Brutally Honest Reasons Women Over 50 Say You Should Think Twice Before Having a Baby in Your Mid-40s

My friend Dana showed up at my back door on a Tuesday in late September with a bag of apples and a look I knew well. She is in her mid-forties. She has two kids in middle school and a husband named Rick who coaches their soccer teams. She set the apples on my counter and said she had been thinking about a third baby. Then she asked me what I thought.

I have been married to Tom for more than thirty years. We raised three kids in this house. Our youngest left for college a while back, and the quiet still surprises me some mornings. So I know a little about babies and a little about what comes after them. But I did not want to answer Dana out of my own head alone. That night I found a thread on a Reddit forum for women over fifty. Someone had asked the same question Dana asked me. The answers were blunt. Some were funny. A few were hard to hear.

I printed the thread and read it aloud to Tom over the next week while he worked the crossword. Then I went through it again with Dana at my kitchen table. Here are the fifteen things those women said, with what happened in my kitchen while we talked them over.

Try a puppy first

Dana was still on her first cup of coffee when I read her the very first reply. She laughed so hard she had to set the mug down. Tom looked up from the crossword and asked what was so funny. I read it again for him. He said it was the best advice in the whole thread and went back to his puzzle.

One woman on Reddit put it plainly.

Get a little dog or something…same cute cuddly joy without the sass back in a few years (well maybe).

u/MegamomTigerBalm on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana wiped her eyes and said it was not a serious suggestion. I told her it was more serious than it sounded. A lot of what she described to me was wanting something small to hold again. A dog can give you that. A dog will not ask for the car keys in fifteen years.

Takeaway: figure out what part of a baby you actually miss, because there may be a cheaper way to get it.

Hotels are built for four

Dana and Rick took the kids to the beach last summer. She told me they fit in one room and one car and had a lovely time. I asked her to picture that same trip with a car seat and a crib. She stopped talking for a moment.

A mother of three on Reddit had done that math already.

I have 3 kids and when you say traveling will be more difficult that is a FACT. I always say the world was made for a family of 4. It’s so difficult to find hotels that fit 5. Airfare is crazy expensive. And if you want to rent a car and be comfortable you must get a 3 row suv. Baby fever is real but it passes. Enjoy your healthy happy fun family of 4 IMO

u/lurkertiltheend on r/AskWomenOver50

I know this one from the inside. When our three were small, Tom and I booked two rooms or squeezed everyone into one and nobody slept. Rental cars got bigger and so did the bill. Dana said she had not thought about the hotel part at all. Most people do not until they are standing at a front desk at ten at night.

Takeaway: a fifth person changes every trip you take for the next twenty years.

College and retirement land in the same year

Tom set down his pencil when I read this one. He has a spreadsheet for our retirement that he updates more often than I would like. He asked Dana how old Rick would be when a new baby graduated high school. She counted on her fingers and said sixty-three.

One Reddit reply covered it in a single sentence.

That baby will be ready for college when you’re trying to retire.

u/IWasGoatbeardFirst on r/AskWomenOver50

We paid our last tuition bill a few years ago. It was a relief to see that money stay in the account each month after that. Dana and Rick had been planning to slow down in their early sixties. A baby now would move that line out a decade. She did not argue the point. She just looked at the ceiling for a while.

Takeaway: count the years from the baby’s birth to your planned retirement before you count anything else.

There are more of them than you

I told Dana about the day our middle one was born. Tom and I came home from the hospital with the baby, the toddler ran one way, the older one ran the other, and we stood in the hall and realized we had only four hands between us.

A woman on the thread said the same thing in fewer words.

When you get to 3, you’re outnumbered.

u/FormerlyDK on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana said two kids already felt like plenty on bad days. I said three is not one more than two. Three is a different shape. Someone is always waiting, always left out, always in the car while the other two finish something. Rick cannot coach two games at once as it is.

Takeaway: with three kids, somebody is always going to be short a parent.

You lose your coverage

Tom is a basketball man. When I read this reply, he actually put the paper down and said it was exactly right. He explained it to Dana at the stove while he stirred the chili. With two kids, each parent takes one. With three, you both start covering areas and hoping.

