Married, Pregnant at 22

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relstudent

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Hello everyone,
My wife and I are pregnant at the young age of 22. We are so happy about our baby, and we are looking for advice. Please provide any suggestions you might have about to be a good parent to our first child
 
relstudent said:
Hello everyone,
My wife and I are pregnant at the young age of 22. We are so happy about our baby, and we are looking for advice. Please provide any suggestions you might have about to be a good parent to our first child
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Talk to your parents …they obviously did a good job with both of you.

Remember, anyone can be a father…but it takes a special guy to be a DADDY.

Keep St Joseph in mind…he was a pretty good Dad.
 
relstudent said:
Hello everyone,
My wife and I are pregnant at the young age of 22. We are so happy about our baby, and we are looking for advice. Please provide any suggestions you might have about to be a good parent to our first child
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Congrats! My wife also had our first at 22, now we have 5 beautiful children. The one thing that I can advise is that once they start on solid food, its the best time to train them to sleep in their own bed. The later you leave it the harder it is to do so. Believe me, you need it for your own peace and quiet in your marriage and it also is for their benefit.

If you ever have any questions you can’t find the answer to always feel free to PM me 🙂
 
My mother had me a week before she turned 21.
Don’t let people make you feel like you can’t be good parents just because you’re young and don’t let others dictate your parenting style. 🙂
 
Congratulations to you and your wife!

My advice is to always remember that nothing is forever-- meaning, you won’t lose sleep forever, or need to run out for diapers forever, or drive them to activities when they are older forever.

There will be many phases in your baby’s life, as in your marriage. As long as you embrace them, and know that the “bad” ones won’t last forever, you will be just fine. 🙂
 
I was 23 when we got married/ was pregnant with my first. My mom was 22. I don’t find 22 to be that young 🙂 although I know society nowadays often leaves having children for later in life. You can ignore people that act like you are too young to be married/having kids :).

My advice would be the same I would give to anyone at any age getting married: Give 110% of yourself, don’t try to measure everything to make sure you are each doing 50/50. It is impossible and can be very frustrating to try to divide everything exactly in half. When you each give 110%, out of love for each other, there is always enough to go around :). A solid loving marriage is one of the best gifts you can give your children.
 
You will figure it out!

We arrived home with our first and she was in her carseat and we looked around at each other and were like “what now? Do we get her out?” Now, kids are running around our house and if I had the time, I could write the ultimate parenting book.😃

Congrats! Love your children!
 
Cloth diaper.

I didn’t start doing this until my first was 8 months old, and he turned out to be one of the few babies who can’t cloth diaper for skin issues, but I can’t recommend it enough. It’s not that gross; you are dealing with poop anyways, and it saves SO much money long run. I can’t wait to have another baby to cloth diaper again.

We had our first when we were both 20. Congrats!!
 
Congrats!May God a bless you and your wife and baby!
I was six weeks shy of 21 when I had my first of three daughters.
She is now 40years old!
My advice,cherish and enjoy your little one,they are babies for such a short time and believe me,time goes by quickly.🙂
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
You will figure it out!

We arrived home with our first and she was in her carseat and we looked around at each other and were like “what now? Do we get her out?” Now, kids are running around our house and if I had the time, I could write the ultimate parenting book.😃

Congrats! Love your children!
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:rotfl: Let me know when you write the book…I’ll write the foreword. 😃

We were 22 when we brought home our first. Good times! Crazy times!

Congratulations!
 
Congratulations to you both! Being a parent is one of the most rewarding jobs you will ever have- even though there will be some sleepless nights ahead of you. You will get advice, and advice, and more advice from well meaning friends, family, and even strangers. It will drive you nuts after awhile. I was 30 when I had my first and that’s just how people treat brand new parents and it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re a teeny bopper or you have a PHD. If this is your first baby people who’ve had children love telling you what to do, watching what you do, and smiling and rolling their eyes. I got a lot of that because most of my knowledge did come from books and I pretty well followed everything my pediatrician told me. I was paranoid and wanted to be perfect. By the time my 3rd had come along I was much more relaxed. There’s some good books out there, “What to Expect, When You’re Expecting,” and there’s another one in that series about the first year, then toddlerhood, etc. You’ll do fine.
 
Deana83 said:
Congratulations to you both! Being a parent is one of the most rewarding jobs you will ever have- even though there will be some sleepless nights ahead of you. You will get advice, and advice, and more advice from well meaning friends, family, and even strangers. It will drive you nuts after awhile. I was 30 when I had my first and that’s just how people treat brand new parents and it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re a teeny bopper or you have a PHD. If this is your first baby people who’ve had children love telling you what to do, watching what you do, and smiling and rolling their eyes. I got a lot of that because most of my knowledge did come from books and I pretty well followed everything my pediatrician told me. I was paranoid and wanted to be perfect. By the time my 3rd had come along I was much more relaxed. There’s some good books out there, “What to Expect, When You’re Expecting,” and there’s another one in that series about the first year, then toddlerhood, etc. You’ll do fine.
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1st kid:
Breastmilk
2nd, heat the bottle on the stove because microwaving is bad, all organic, no pollutants.
3rd, microwave becomes a savior at 3 AM.
4th Kid is lucky if he gets a bottle and is drinking dairy milk from the carton at 6 months.
5th kid is fixing his own breakfast which consists of crawling to the dog dish and eating some food, dumping the water dish all over himself and then maybe snorting some coke off the floor with charlie sheen.
 
