Big family - should I have more kids??

[Relizeliz]

Name changed for this.

I have four sons - aged 9 - 3. I really want another baby, we can afford one and I think we have the resource/time - but is it to many to have 5?

I just don't know if there are limitations - we live in a 5 bed house so long term potentially would have to add a room because I know no one would want to share/are use to there own rooms.

Additionally I just think will a 30 year old and 20 year old have a good relationship and does anyone have any experience of there older kids being resistant to a new baby? He was happy at DC4, but he's older now....

Any thoughts?

I'm number 5 of 5. My 4 sisters are much older than me but theyre close in age to each other. As number 5 I'm happy, had a good childhood but I know my older sisters do feel that they spent too much time with grandparents.
The 5 of us are close but it's a shame there's a huge age gap between me and them as I'm at a completely different stage in my life to them.

When people talk of finances when considering more than 3 kids, thry regularly seem to only consider costs when they are little not when they become teenagers.

I know a handful of family with 4cor 5 children but they are very well off. Yet still because of the number of kids, their finances is a stretch.

Kids used to leave home at 16, 18 at the latest and financed themselves from there on. Nowadays, parents are still expecting to support their kids in their 20s. That means costs of school trips, proms, activities, driving lessons, hoping finance cars, uni fees, needing to help with rental deposits, being guarantors etc... all those things cost a lot and unless you are really well off, I can't see how à family can do it to all 5 kids.

My kids who have friends part of large families are finding themselves not being to do the same things as their friemds and/or parents putting pressure on them to continue to live at home and give a large share of their income when they start working as their parents see their tax credits greatly reduced.

I can't imagine potentially having to help 5 kids one after another through uni which could potentially be over 15 years when I reach an age when I'm desperate to go part time and/or retire. Yet it wouldn't be faitlr not to give the youngest the same opportunities than their eldest.

I really really don't know how people do it if not very well off.

You havent answered the many questions around why you want a 5th? What will it bring the other 4 dont?

Think she's gone

I’m one of 5 - I’m the oldest and I was 7 when the 5th was born. I would strongly recommend against it. Too often we were all treated as one person, all given the same fist at Christmas, clothes were bought in groups of 5 all the same, we were known locally as “them with all the kids”, parents would be asked if we were all theirs (hurtful for children to hear this), then the jokes about not having a TV, have they worked out what’s causing it yet, etc. On top of that, we were all constantly fighting for attention from our parents. I have not spoken to one of my sisters in 15 years, and I don’t have any regular contact with the other 3 either. I had to grow up much too fast because there were always babies in the house for my mum to take care of.
My niece is about to have baby number 6 and the eldest is 22. They have a much better relationship with each other.

Same gift at Christmas ... although fist is an interesting auto-correct...

If you have 4 happy, healthy, neurotypical children, why press your luck with another? You have so much to already be thankful for!!