One woman on the thread used the sports version.

Never go from man-to-man to a zone defense.

u/SepiaToneHitchhiker on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana laughed and said Rick would appreciate that one. Then she got quiet and said the two-on-two thing was the only reason their house ran as well as it did. She takes the oldest to practice, Rick takes the younger one to lessons, and they meet at dinner. Add a third and someone is always on the bench.

Takeaway: once you have more kids than parents, your whole system has to change.

The odds are not in your favor

This one I read slowly. Dana is forty-four. She told me she had not seen a doctor about any of this yet. She had just assumed that since the first two came easily, the third would too.

A woman on the thread put a number on it.

There is a less then 1% chance of getting pregnant after 42 without fertility treatments.

u/Canyouhelpmeottawa on r/AskWomenOver50

I am not a doctor and neither are the women on that forum. I told Dana that straight. But I also told her my own body changed a great deal between forty and forty-five, and I did not get a vote on most of it. I said her first stop should be her doctor, not my kitchen table. She wrote the appointment reminder on her phone before she left that day.

Takeaway: talk to a doctor before you talk to anyone else, because wanting a baby and being able to have one are two different questions.

The school years follow you into your fifties

I went to a lot of band concerts. I sat on a lot of bleachers in the cold. I loved most of it, and I would not trade it. But I remember the last spring concert our youngest played. I remember walking out to the car with Tom and feeling something loosen in my shoulders.

One woman on Reddit wanted Dana to think about those bleachers.

You will be attending school events into your 50s. Believe me when I tell you that you will want time to yourself.

u/SurroundQuirky8613 on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana said she liked school events. I believe her. I liked them too. But I also know what it is like to want a Saturday with nothing on it. Those Saturdays are rare when you have a kid in school. A third child would keep Dana on the bleachers until she was close to sixty.

Takeaway: the baby years are short, but the school years are long, and you will be older for every one of them.

It can go wrong in ways that scare you

Dana’s second pregnancy was hard. She told me that at the table, quietly, like she had not said it out loud in a while. High blood pressure. Bed rest for the last six weeks. Rick doing everything with a four-year-old in the house.

One reply on the thread was short and sober.

That could’ve been a dangerous pregnancy.

u/tcd1401 on r/AskWomenOver50

I did not say much after that. I just refilled her coffee. I remember my own mother telling me that every pregnancy is its own gamble, and she was not wrong. Dana knows her body better than any stranger on a forum does. But she had been talking about a baby like it was only a question of wanting one. It is also a question of risk, and that risk goes up with age.

Takeaway: your past pregnancies are real information, and you should weigh them honestly.

The news is not getting calmer

Tom turned on the evening news while we talked, and the first story was a flood somewhere. The second was something about the economy. Dana looked at the screen and then at me.

One woman on Reddit said it in four words.

The world is on fire.

u/Severina_Gla**s_208 on r/AskWomenOver50

I told Dana I had heard that same worry when I was pregnant with our oldest. There was always something terrible on the news. There always will be. People have had babies through wars and depressions and plagues. But I also understand feeling tired and wondering if you have the energy to raise another child through all of it. That is a fair thing to feel.

Takeaway: the state of the world should not decide this for you, but you are allowed to feel worn down by it.

Why mess with a good thing

Dana said something that stuck with me. She said her life was good. Two healthy kids. A marriage that worked. A job she liked. She was not trying to fix anything. She just wanted more of a good thing.

One Reddit reply answered that with a bit of an edge.

My life‘s great I’m gonna add a huge amount of stress by adding a third child late in life, what could possibly go wrong?

u/Meat_Bingo on r/AskWomenOver50

I read it to her and we both winced a little. It is a sharp way to put it. But Tom said the woman had a point. He reminded me how tired we were when our youngest came. We loved that baby. We also did not sleep right for two years, and the older two felt it. Adding a baby to a good life does not leave the good life the same.

Takeaway: a baby is not a bonus on top of what you have, it is a trade for some of it.