In all seriousness to the OP. You asked for advice. Which is good. But you will receive more than you need and some of it will become unwelcome. Betimes, schooling, money, breast or bottle, both, cloth diapers, what kind of laundry soap t buy, how to potty train. Etc. The fact is that no one answer is the right answer for everyone. You have to find what works for you. We homeschool, but cloth diapers never would have worked for us. There are seriously people who make a war out of little tiny preferences on how to raise a child. Just try to find a spanking debate that doesn’t end in some kind of fight to the death to see who can be the first to call CPS. :rolleyes:

Let me help you. Let me boil it all down for you.

Love your children.
Mirror God. God is our father and that is the type of father you should mirror to your children. You will fail, but if you sincerely try, they will ultimately know God as a father better.

Pray for deity sized patience. Remember that as many times as we have let God down as a people, He has been patient. He brings us to his arms no matter what. Don’t expect a 6 month old to be able to stop crying just because it is getting on your nerves.

Cuddle your children, hold them. So many dads are afraid of this. Don’t be. Have you ever just wanted God to comfort you?

As much as it is pushed on us that dad must make you tough, resist the idea. The world will scar, toughen, and age your kids by itself. Be the dad that holds a hurt child not the one saying “be tough, don’t cry, shake it off” Don’t worry, your kid won’t be a 30 year old man that cries when he staples his hand at the office. But he will be someone who knows that his Dad will help him no matter what. Mirror The Father, when you are hurt in life, when a loved one dies or something bad happens, your Father in heaven does not berate you and tell you to toughen up.

And finally most importantly.

If you have a girl, put her in soccer or another sport. Be her “date” from day one, treat her like a princess. Teach her what a real man should be like. Treat her mom with respect and love and tenderness.

If you have a boy. No soccer. Ever. Only football. This is not negotiable.
But also teach him how to treat his mother.
 
relstudent said:
Hello everyone,
My wife and I are pregnant at the young age of 22. We are so happy about our baby, and we are looking for advice. Please provide any suggestions you might have about to be a good parent to our first child
Click to expand...
Love your wife. Make it very clear to your child that daddy loves him/her very much, almost as much as he loves mommy. If you have a peaceful, loving home, the rest will fall into place.
 
I had our first right after I turned 21, and now we have three more to go along with her!

You’ll figure out parenting as you go. Trial and error are always with you, but you’ll do fine. The only advice that I can give you besides that is NEVER let anyone make you feel inadequate/incompetent because of your age. I’ve had many parents not want my advice (when they asked to a group we were in) because of my age. Never mind that my kid had done whatever theres had done, or the fact that I had more kids than them (that actually might have been part of it to, people thought we were stupid to have so many kids…)

Also, find a GOOD support system. Good family who loves you, good friends who respect you. It took me awhile to figure out the friends one.
 
MessyMom said:
I had our first right after I turned 21, and now we have three more to go along with her!

You’ll figure out parenting as you go. Trial and error are always with you, but you’ll do fine. The only advice that I can give you besides that is NEVER let anyone make you feel inadequate/incompetent because of your age. I’ve had many parents not want my advice (when they asked to a group we were in) because of my age. Never mind that my kid had done whatever theres had done, or the fact that I had more kids than them (that actually might have been part of it to, people thought we were stupid to have so many kids…)

Also, find a GOOD support system. Good family who loves you, good friends who respect you. It took me awhile to figure out the friends one.
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👍
 
relstudent said:
Hello everyone,
My wife and I are pregnant at the young age of 22. We are so happy about our baby, and we are looking for advice. Please provide any suggestions you might have about to be a good parent to our first child
Click to expand...
Congratulations!

My advice -

There are many, many experts (and would-be experts) in the world. But there will only be ONE set of experts on your child - you and your wife. So no matter what “parenting wisdom” you read or are told - if it feels completely wrong, go with your gut and don’t use it.

Example: With my oldest, I was told I MUST put her to sleep on her tummy - if not, she would choke!
With my second (8yrs later), I was told I MUST put her to sleep on her side - on her tummy she would suffocate, on her back she would choke.

With my third (3yrs later), I was told I MUST put him to sleep on his back - on his tummy he would suffocate, on his side he’d lose circulation in his arm (and might get caught in whatever we were using to prop him up on his side).

With my fourth (3yrs later), it was still MUST be on his back - but now you had to also schedule “tummy time” or his head would become misshapen from too much time on his back.

With my fifth & sixth, I didn’t have time to listen. 🤷

My point isn’t that people give out wrong or conflicting info - it’s usually the very best, most up-to-date info we as a society have at the time. My point is that what is thought to be best at one point, may turn out not to be the best in reality - and the fact is, you are going to have to make lots of decisions - sometimes ones that go against conventional wisdom - because you find they are the best decision you can make for your family.

(BTW - for us - all six babies slept however I could put them down without them waking up grin I figured they knew best how they were comfy, varied positions could be a good thing, and I eliminated crib bedding long before it was “the thing” to do because it seemed obvious to me that it was a hazard.)

Like another poster said - you’ll figure it all out. If something isn’t working, try something different - just always use your common sense and don’t forget to trust your own instincts.
 
My husband and I just had our first, he is 4 months old. I plan to be a stay at home mother with our children. A few suggestions I would have (and by no means am I a pro at this, still figuring things out!)… I would say do what you can to help your wife, especially the first few weeks. Sleep was just about nil for me, so whenever my husband could walk around with baby or change him, it helped so much. Not sure if you guys plan to breastfeed or not, but I would highly recommend it, it has great health benefits for baby and mother, and also gives that special bonding only the mother can give to baby. We are specifically trying the 7 standards of ecological breastfeeding.

On a side note, I would also say don’t forget to love each other thru all this. For us things could (and still do) get rough when being sleep deprived and caring for the baby… flowers, little notes, or whatever keeps that spark there for you, don’t lose it, it helps incredibly 🙂 Congratulations on your baby, there is so much to look forward to!
 
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