To ask whether anyone has regretted having a third DC?

[Shardlakelover]

I keep wondering about having a third DC. My heart says yes; my head says absolutely no way due to not liking being pregnant, the sleep deprivation, the expense, fact we would need to move house, the exhaustion caused by small children etc. But I wonder if I will always regret not having a third DC. (The gap between my youngest and another DC would be around three years. We could afford it but would have to cut back on luxuries.) Can I ask whether anyone has had a third DC and regretted it? Or not had a third DC and regretted it?

Some really interesting responses. My 2DC were quite hard work today and I can't begin to imagine how it would be with adding a third one to the mix, particularly one with special needs as mentioned by a previous poster (I'm so sorry to hear that ) I also thought of another very good reason not to have a third: I don't drive so taking three DC on public transport is going to be a challenge. I suspect we will stick to at two children but I will always wonder what a third would have been like...

we went for number 3 and got 4 too. do I regret it? no, but I like being pregnant, I like the baby stages and money not a huge deal because I don't have childcare or things like that and the cost of living here is low. we didn't need to move house and I'm used to exhaustion but my older two play out with friends in the street all the time, go to the local primary school by themselves, get themselves ready and breakfasted too. what I could do without is the fucking preteen attitude of DD1 at the moment but I don't regret any of them.

I am one of three and always wanted a 3rd, even though I am not a natural maternal person and work full time. DH wanted to stop at 2 (he is one of2) and really it made more sense to do so, especially as DC1 has some special needs. I agreed for a while as I was working on a big promotion at work, DC1 was being assessed and DC2 was clingy. Once DC2 was 3 I thought, it is now or never, and we threw caution at the wind and went for it. Well, best decision ever. To me, our family feels right and complete. DC3 has been the easiest baby and I have loved looking after him, and really enjoy having him.

I am way more chilled with him because he is not my first and I am not also looking after a toddler. Because of the age gap, the other two play together and are more independent. We kept our cars as they are as DC1 is big enough for just a booster so we all fit (tightly) in a Clio and Laguna. We have a small 3 bed house, so one room now has bunk beds. I shared with my sister til I was 11, no big deal to my mind. We organise the logistics a bit differently, but really, no biggie. The extra cost will come from full time nursery for 3 years until he starts school (at £1k a month, ouch, but that is just for 3 years. Out of a whole life time...). I have often heard it is double the work, well, for me it hasn't been (so far), even though we have no family nearby, but it depends on the gap between the children. As for the attention, well, I heard my mum describe to DC1 this summer that love is like light, the more there is the better it is :)).

As for middle child syndrome, well I was the middle one and I really believe I got the best deal! You are not spreading yourself thin with 3 rather than 2. The only matters you need to consider are 1) can you love another child? 2) can you reasonably afford it? 3) does your partner want it? Any other considerations are not really important.

When I announced our 3rd most people thought we were crazy, then many admitted they regretted not having a 3rd. As for the money, it is all relative, I was chatting to a friend this afternoon about her SIL who has just spent £16k on 3 rounds of IVF, sadly without success, and whether she should go for one last £4k round. Without going all sentimental, a child is for life. I look at my parents and the pure joy their 3 kids (and 5 GC and counting) have brought them. They financially struggled when we were young but now declare themselves full of riches.

Just read pp. The environmental issues are a load of tosh, as for disabilities, well, you take a gamble with every child. DC1 has ASD, of the three she would be the one I would "undo" if I had to, not DC3. And if she had been DC2 we would certainly have stopped there. But you don't get to chose, just to accept. Each child is an act of love and faith (in the non religious sense), it is actually a rather unselfish act (having the first is the selfish act, you do it for yourself). Blimey, I need to go to bed...

Our third was a surprise. The pregnancy was harder than my other two, but I was nearly 10 years older than I was the last time I was pregnant. It was almost like being a first-time mom again!

I wasn't planning on a third baby, but I've never regretted her for a moment. Plus, when she's 16 and being a difficult teenager, her oldest brother will be 27, so we can ship her off to live with him.

Combust, the first part of my argument was tongue in cheek although I see that mightn't have come across on here!
I'm pretty sure my carbon footprint is a lot lower than some of the families round here with only one DC because I care about the environment and have taken steps to reduce my impact since I lived with my parents who were recycling, bike riding hippies even in the 80s

We mulled over a 3rd DC for a while but now dc2 is 3.5 and dc1 is almost 7 I can't ever see me going back to the baby days.

