38 Questions All Couples Should Ask When Considering Having a Baby

When my husband and I first talked about getting married, I found SO many different resources out there for couples that helped with asking some of the important questions about marriage. When we decided to have a baby, I found a ton of information on pregnancy but very little information about important conversations couples should have when contemplating whether or not to bring a baby into their family. It can be pretty confusing if this is your first child or you have little REAL experience with babies and kids (all those sweet moments are deceitful y’all. Despite what those cute little feet and snuggly faces tell you, babies & kids are hard work!).
Because there’s little guidance on what to talk about, I wanted to list out questions I think might be helpful for couples to talk about when considering kids to help get the conversation juices started. 
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1. Why do you want kids?
2. Why does your partner want kids?
3. Why now?
4. Why not later?
5. Is one of you on the fence about having a baby?
6. If so, why?
7. What are important aspects of raising a child?
8. Did you do any babysitting growing up? How much? Did you like it? Would you like to do that forever?
9. How would you be different as a parent compared to your parents? The same?
10. What dreams do you have when you see yourself with your child?
11. Adoption/natural/other?
12. (If choosing to birth your child) What would we do about abnormal tests?
13. (If choosing to birth your child) What would we do if we couldn’t get pregnant right away? Would IVF, etc be an option?
14. What is your ideal birth? Would we want a doula, midwife, hospital birth, etc.?
15. In what ways would we prepare for birth? Prenatal yoga classes, breastfeeding classes, Infant CPR, etc.?
16. How do you think having a child will impact your sex life?
17. Are you and your partner willing to make sex less of a priority (at least for a few weeks or months especially if birthing)?
18. What is the longest you could go without sex?
19. How will you and your partner work to keep the spark alive in the relationship after baby arrives? 
20.  Can you reasonably afford a child?
21. How much money does the average vaginal childbirth cost in your area at a hospital? Birthing center? Home?
22. If using insurance, how much will your plan cover?
23. Will you need to pay some or all of those expenses before the birth?
24. If taking off for maternity leave, how much money will you need to save for the amount of time you will be absent from work?
25. How many kids do you want? Why?
26. How many does your partner want? Why?
27. Are you willing to compromise? Why or why not?
28. How soon after the first kid will you want to start trying for #2 (if desired)?
29. What last name will the baby have?
30. What kind of childcare will you use? Will one of you become a stay-at-home parent? Who?
31. What type of daycare will you choose? Do they have a waitlist?
32. What challenges do you think we will have to face as a multi-racial family? As a gay family? As an adopted family?
33. How will we divide parenting responsibilities?
34. How much will religion be a part of our kids life? 
35. Who will raise our kids if something happens to us?
36. Will we let our child sleep in our bed? Room? How long?
37. Breastfeeding? For how long?
38. Public or private school?

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