Question for Moms

jade_222

Hi, my husband and I have been waiting to start trying to have our second child. We wanted to start in February and hopefully have the baby in December/January because he can get more time off then due to work. However, his work has changed and now it doesn't matter when we have the baby. Which means we can start trying now.

My first baby is 16 months old and I have about 8 more pounds to lose before I'm back to my pre-baby weight. As I'm sure many moms know, my stomach is all stretched out so even though I'm close to my original weight I'm still quite a bit bigger than before. Last time I gained about 55 pounds. So this time around I wanted to be more prepared. I wanted to have a set exercise routine, that I plan to follow throughout the pregnancy and I plan to use myfitnesspal so my eating won't get out of control.

Also my original plan was to lose as much weight as possible before the second baby (right now I'm thinking another 20ish pounds) so that way I have less work to do after the second baby to lose weight.

So my question is do you think it will be easier to:
a) lose as much weight now and wait until February to start trying, or
b) start trying now and worry about losing all the weight after the second baby?

Liftng4Lis

That would really be a question for your husband and yourself. Personally, the closer you can get this one to the one you already have, the easier it will be for you. Plus you're going to either lose weight once, or have to do it twice.

jade_222

Yea that's what I was thinking (having them closer together would be easier). I was trying to decide between the trade off of losing once or twice with starting off in a better position to lose weight.

ACanadian22

It is more a personal thing in the way of the of how far apart you want your children. I know that my boys are 4 years apart and that way not planned as in I lost a child in the middle. I wish they were closer in ages as they could do more things now that they are younger together. I know it won't make a big difference later in life.....but you know what I mean.

jade_222

Yea basically, the weight part of the question is less important than how close I want my children to be in age. And originally we always did want them about two years apart.

bramble345

This is one of those where its going for whats right for you. I worked on losing weight while trying to get pregnant second time round. I figured i won either way then

Lost about half of first baby weight, had second baby and three years down the line am lighter and fitter than i was pre kids. Still not where i want to be, but getting there.

silentKayak

There is a certain level of caloric intake that will let you maintain at your goal weight. Rather than "trying to lose weight", why not focus on your eating patterns? If you know you need about 1600 net to maintain the weight you want, then that's what you should target. If you diet to lose the weight and then go back to a "normal" eating pattern, you'll regain. Instead, the goal is to make your target the new normal, if that makes sense.

You'll eat a little more while pregnant of course.

Either way, good luck with your family! My kids are 2.5 years apart which works really well for us. Not too close that we had "two babies" at once, but close enough to enjoy many of the same things.

Myrmilt

My first pregnancy was hard, just flat out life threatening hard. Getting back to my regular weight wasn't hard, nor did I have that many body changes. It took me over 9 years to even consider having another child.

Having my children a decade apart was interesting. While the second pregnancy was easier, I gained much more weight and then afterwards just never lost the weight. Thus, I am here now, and I fully expect to get back to where I was.

It really is a personal choice. I would think the weight is a secondary matter if it isn't a health related issue.

Trishism

It's definitely a personal choice. I know women who basically said 'screw it' to trying to get their bodies fit between babies. They just waited until they were finished having children and THEN got fit. My son is 7 months old and we're thinking about trying for the next closer to the end of next year, so I know I have the time to focus more on getting fit. But really I'm just hoping that this is a lifestyle change because we never used to cook at home nearly as much and once we thought about having a family I really wanted to create a healthy atmosphere for them to grow up in.

Anyway.

I've lost pretty much all the baby weight but I'm still pretty far from my goal, but if I still weighed this much and we were ready to start trying for number 2 I would just try to be healthier in general and go ahead and TTC.