anyone adopted 3 siblings

[Mule22]

Hi
We are nearly ready to start stage 2 and we are wanting to adopt 3 this is somthing I have thought long and hard about and know I manage as i have a wonderful support network .......... But every time I say to someone 3 ! They always say why 3 ! Really why 3 though 2 2 is much better
One of my reasons is that many sibling groups are spilt so as they can be adopted more easily we have the financial stability room in our home and definitely a lot of love to offer
Just wondered if anyone could comment on there experience of 3 or more
Thankyou X

Erm, I'm not quite sure how to interpret that last part - I take it that you're being sarcastic?!
The SWs job isn't to know you as well as you know yourself, or even represent you in the way you think you should be represented to the panel - it's to assess you and provide a professional opinion and judgement on your capabilities and potential as an adoptive parent. Our SW was very clear that our PAR was meant to be her assessment of us, not our own assessment of ourselves. And she knew and knows things about adoption that we didn't, and I trust her professional judgement. I appreciate that this isn't everyone's experience, but if you start out with the attitude that your SW doesn't know what they're talking about then your experience is going to be miserable.
If I've misinterpreted what you've said, then my sincere apologies.

Mule - i know nothing any of us say will put you off....i was once where you are now.

we asked our sw to have us approved for 4 - we desired a large family and wanted it all at once - we are also very pro-siblings. thankfully!!!! our sw said she could only recommend us for 2, due primarily to our ages (we were in our 20s when we adopted!) and so the children would fit in with our life stories, marriage times etc....ultimately you can ask for 3, it is the sw who decide what you can cope with, and what will work for your family.....now though it tends to be you are approved with no age or number of children attached.

7 years in neither of us can work full time - our children could never be in any type of childcare - they are simply too fragile to be left with anybody. so any plans for that went out of the window....i couldn't be home full-time and neither could my husband - honestly i need some time to recharge and be me again - therapeutic parenting is not normal, it is not like taking care of your nieces and nephews for a weekend or a week - it is intensive and draining and robs you of the person you once were......so between us a parent is home every day while the other parent works = that's what kills your marriage, you simply never see each other, you play tag team, you stop being lovers and friends and you become mum and dad.

like the others have said, with 3 its likely some may never have lived together (none of ours had before us), so not only were they new coming to us, they were still getting to know their sibling - crazy yes, but all too common - why? because you often can't get foster placements for siblings so they are split. or they start together and because the foster carers can't cope they are split - they are then advertised together (often the older ones with a baby used as the carrot!) and the adopters then have to cope where the (often very experienced) foster carers couldn't! when questions are then asked about placing together you sometimes find reports or statements from fc saying 'will need own parents' etc - and yet no-one took notice - very sad.

anyways - we did it, and love it.....but it is hard. and if i had my time again hand on heart i can't say i'd do the same thing. please tread carefully - and i will watch this thread with great interest :)

Sorry illias yes you interpreted it wrong there was no sarcasm there it's what they have been telling us that by the end of the process there isn't one thing they won't know about us and I 100% mean I think there wonderful at the job they do
Sorry sometime I write as I would say it and forget there's no tone in text X

Thankyou again Boston your honest experience and knowledge it's greatly appreciated X

Ok - my apologies. It was what you wrote coupled with the sceptical face at the end! Thanks for clarifying, please ignore what I wrote in that case!

Hi Mule, I know someone who adopted three at once, and I think you can call it successful as they are a few years in, the kids are delightful, the adoption hasn't disrupted and they all love each other . Having said which, the kids are really unusually delightful, so they got lucky there, and yet I know it has been very stressful for the parents. One tip is that this family has fought hard for an extensive package of support BEFORE the final adoption order - and they had a lot more leverage to get it as there are not many people who will adopt three at once.

Very best of luck to you. I'm not going to say whether you're right or wrong to be pursuing this, as there are so many factors, but there's a lot of good advice on here and I would echo others that coming from a large family doesn't necessarily give you insight into adopting a large family. It's not just about volume of childcare, it's about the dynamics between each child and your ability to give sufficient individual attention.

