Waffling on a third. Advice please!

[Linguaphile]

DH and I are both quite keen for a third child... Both of us feel like our family is not quite complete, and when we've talked about the possibility of not having another one, we've felt (for lack of a better explanation) like we would 'abandoning' our third child out there in the ether. The problem isas alwaysspace and money. With house prices being so high, we're stuck in our medium-ish two bed flat for the time being, and getting more space would mean uprooting and moving. We'll never be able to move up the property ladder in our current area (excellent schools, 5 minute walk to DH's work, parks and the river, great family community, 25 minutes to London) as we've been so out-priced with recent rises. Our current location makes for excellent quality of life, so I'm not torn up about staying, but it's not exactly overflowing with space for a third child. We already have 14.5 mo twins and are reasonably comfortable space-wise but could do with a garden.

As for finances, we're just sort-of getting by, only really saving maybe £150/month, but that's partly because we spend on non-essentials like coffee shops, so could do with trimming some fiscal fat. The nursery isn't massive but could accommodate bunk beds and a cot bed along with the usual furniture (wardrobe, rocking chair, chest of drawers). Emotionally, having 1.5 year old twins is hard but also great fun. Neither of us feels like we're stretched beyond capacity at the moment and we are quite enjoying the parenting journey thus far. We feel like having one more child would make our family a jolly little gang.

I suppose that I'm just looking for some honest input as to whether or not a third child will put us over the edge and be something we regret! We do feel happy where we're at, and I suppose we don't want to mess up what is essentially a very enjoyable and comfortable life, but we'd really love to have one more. Would having a third be a bad idea d you think?

Don't really want a massive age gap as DH hated having 5 years between siblings in his family and I loved being close in age to my brothers. At the moment, the debate is between having a two year and a three year gap. Thoughts on this appreciated too!

[SunshineDaisy]

DH and I felt that we wanted a third child but we waited a long time because we didn't feel the time was right. There's just under two years between DS1 and DS2 and DH works away a lot so I don't think I could have coped with three small ones on my own. So we had DS3 7 years after DS2.
I'm with you though and I think maybe such a big age gap isn't ideal, our two older boys get on very well and obviously DS3 (only 8) isn't really involved with them as they're 17 and 15. Plus you feel like you've got through the baby/young child stage and then you start it again.
But we do feel like DS3 really completes the family. Hope this kind of answers your question!