lot more thought into planning a family than I did..

I had my first at 22 and my last at 25, for me the ideal age. They were grown up and left home while I was still in my early 40s and then I had time to myself.

My mother was about 41 when I was born - she was always a bit cagey about her age. She always seemed much older than my friends' mothers and never took part in cycling, swimming, skating, etc. with us. Of course, women of 50 in those days were very different from women of 50 today. I was certainly still teaching my grandchildren to roller skate when I was 60.
DD1 started early, having her first baby at just 20, but kept going another five times until she was 35. Fortunately, her last two, who are now 14 and 13, are very sensible and hard-working and don't seem to be the type to give her any aggro in their mid teens.
The woman who had IVF abroad when she was about 55 has been reported as saying it was a mistake and she is finding it difficult to cope. Of course, many women have to take over their grandchidren's upbringing when their parents have died, or are unable to manage in some other way. They seem to do very well, and I take my hat off to them.

I put it off because my husband was in the Navy and I didn't want to be stuck in Portsmouth, 400 miles from family and old friends, with a baby.

I had my first at 30 - stillborn alas, then healthy boys at 34 and 37. It seemed right to me - each to her own I suppose.

It's my youngest's 30th birthday tomorrow - I'll feel a lot better at his party tomorrow than I did 30 years ago!!

I meant stuck alone with a baby.

I had my first at 26 (planned) and my second eleven months later (not planned)!!

Hard work but all over in one go!

I think we worry about these things too much. Had my eldest in my mid-twenties and my youngest in my mid-forties and loved it all (and them all). I think I was tireder with DD3 but the tiredness wasn't a shock, which it had been with DD1. I think enjoyed the whole baby and child-rearing thing more as an older mum because I'd had enough practice by then to be getting good at it . Not that I was ever a worrier and my babies, thankfully, enjoyed rude health.

It's just Life. Reproducing is what animals do, and then they cope as best they can whatever their circumstances.

Hurrah for contraception though. I wouldn't have wanted hordes of the wee darlings.

I was a "senile prima gravida" in the military hospital when I went for antenatal visits and I was only 28 at the time!!

Surely not 'senile', eGJ!
I know I was an 'elderly prima gravida' at 29.

How silly to call you that! DD jad her first at age 28 and was the youngest in the ward!

I was (and still am) Vintage Mum.

I was 28 when I got married and 32 when absentdaughter was born. I should have loved more children but my husband (now ex) was firm in his opinion that one was enough. I too was an elderly primagravida – very flattering. My mother married aged 26 just before World War II and didn't start a family until afterwards, having her first child at the age of 34 and me at the age of 39, with a miscarriage in between. Absentdaughter got married at 17 and had her first child at the age of 19, subsequently divorcing her husband and remarrying. Her fifth child was born in March this year when she was 29. All three of us managed okay and any problems we had with the births seem to have been unrelated to age. I grew up to be a reasonably responsible adult and managed to raise a fabulous daughter, who is proving to be a terrific mother. There's probably too much agonising about all this, although I agree that that medical facts about conception, childbirth and age should be included as par of sex education. People will continue to have babies because their desire to do so is overpowering.

I had my children between the ages of 23 and 29. My GP told me he felt that women should have their babies in their twenties as that was when they were best able physically to deal with the strains on their bodies. Makes sense I suppose but then there will always be those who disprove the rule. He was generalising.

If you wait until you can afford to have children then the chances are you won't. I don't think there is ever a right financial time but tbh it doesn't matter because you cope and you have something far more valuable than money.

I was 23 when I had my first. I was a postgrad student at the time and the pregnancy was the result of missing one pill - honest! I was 15 weeks gone and unable to do my skirt up before the university doctor would take me seriously. When he felt my tummy he went white as a sheet and promptly offered me a termination! I reassured him that actually I would be quite happy to go ahead with the pregnancy, and he got quite excited about it. Uni doctors in those days were just dealing with contraception and hardly ever had a wanted pregnancy to deal with.

Although we didn't have two halfpennies to rub together we have never for one minute regretted having our daughter young, and the second one came when I was 25. My only regret was that I didn't have a third one in my thirties, but my husband announced that he thought I was too old at 35. How times do change.

I would like to think that more women could be confident about having their children in their twenties. The pendulum of opinion seems to have swung so far the other way that young people are regarded as irresponsible if babies come before car and house. And today you need a second mortgage to buy all the baby paraphernalia. It would be nice if gransnet could fly the flag a bit for frugal motherhood, that is, not burdened with a mountain of pink or blue plastic.

I had my 1st at 32, not by choice. DH and I had been trying to conceive for 10yrs. I was 37 when I had my 2nd. That came as a complete surprise as I had a coil fitted at the time

In some ways I wish I'd had them younger, but we wern't as financially stable when I was in my early 20's

I know a lot of young women, partly through having 3 daughters, but also because I have employed many in recent years as dance, drama and singing teachers. Almost all saw 30 as the age they were aiming for to have had their first baby, and in fact most have gone on to have their 1st as they approached 30.
My middle daughter had her first at 27, and my youngest (24) is aiming for 27/28 too.
I had mine aged 28, 31 and 36. I was aiming for 35 for number 3, but a late miscarriage when I was 35 set that back.
I don't actually know any young women who've had babies in their early 20s.

I would make an educated guess that the genuinely best time to have a baby is when you really want one.