Hi Mule, Long time lurker but I thought I could give you a little insight on this one.......Myself and husband had a sibling group of 3 placed with us around 18 months ago and our adoption order granted late last year. We are very lucky that our children all settled very well and have good attachment to us, like your family we have an amazing support network how have provided us with the extra help we need, sometimes pure logistics mean you can't be in 3 places at once!
I think the most important thing to remember with 3 is even as a two parent family your time will be very precious, trying to get the basics done is often difficult! 2 of you and 3 of them often leads to one causing mischief somewhere!
Don't count on being able to go back to work anytime soon if ever, the plan was always for me to return to work PT after AL.......I take my hat off to anyone who has managed this! The children were not going to let me go anywhere that mean't I wasn't going to be available to them......Yes even if they are at school!
Our 3 all require MASSIVELY different parenting techniques.....I don't honestly think that we realised that we would have to 'treat' them so differently to get the same behaviour from all!
Our children came with a CPR that said they had no behavioural or learning difficulties and they were an absolute pleasure to be around........Now don't get me wrong our children are absolutely amazing, charming and bright little buttons but as they settle into their new forever homes and they feel safe their behaviours WILL change.......just a few of the things of children as a collective currently deal with.... Anxiety, hyper vigilance, reactive attachment disorder, possible dyslexia, sleep walking, night terrors, bed wetting.

I've had some really bad days where I've thought we should never have done this and how did we ever think 3 was a good idea but I now have more good days than bad days but it is still really hard, parenting 3 born to children would have been difficult enough but I wouldn't change our situation for the world as our children our amazing :-) Just get used to never being able to shower or pee without an audience!!!!! 🙈
Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions....Good Luck on your journey x

Italian oh my I was not expecting that I finished all of the love is not enough and I thought when u said it wasn't a happy ending that maybe one of the adoptions had disrupted
I cried all the way through no 7 so sad !
Very good watch though Thankyou for recommending them
Spookyrachel
Thankyou for your advise I have a good mouth on me and il certainly fight for what they may need
Tigerfish
Thankyou I'm sure I will have lots of questions once we get into stage 2
Congrats on your family X

Mule I just watched episode 7 and am on 8. I cried in 7, I always do.

I came into thinking about adoption by visiting and working a Romanian orphanage over 20 years ago. When we first considered adoption, it was from China, about 9 years ago. But we chose domestic adoption. Which is maybe one of the reasons I like hearing Mark and Sarah's story, but it is so sad.

One feature for us was because we have a birth daughter one or two social workers suggested that a son would be good for us, so less of a clash with our birth dd.

I really wasn't comfortable with this since I wanted another daughter. Not a very PC thing to admit on here, usually a bit taboo to subject! Anyway, we were exploring adopting a little mixed heritage toddler (girl) and it was not looking like it was going to work out.

She really was the most adorable child and kind of looked like me as a toddler, even though I am white I kind of looked a bit non-white! (now that sounds like I am saying I was an adorable child, but I think we all are!).

I think they wanted a mixed heritage family for her but didn't actually say that so it was all hanging on and wondering. And it was not our country so quite a strange, waiting to hear, sort of situation.

Anyway, then we suddenly we got info from our own social worker about a little boy, a bit older ( 3 almost 4). We were not offered a photo but we did get lots of information. I sat down and read all of it. I went to bed and the next day I just woke up happy. I just knew little Cassius (not his real name) was the right child for us. I just had a really good feeling, that we could parent him and he would be our son.

When I got the photo I saw he was totally gorgeous (YES, I am biased and YES it is true!). I was kind of glad I had not seen the photo as seeing the photo of the little girl has certianly kind of fed into the fantasy that she was right for us!

Usually it's not up to you whether you see a photo or not, you just get sent a photo or not, and for us, in most cases we did see photos but with Cassius not.

Anyway, I guess I am saying this because I just knew he was right. There was no reason to say no! He was 3 almost 4 and I had half been 'hoping' for a baby/toddler, he was a boy and I had been 'hoping' for a girl, he was white and I had really felt that we might adopt a child of mixed heritage, because I have traveled the world a lot, and studied languages and we had wanted to adopt from China, and were were very open to adoption of a child of any ethnicity.

BUT I just felt he was right for us and most importantly we were right for him! And luckily my husband (and everyone else) agreed!

We are just over two years in and it has not been easy but it has been a lot easier than it could have been. We have had fabulous support (from social services, yes we are among the lucky ones - our area are amazing).

The most difficult bit has been our birth daughter. She has autistic tendencies and dyslexia and she can be quite demanding (but again not nearly as difficult as many people have to cope with).

Now I realise that for us having the age gap we have (almost 6) years is brilliant, had we had a younger child I am not sure how I would have coped and the aged difference would have maybe been not great. For us living in quite a rural area which is predominantly white, and being a white family with a birth child then maybe it could have been harder for a mixed heritage child in our family. And for our dd I think the fact her sibling is a boy is maybe better for her.

I guess what I am saying is try not to get too hung up on one or two or three children and just see which child or children is right for you and your family. I tend to feel it is really a case of who you are right for, and that will become apparent as time goes on.

Anyway, just wanted to share that.

Good luck with your decisions and plans.

