To wonder why we have more than one child?

Curious: what age are your kids??

This makes sense to me. I had one, found it almost too easy, so had a second - and found it very hard. Now I'm stopping at two 😅 I never would've stopped at one because I was thinking "isn't this lovely and easy, a second of these would be great!"

AleaEim
I have one, I don’t want another, always thought I’d just have one. Surely it’s your decision and not something you just go along with it? Although it seems looking at this thread that people just don’t think of the consequences of having two, there are lots and lots of cons in having multiples, few benefits.

i don’t think you can quantify or compare a situation that you haven’t been in in this case. There’s pros and cons to everything. I would never say there’s tons and tons of cons of the alternative to my family (4 kids all happy, healthy, all get along great).

I like having two, yes they fight and are annoying but they play together literally all the time apart from school and talk all day long. My sister and I were like that too. I'm not sure how I'd go having just one. Seems like you'd have to play with them a lot (I'd hate that tbh).

I have enjoyed motherhood much more since having my second. I obviously don't know what it would be like to have a single older child, but I am reasonably certain I prefer having my tiny gang of two. I don't especially want three. I think different people suit different people and there is nothing universal about that being one.

Incidentally, I would never have posted about how much I love having two on your initial thread you describe about struggling with two, as obviously it would be massively insensitive! I'm sure plenty of people think like you but a thread like that will always overrepresent them.

I always swore I only wanted 1 and I just had my 4th . The secret is leaving enough time between them .
i think by k siblings are highly beneficial, i wish i saw it sooner

I always wanted 3.

But then needed IVF to have my one and although I do go back and forth about going through IVF again to give her a sibling, I am very happy with just my daughter and feel that my heart and my home is full with just the 3 of us in it.

I had an extreme urge to have a baby. That same urge returned. The day DC1 walked for the first time we decided to try for another. DC2 was born nine months to the day after :) Never had the same urge since, although I do think about a third now I'm 41 and time is running out...

Different strokes for different folks. I have 4 kids. We’re a good team and they get along at different times. Our house is chaos, love and fun. I had 4 because I was one of 4 and quiet and order isn’t me. Whatever suits people suits them

I have two, they were 2 under 2 so I've really gotten used to always dealing with them as a pair, and even now that they're teens they're completely inseparable. I always felt settled the minute I had my two, whereas I found 1 much harder, strangely.

I didn't experience any cons at all only benefits.

What is a boy thing?

We had a second because we loved being parents to our first child and we wanted him to have a sibling. We never found parenting particularly difficult and have found it to be mostly enjoyable. Some people aren’t suited to having children.

My current bug bear is days out that sell "family" tickets for 2 adults and 2 kids for LESS that 2 adults and 1 child. Those businesses don't get our custom.

I have one, I don’t want another, always thought I’d just have one. Surely it’s your decision and not something you just go along with it? Although it seems looking at this thread that people just don’t think of the consequences of having two, there are lots and lots of cons in having multiples, few benefits.

Ooh I think theres something to that. It's hormones. I love the idea of loads of kids and if youd asked me to have more in the early days i definitely would have. But I also know its not best for our family and now im out of that i don't feel the biological urge.

I sort of figured out that i didn't want two, I just wanted to do it forever with my only baby (if if she drives me round the twist a lot of the time 😆)

For me its been easier with two. I struggled with the intense 1:1 dynamic and pressure to play when I only had one. Now they play together (when they're not fighting!)

I had more than one because I grew up with siblings and couldn't imagine growing up without any.
Also having lost a parent I realised how important it was to have someone close to share childhood memories with. A friend is an only child and for most of her child hood it was only her and her mother, when she died she had no close relations left and no one to share memories of her mother I didn't want that for my child

I have one and feel content. Occasionally I think what if I had another but honestly I’m happy with one. I don’t like the expectation of having two, it winds me up sometimes, but I think anything slightly outside of societal norms is commented on.

I didn’t want my son to be alone when we get old and go. So we gave him a sister. There’s no guarantee they will get along but if they do then hopefully he will have family around. And no 2 is beautiful. She’s so different to him. He’s shy, she’s super confident. He’s chill, she’s a complete live wire. I think as they grow then hopefully their good and bad traits might even out a bit and that could be developmentally very helpful.

My mum
and older cousin are both only children and had spoken about always wanting siblings.
also I found two so much easier than one once they were a bit older that it seemed a good idea to add a third!
it was a great idea - they’re adults now and very close.

I have 5 boys (grown up now) and I loved it - I always wanted a houseful. Mine played together well, the odd argument but generally all got on. I didn't find parenting more than one stressful but I did try to have one to one time with each of them. Having a big family is lovely even if you feel a bit stretched thin at times.

I didn’t… Dh was so ill so much of the time and despite having a very straightforward birth I was terrified of doing it again - the idea that an experience that hideous was the GOOD version was too much. I wish I’d felt able to have more because I see a lot of lovely sibling relationships around. But I see a lot of awful ones too and in the end having one has been absolutely ok. It would t have taken much to get us to have another though, and if my first husband had wanted children I’d have had at least one of his. It is interesting that only one of my several ex partners has had a child though.

I often wonder if most people have one more child than is optimal for them, just I think you have a baby, it’s amazing and you’re riding the wave of postpartum hormones so you want another one. Generally people stop when it gets a bit too much to handle when if they’d stopped at one less it wouldn’t have got too much to handle in the first place.

Because I loved being pregnant, I loved having a baby, I loved seeing them develop into their own little person and I genuinely thought was amazing that we’d created a brilliant little being and so we wanted to do it all over again. However, wanting a sibling for the first was also a big factor in our decision to have a second.