So, you just found out that you or your partner is pregnant! Congratulations.
As you enter this new stage of life, we created a series of questions for you and your partner to discuss. These questions have been specifically designed to help each of you not only get to know each other better, but to get the two of you thinking about all the upcoming challenges that will naturally arise.
Questions to ask my pregnant partner (written in no particular order).
How did you imagine pregnancy? And so far, how does being pregnant actually compare?
How has pregnancy shifted your feelings of being sexy? Being loved? Being comfortable?
What have others done so far that has been helpful to you?
What would you be willing to give up for your child, How about for me? What do you expect me to be willing to give up for you? For our child?
What happens if our child is allergic to our pet, should we give up our pet?
How do you imagine the first 5 months of life to look like? What will you be doing? What will I be doing?
How did your parents cope during your first 5 months of life?
If we are both really exhausted from parenting, how much do you value having sex? What frequency do you imagine you will want sex?
If our infant is sleeping in our bed, where should we go to have sex?
What are your thoughts on co-sleeping?
Who should be allowed to watch our child?
Have you ever babysat? And if so, what was your favorite part? And how do you imagine incorporating that into parenting?
What is your wildest dream when you see yourself with your child? What is your wildest dream when you imagine me with our child?
What names have you been considering for our child?
What last name will our kid/s have? Yours, mine, hyphenated, scrambled, completely made up? Lets talk about your thoughts. These are my thoughts. Let’s keep talking about last names until we can come up with something that works for both of us.
Which do you think would make you happier — going out to eat with or without our child, and why? How might this answer change if we had multiple kids together?
Would we let our child go to school in a dress? What does our child’s gender mean to you?
How would you feel if our child identified as gay, lesbian, or bi?
At what age, if any, would it be ok for our child to change religions? And why?
What happens if we don’t like the person that our child wants to marry?
How would you feel if our child dated / married someone outside of their race? Religion?
In what religion do you want to raise our child? What does that look like to you? If we are of different religious beliefs / spiritual relationship how do you imagine incorporating both of our beliefs / attitudes?
Exactly how much harder / easier do you think is it to have kids than to have dogs, cats, birds?
At what age would you imagine introducing our child to technology? What type of relationship with technology do you want to foster? How do you imagine accomplishing this goal? At what age should we allow our child to watch TV? Own an Ipad? Own an apple watch? An Iphone? VR headset? Gameboy? What amount of screen time should they have? Is it OK for us to use our phone at the dinner table?
What are healthy eating habits that we want to instill in our child? And what steps are we willing to make so that it can happen?
What about your lifestyle do you imagine changing after having kids? What do you want to maintain after having kids? Would might your answers change if you are having kid #1, or #2, or #3?
What is the one thing that you imagine you will need to do for yourself every day regardless of what else is going on in the world? Brush your teeth, talk on the phone with a friend, get a hug, take a shower, sleep, eat a nutritious meal?
How do you imagine the two of you will co-parent? What will each of your roles look like?
What should discipline look like with our kid?
What does spoiling a child look like?
What happens if you think I am spoiling our child? How might you let me know?
Would you be OK with a friend, or relative disciplining our child? And why.
What is something that your parent’s did with you / for you that you want to replicate? How might you invite your partner to help you achieve this goal?
What is something that your parents did that you don’t want to replicate? How might your partner help you achieve this goal?
Now that we are having a child together, how do we want to handle money? For example, do we each have our own checking accounts or just one checking account?
What happens if I get a fantastic job offer earning more money than you? Will you move for me? Would you pick up the childcare slack so that I can professionally grow. In what way might you resent me?
How can we support each other’s professional development? If I take the professional hit now to take care of our child, will you take it later? What makes you think that your career should come first? In what way should my career come first?
How much time should we be spending together as a family? As a couple? Versus out with our own friends?
How many hours a week should we be with our child? Versus daycare, babysitters, nannies? daycare? grandparent care?
What challenges do you imagine will come up since we were raised in different countries (multi-racial, multi-religious family etc)?
Once concern I have about co-parenting with you is?
What excites me about co-parenting with you is?
I hope that you I pass down ______ to our kid.
I hope that you pass down to our kid is __________
What sex do you hope our kid will have and why? What impact do you imagine this will have on parenting?
How will being a parent improve your life?
In what way do you imagine you will put yourself second so that you can be a good parent?
At what point, or in what way, will you always need to put yourself first so that you too can continue to grow?
How many children do you want to have?
Are you open to adopting? Why or why not?
Are you open to fertility treatment? Which ones and why or why not?
If something were to happen to both of us, who do we want to raise our child? Does our will reflect the answer that you are giving me?
Should my parent’s / inlaw’s have a key to our apartment?
If we are fortunate enough to have extra money, should we pay for our children’s college education? graduate school education? Down payment for their first home?
At what age should children have chores? What chores?
At what age should kids receive an allowance? And how much?
At what age should kids work? At what age should kids be expected to pay their own way? What was your experience in childhood?
At what age did you have chores? At what age did you work? Did your parents pay for school? Or help you purchase your first home?
What are your feelings about baby showers?
How do you feel about attending other people’s baby showers?
What should we do if some of our baby tests have abnormal results?
What is the longest amount of time you could imagine not having sex with me before you would start to wonder what is wrong with us? Under what circumstances would you be OK not having sex with me?
In what way are you an introvert?
In what way are you an extrovert?
What do you hope for, for our child?
After we have our baby, and we are completely sleep deprived, how do you need me to show gratitude?
Should we be the type of family that can talk about farts?
In what way do you want your parents involved in our child’s life?
In what way do you want my parents involved in our child’s life?
What if I don’t like our kid?
What if you don’t like our kid?
What do you imagine our biggest struggles as co-parents are going to be?
How do you feel about us doing couples counseling together? How might couples counseling enhance our relationship? How might couples counseling get in the way?
How do we plan to stay emotionally connected to one another?
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