No direct experience ... but for what it's worth our LO has three older siblings who were all adopted together. We keep in touch with them and they have found it hard at times but are generally very happy and don't regret it. They are 3 years in, and the children are now ages between 5 and 9.

We adopted 2.
Boy was it hard work in the early months, I didn't know what had hit me.
Then it settled down and pottered on happily for a few years.

However as time has gone on DD1's issues/difficulties have become evident and more time consuming. She is now 17 and the last year has been the most difficult. We are awaiting a CAMHS appointment. DD2 who has her own particular needs and who is due to transition to secondary keeps getting left to one side as DD1's needs demand attention.

I would not be able to cope with a third also needing a lot of time and attention.

So it is not just coping when they are small, it is coping as difficulties become evident later. You need to know you can cope not just with the childcare side, but with any special needs emotional, physical or educational that come up later.

Best wishes whatever you decide.

Im an adoptive auntie I suppose. Our newest nephew arrived into the family aged 8 two years ago. I think it's a wonderful wonderful altruistic thing to do but I have seen my SIL almost lose her mind at times because of the sheer demands his care requires. She is a SW herself and was very aware of what she was taking on but even she has been stunned by just how difficult the situation has been and how exhausting parenting a child with complex emotional needs is. I don't want to put you off at all but I agree with the other posters that it's safe to assume that this will be so much harder than you could ever imagine and to really consider every angle before making a decision. My SIL relies heavily on my in laws and in turn this means that they have also born the brunt of his tantrums, anxiety, and attachment issues too - they are in their late sixties and are exhausted. I'm making him sound awful and he really isn't, he just has a lot of needs and those needs will affect every single person around him for a very long time.

I think your SIL was very brave to take him on. When I first started looking at adoption I read that it was almost impossible to find adopters for boys of eight or older and I thought how unbelievable that was. Eight seems so young. With knowledge came the understanding of why that is.

I know another adopter who took on a boy of eight. He looked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth but he has been a total nightmare. On one occasion he deliberately started a fire in his bedroom. On another occasion he was playing outside with a friend in the cul-de-sac where they live - all safe and secure. The friend went home but this boy walked to the nearest phone box and called the police saying his mother had locked him out. It went on and on like that.

It is so shocking that children are so damaged by the age of eight that they might never fully recover.

He is very damaged and I would never leave my five year old unattended with him (he is now nearly 11) to the extent that if they leave the room together either me or my husband follow... I think sometimes it bugs my SIL a bit but she knows why we feel the need to do it... My son has been locked in a room by him before, nearly pushed down the stairs when he was 3 and shut in a big cardboard box last Summer... I don't believe any of these things were premeditated but all of them were potentially harmful for my child either physically or emotionally. It's a very hard balance to strike for everyone involved.

You are doing the right thing. Your five year old and his safety are more important than your SIL being upset.

Oh that is sad - but well done your SIL....

we cannot leave our children in the same room together - we are not afraid of fires or physical harm to that degree, but there is constant pinching, pushing etc,
we leave a baby monitor on so we can hear upstairs at all times when we are downstairs, there is always competition between the oldest 2, and the squabbling goes way beyond 'normal siblings'...
dc2 in particular cannot be left with any of the others - i can leave dc1 and my birth child together safely, but dc2 has to be in my sight with the others as the pinching, hurtful comments etc become out of control.
my birth child has also been shut into a large cardboard box and tipped on its end, been almost pushed down the stairs, had numerous footballs kicked full forced at face/stomach (as have I), and whilst nipped to the loo had their plate/cup cleared away from the table.....anything inflammatory dc2 will do!
obviously i cannot leave dc4 alone at any time - if babe is not in the cot, then its either the travel cot in the kitchen if i'm cooking, or in the sling wherever i am.
we are like wardens at times - not parents - always vigilent, always on high alert, how i'm not on prozac i'll never know.

You are a saint bostonkremekrazy

Just thought I'd update post and thank you all for your comments
We go to panel in 8 days recommended for 2-3 sibling group with potential future siblings being considered too
😊 preparing our selves for the most hardest experience of our lives but very much looking forward to the rewards too

All the best with Panel and then matching. Thanks for the update Mule

Hope it all works out for you mule.
Baby 5 arrived with us over xmas - our 4th adoption, and so far so good, so it can and does happen ☺

Wow 5 ! That's why the crazy is in your name 😉 congrats !
Thankyou I will update on the outcome of panel next week

Quick update
We got a positive recommendation today from panel very excited 😊 for the future x

Congratulations - its always exciting....I hope your wait is not too long

Wonderful! Congratulations

Thankyou 💕

Great news , well done !