I was one of 2 and DH was one of 4 and he took a while to see the benefits of a smaller family than he was used to.

The financial aspect was a huge consideration for us, we are comfortable now but a 3rd would see us struggling, plus I'm really noticing the costs with a second about to start school, we like days out and holidays abroad, which I wouldn't want to scale back.

It does help that one of my closest relatives has toddler twins, which followed her singleton and is enough to put me off kids for life!

I have 3 DC they are 3.5 years apart in total (So four school years between them all)... It was OK when they were little and there are massive advantages as they form a good unit and are very independent ( they are now 10, 9 and 7) but OMG the logistics are horrendous....
We have just enjoyed the relative sanity of the long summer holiday and I am literally dreading returning to the school and after school activities... Is during term term that I feel I can never give them the time they need because I am acting as a shuttle bus, catering and home work advice service. My eldest really needs more of my time as he is starting to hit the pre teen years with avengence so I often feel I have let them all down... Thank god for holidays and time to breathe....

I think the environmental impact is more about increasing the population rather than carbon footprint - if your DC all have 2 DC and so on. If everyone has 3 DC then that would have a large impact on the global population. I think the average DC in the UK is less than 2 per family though.

I've just had my 2nd DC and I really felt that our family was complete when she was born. This thread is making me broody though and she's only 16 weeks.

I don't regret him being here for one minute - our little surprise is now 7 years old, and I am still completely besotted with the wee chap. He's utterly adorable

That being said, it's made a huge impact on our finances - at a time when our friends with similar aged older children (ours are now 17 and 15) were getting ahead we've gone back to horrendous nursery and childcare fees. If we want to go anywhere, it's 2 hotel rooms, or a family ticket plus one, or more limited self catering - and eating out for 4 adults and one child is very expensive. Feeding, shoeing and clothing 3 also seems far more expensive than it should do

We've also found that it's hard trying to find things that we all want to do - we're trying to plan a holiday next year, and the older 2 want to do things that the little one is not interested in. Even days out are problematic.

I also feel very stretched - working f/t at the moment, which probably isn't helping, but with the older 2 going through important exams at the moment I'm probably not as concerned as I should be with DC3. We also don't have family that can help out, so the last few years have been exhausting.

God, that all makes it sound terrible - it's really not that bad, honest!

I don't regret my 3rd but it changed everything. I had to give up my beloved career as the childcare expense and time commitment didn't add up. We needed a bigger house. I put on loads of weight through sheer lack of sleep and stress. No money for years, it almost ended my marriage through the stress.

But can you really regret the existence of a person? She's also very special. There's something a little bit 'other-worldly' about her, and I know that sounds creepy and woo but she is such a lovely little person. Everyone remarks on it. It's like she was made a bit extra special to make up for the grief and hardship we went through

I wished we had had a third. I struggled with morning sickness and DD2had dreadful reflux, I didn't enjoy being pregnant or the first nine months of her babyhood. We also were not able to get pregnant quickly and found the whole process soul destroying and not keen to try again. We did try for about six months but no luck.

I am now 41. DDs are almost 10 and 8. it would be a massing age gap and the next child would be a bit like an only child in many ways. Add to that we have a large mortgage which would still be serviceable but challenging if I wasn't working. Plus I struggle with the idea of a 1yo in childcare, I was a SAHM for five years with the first two.

I wish we'd have had a surprise pregnancy and just got on with it, really. But can see the benefits of just having two.

Sapat why do you think having DC can't be considered a selfish act?

Net migration figures have been released and it is nearly 250,000, up 38%.

Birth rate is up 18% in a decade and is way higher than the death rate, year on year.

There are simply more and more people in this country every year; and that's repeated in many countries worldwide the USA etc.

There's an argument for having two children as it replicates yourself and your partner. Any other children are definitelty excess to the worlds needs, so it is purely for yourself that you have that third fourth fifth child. Therefore a selfish act.

I think anyway.

And I have three DC. I do sometimes have a niggling guilt about bringing them into this world both for their sakes, and the economy/environment as a whole. Hopefully dc3 is a genius and will contribute loads to society!

I love having three all two years apart, girl,boy,girl which for me is perfect, they all play equally I never feel anyone is left out, we did move to a bigger house they have a bedroom each which we feel makes our life easier. I knew three was my limited and never wanted anymore.

