How to Plan Your Family

It may take a village to raise a child, but it's generally just the parents who are involved in the planning stages. Like every other major life decision, the more thought and planning that go into addressing issues about raising children, the better off your entire family will be.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Evaluate your and your partner's lifestyle for kid compatibility. Workaholics are an asset in the office, but a liability when it comes to spending time with your little one. Discuss values and expectations as well as ways to adjust workloads and travel schedules to bring your focus and energy back home.
2. Try to consciously address feelings of ambivalence about parenthood before age 30. Women and men who start seriously trying until their late 30s often have waited too long. See 251 Orchestrate the Perfect Conception, 252 Plan for Artificial Insemination and 253 Prepare for an In Vitro Fertilization.
3. Start socking money away in savings, money market accounts or whatever gives you the best return. That cute little bottom will completely change your bottom line (see 250 Budget for a New Baby). And it's not too early to think about how to finance private schools--or even college. See 233 Save for Private Schooling and 235 Plan for College Costs.
4. Make sure that your relationship is ready and that both of you want to start a family. Check out what each of you expects from the other after the baby comes. Does the working parent expect to pat the baby and have a glass of wine every night while the stay-at-home parent takes care of the child? Who will get up to do the feedings? How will you handle the stress and conflicts of two very different styles of jobs? If either of you is unsure, resolve these issues in counseling well before you start trying.
5. Cultivate a good support system and practice asking for help. Ideally, you'll want friends who are going through the same thing and whom you can ask questions of, friends to help you install the car seat the first time, friends who will talk to you even in the middle of the night when the baby is crying and you just cannot take it anymore.
6. Discuss what happens after the baby comes. How long a maternity leave will you plan for? Will one of you stay home full-time and care for the baby? How do you choose that person? How will you juggle work schedules if both of you return to work? See 256 Set Up Maternity or Paternity Leave.
7. Start looking at day-care options if neither parent will be staying home. Many of the good programs have waiting lists. See 263 Arrange Quality Child Care.

Tips & Warnings

• Fine-tune communication skills with your partner. Where you may have hours or days to discuss and resolve issues now, after the baby comes it'll be only a few moments here and there.
• Make a move to bigger digs if that's desirable. Other attractive amenities include a backyard, good schools and a safe neighborhood.
• A good way to approach parenting is to understand that nothing will ever be the same again. Your relationship with your spouse, your free time, the way you view the world, your relationship to your work--all will be completely different. If you can accept this fundamental truth rather than fight it, you'll be much better off--and so will your kid.
• Going from lovers to parents is the single biggest transition any couple goes through. Ease the inevitable friction by discussing some of the harsh realities-- midnight feedings, extreme fatigue, changing sexual desire and financial issues-- before they become unmanageably difficult.