The straw that breaks your limit

I told Dana a story I do not tell often. One night when our youngest was about six months old, I sat on the bathroom floor and cried because I could not remember the last time I had been alone. Tom found me there. He did not say anything. He just took the baby and shut the door.

A woman on the thread had clearly had a night like that.

Third child is the one that breaks you. Could be a good or bad thing

u/Independent-Lead2462 on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana asked if it was worth it. I said yes, for us. But I also said I was in my early thirties then, and I had more in the tank than I would have at forty-five. The third one is the one that finds the end of your patience. Whether that breaks you open or just breaks you depends on a lot of things you cannot plan.

Takeaway: the third child tests you in ways the first two did not, and you should ask yourself what you have left to give.

A teenager when you are in your fifties

A reader of this blog, Gail R., fifty-six, from Dayton, Ohio, wrote to me a few months back about raising her youngest, who is fifteen, while her friends were taking cruises. She said she loved every minute and was also tired down to her bones. I thought of her when I read this next reply.

One woman on Reddit was living it right now.

Do what you want. 52 with one 12-yr-old. We’ve been having a blast with sports and school events. I’d personally hate to be an empty nester. BUT, you’ll have a teen at 52. And you’ll have had the ability to experience childhood through 2 kids…

u/FlowerElegant1900 on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana liked this one. It was the first reply that did not sound like a warning. The woman was having fun. But she also said something that landed hard. Dana had already gotten to see childhood twice. She was not missing out on anything. She was deciding whether to go through it a third time, with less sleep and more gray hair.

Takeaway: you already know what you would be signing up for, so be honest about whether you want to do it again at fifty.

Wanting a baby is not the same as needing one

I asked Dana when the feeling started. She said it was at her sister’s baby shower in August. She held her new nephew for an hour and could not put him down. She went home and could not stop thinking about it.

One woman on the thread had a plain explanation for that.

Don’t do it. You have baby fever.

u/Fun-Yellow-6576 on r/AskWomenOver50

I have had baby fever more than once since our youngest left. I get it every time the grandkids visit and I hold the littlest one before they go. It is a real feeling. It is also a feeling that fades when I sit down and remember the diapers and the two in the morning. I told Dana to give it three months and see if it was still there.

Takeaway: a strong feeling is worth listening to, but it is not the same as a decision.

Some women say do it anyway

I want to be fair. Not everyone on the thread told Dana no. One woman had her third at forty and did not regret a thing. I read that one to Dana last, on a Sunday, after Tom had gone out to rake the leaves.

Her reply was warm and direct.

You know what the baby stage entails. I had my last at 40 (my third). If you are both on the same page about it, go for it!

u/sunfish54703 on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana read it twice. Then she asked me the question I had been waiting for. She asked what Rick thought. She admitted she had not really asked him yet. She had been asking me and a forum of strangers instead. I told her that was the only opinion in the whole thread that mattered more than hers.

Takeaway: if you and your husband are not on the same page, nothing else on this list matters yet.

Your body gets a vote

The last reply was the one Tom liked best. He said it sounded like something my mother would have said. He was right. She had a way of pointing out that we do not control as much as we think.

One woman on the thread put it as a question.

You do realize that at our age, nature makes many of the decisions for us?

u/Jenneapolis on r/AskWomenOver50

Dana sat with that one. She said she had been treating this like a choice she would make. She had not thought much about the chance that she would make the choice and her body would make a different one. I did not have an answer for her. Nobody does. I just told her that whatever she decided, she might need to hold it loosely.

Takeaway: at this age, you can decide what you want, but you cannot decide what you get.

Dana went home that Sunday with the printed thread folded in her coat pocket. She has an appointment with her doctor next month. She and Rick are going out to dinner without the kids this Friday to talk, which she said they have not done in a year. I do not know what they will decide. I told her I would be glad to hold a baby or walk a puppy, whichever way it goes.

Tom said the thread was the most sense he had ever gotten out of the internet. I think he just liked the basketball part. But I did learn something from reading it with Dana. Most of those women were not saying no. They were saying count the cost, and count it honestly, before you let the feeling choose for you.

If a friend sat at your kitchen table and asked you this same question, what would you tell her?