Going from 2 to 3 children?

moomaa

I was in a very similiar position to you in that I wanted 3, DH would have been happy to stop at 2 but if I am honest I talked him into it. We now have a baby, born when son and daughter were 3 and 2. It is very hard to give each child the amount of attention I think they would like and I am finding that hard. Also, there is no time for us, whenever we have a quiet moment each of us wants to do our own thing to have some peace so it is hard on our relationship. I think it will all get much better when baby is sleeping better.

The small age gap is hard because my older 2 are too old to have a nap in the day and the 2 year old is too young for preschool so I have no break at all. Also I don't want any of my children to do too many preschool hours because I want to be with them.

I wanted a close age gap and like you wouldn't have wanted another if it meant a large age gap. I want to be able to do age appropriate things all together. I personally wouldn't have liked having a baby or toddler in the house as an older child. Both DH and I come from large families and 2 would have felt boring. I am not worried about finances, like someone else said everyone just has a bit less each.

I think we will muddle through, and I love my youngest dearly, but so far it is harder than I thought it would be and made harder by the factthat I talked DH into it so I wonder how signed up he is to the hard work.

NickyBat

Please please please go for it, you are quite right saying you may regret NOT having another one, i have to live with that every day. I have a ds (10) and for various reasons had to wait until i could try for another one and when we did eventually try we found out i couldn't have anymore. i cannot begin to describe the initial devastation i felt - i have got over it mostly now but not a day goes by when i don't think about it and wish things could have been different.

some people have said to me how lucky i am having 1 and i am but that doesnt stop the feeling of wanting more.

tiggs239

In the short term, you obviously have everything you need for a new baby, so there will be no additional costs. In the longterm, if you return to work, there will be child care costs for when they are pre-school age and during the school holidays when they are at school.

Nicki

tiggs239 wrote: »

In the short term, you obviously have everything you need for a new baby, so there will be no additional costs. In the longterm, if you return to work, there will be child care costs for when they are pre-school age and during the school holidays when they are at school.

But once you get to 3 or more, it is usually cheaper to have a nanny than to pay 3 lots of nursery or childminder fees, and probably not that more expensive than nursery or childminder fees x 2. This website compares costs

http://www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/workandchildcare/costofcare/

catkins

As one of three children I vowed when I had children I would never ever have 3!! I feel one does get left out. On the bus 2 can sit with mum or dad and things like that. Ok of course it's not always the same child that has to sit on it's own but I hated being one of three.

I also hated the fact that I never ever had my own bedroom

cgk1

I like how only a couple of posters seem to consider the views of the father, otherwise it's simply "go for it". If you have the child against his wishes, he may resent you and resent the child. If he's not 100% happy to proceed and you do it anyway, you could be in for a world of trouble.

sassyblue

Hi OP, just wanted to say your signature says 'trying to become debt free' - another thought to factor in??

brians_daughter

well, urm.. we have 2 and i am pregnant with a 'suprise' baby (we needed IVF with both our boys so to get 'caught' after being told it would never happen AND being on the pill was a massive shock)

Baby is due very soon and although this sounds bad we would never have planned number 3 as for us 2 was perfect. However, i am sure number 3 will fit in just fine and want for nothing like its brothers.

I can see how planning for number 3 would have thrown up issus for us.. bedroom space, childcare, have we got enough time for 3 children? Infact i think planning number 3 would have been a bigger leap of faith than trying for our 1st one.

Its a deffo an 'each to their own' situation..BUT if we had always wanted 3 and my oh said we were stopping at 2 i would be very upset with him.. its kind of breaking a promise. Although on the other hand, maybe the 3 was thought of before you know what was involved in being a parents so now hes decided 2 is more than enough and he wouldnt be able to handle number 3?

donnaessex

Thank you all so much for your comments - they are all very helpful.

ceridwen wrote: »

The reasons ARE valid enough to stick at 2 - even just taking your own personal viewpoint only into account - ie hubby only wants 2.

Its not fair to expect someone to have more children than they want - and he is the one who basically has to earn the money to pay for the costs.

Thanks for your views Ceridwen but I am the main breadwinner in my family so its not my husband who has to earn the money to pay the costs. Assume much?

tiggs239 wrote: »

In the short term, you obviously have everything you need for a new baby, so there will be no additional costs. In the longterm, if you return to work, there will be child care costs for when they are pre-school age and during the school holidays when they are at school.

I will be returning to work Tiggs but I already have the go ahead to drop my hours to school hours when my daughter starts school in September. Come January, my son will be in receipt of 5 mornings per week nursery so I will actually have less childcare costs to pay than I do now. I will have to pay for school hours for baby number 3 and half days for my son.

cgk1 wrote: »

I like how only a couple of posters seem to consider the views of the father, otherwise it's simply "go for it". If you have the child against his wishes, he may resent you and resent the child. If he's not 100% happy to proceed and you do it anyway, you could be in for a world of trouble.

Cgk1 - I would never force my husband into a decision he wasnt happy with (see post #3) but I do feel he is just worrying unnecessarily and he does genuinely want another. However, I may not have to do much persuading - since we discussed the possibility a week or so ago he has been making noises all weekend about it. He's already asked about how soon fertility returns after coil removal etc and how we should really think about buying a people carrier (to be fair this was in reference to our camping holidays but still!!!) :rotfl::T

minerva_windsong

I'm the youngest of three girls, by a considerably long way (my sisters were 12 and 8 when I was born) and I didn't suffer for it. It does kind of feel like starting again in a way because when I was growing up my sisters weren't around a lot so I felt like an only child, but then that made me very independent because a lot of the time I was around grown-ups from an early age so it made me mature quicker and be less shy around adults, and I could quite happily entertain myself with books or playing made-up games with my toys.

The only possible downsides were that my mum worried I was lonely, to the extent they considered having a fourth (I should stress though that I wasn't, I just liked my own company, but I do have a cousin who's three years younger than me and who I grew up with so he was effectively the little brother I never had), and that as I said I wasn't close to my sisters growing up. However, in the past five or six years we've grown closer, especially my eldest sister and I, so it has sort of come full circle in a way.

Sorry that wasn't very coherent, just trying to say that a big gap isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least not from this kid's point of view. But you know your family and it's your decision at the end of the day.