I do feel as though my family (DS 2.4, DS 3mo) isn't quite "done", but I can't even figure out why... Is it because I'm one of three in my family? Is it a yearning for a DD (recognising it could well end up DS3!)? Is it because I've had great pregnancy/birth experiences? Or just because I am selfish? Who knows.

But no matter... DH had the snip last month, so two kids it is!

I don't regret it. We all adore DC3 and the other two are great at looking after her (4&3 when she was born).

I am aware that finances are going to be an issue especially with university or helping out with house deposits. It just won't be possible to give them a something meaningful but they'll just have to do it by themselves like most of the rest of the country!

I'd like to give them all the extra curricular stuff in the world but they'll survive without a lot of it. The most important thing any child can have is their parent's time and input and they'll have plenty of that since I won't be able to afford to work because of childcare costs ;).

How old are you op?

I had two kids and we thought we were done. We had considered a third (dh and I had always said 2 or 3 kids) but when the kids were small it always seemed too hard logistically, emotionally and financially. I was a bit more pro than dh but had accepted that it wasn't going to happen.

Then, as I was approaching 40 and the dc were almost 7 and 10, my mum died. Her death shocked both dh and I and made us realise that a third child is realky want we wanted deep down and we decided to try for another baby. Dd3 is now nearly 4 weeks old :) and it's amazing. I love that the girls are older now and can help so it's not the insanity of juggling 3 very small children. The relationship between the baby and the older kids is so lovely to see.

Financially, my mum's untimely death meant that i had a substantial inheritance (she sadly died just after she retired - the money was meant to be hers for her retirement). It made the financial aspect of having another child a lot easier.

Basically, if you're not sure and you still have time fertility wise, why not wait a bit and see? Some posters here have waited and realized they're glad they don't have a third dc and some, like us, realized its what we do want (although I hope you don't suffer a tragedy along the way, like us).

The environment/population aspect is a red herring IMO. The fertility rate in the uk - and nearly all European countries - is below replacement. I think the per cent of women in their 40s who are childless in the uk is around 20 per cent or higher. Plus there are many women who only have one child. So if all women stopped at two for environmental/population reasons there would be significant population decline in the UK which brings its own social and political issues such as seen in countries in Eastern and Southern Europe plus some high income Asian countries like Japan and Singapore.

Migration keeps the population growth rates high but that's a separate political issue. There isn't 'runaway' population growth any more. Fertility has declined significantly in most countries in the world. The problem in the high income (and increasingly middle income) is one of consumption patterns.

Generation length also affects population growth. So the younger you have your children, the higher the population growth rate. So if you want more children and you're concerned about the environment, have them later :)

Birth rate is up 18% in a decade, Shak , in the uk, so it doesn't sound like it's declining exactly.

It's increased in the uk (as in many european countries, especially those which had very low fertility) but it's still below replacement level.

Globally, fertility rates have declined dramatically over recent decades. Most of the increase in population is due to population momentum.

I'm in my mid-thirties so we could wait a few years and see how we feel but I think it would be much harder to then go back to the baby/toddler years. We deliberately had a fairly small gap between our two DC as we wanted them to have similar interests etc. Today I am veering towards sticking at two but I do change my mind regularly!

This thread has been a really interesting read - thanks for starting it, Shard.

Wrt to having 3rd children being 'selfish': IMO having any children at all is a selfish decision - none of the children are needing to be born and where the vast majority of us live (in the rich Western world) with easy access to contraception etc and plenty else to give us status and occupy us, there is no real rational reason to have any children. Yet, I still wanted and was lucky enough to have 4 . I do sometime struggle to marry this up in my head but there you go. Humans are not rational beings all the time

Oh MissDuke you describe exactly how I feel! This is a very timely post for me, so thank you OP. We always said we'd have two, but as soon as I was pregnant with #2 I couldn't accept that was going to be my last. I had a hellish pregnancy, awful labour, 5 months of feeding hell and subsequent pnd....enough to dissuade my hubby from probably wanting a third (although he's not set in stone)...BUT it's still not enough to put me off. I have an undescribable want for a third. All my friends with two can say for sure that they are absolutely done, but I just don't feel like that. Definitely a heart v head moment that I can't stop agonising over at the mo! As much as I know it will be absolutely mayhem for at least 18 months (dd is 3.10 and ds is 19 months) and quite likely a nightmare pregnancy again too, I'm quite sure I will always regret it if we don't go for it.