To ask when the broodiness went away for good?

[Goostacean]

We’ve got two lovely children but literally since the moment DC2 was born, I’ve been broody for a third.

I’m certain I don’t want 4, and for various practical reasons (job, accommodation, cost) even 3 would be a push. Also, having two is hard work in itself! The baby is over 1 and I’m still up once a night every night. They’re boisterous, gorgeous children and I want to give them the best we can.

If you wanted 3 but stuck with 2, or even if you just have one fewer than you’d have liked, when did the broodiness go away?? Would love to be able to close the chapter and move on but I’m borderline obsessing over it and it’s been a LONG time.

I was rabidly broody up until my 2nd was about 18 months old. She's 3 now and the broodiness has definitely abated and I am firmly done and dusted with the pregnancy and baby part of my life. I have finally reached the stage where I'm not changing nappies, bottles & night feeds are a distant memory, and I'm getting bits and pieces of "me" back that aren't all "mummy", and that seems to have cured the broodiness. I love snuggling other people's newborns, but I also like to hand them back and then go home to relative order and relaxation (obviously in non-COVID times).

Almost like a switch flipped when I was around 44. Quite possibly hormonal, although possibly also linked to my youngest moving to secondary. Severing that link with primary was part of it I think.

I understand the concept of desperately wanting a child but I can’t really grasp the inability to turn it off after one or two tbh.

You've mentioned you have a child, why weren't you able to turn off your desire to have them? It would have been better for your bank balance, your time & hobbies, maybe your body... What reason did you have for having a child? I think for some people broodiness is one of those core reasons of "I just desperately want this child".

Your reasons don't have to be the same as everyone else's for becoming a parent, but I think it is insensitive to come onto this thread and make your point known about broody women not having anything better to do than have kids.

My baby is almost 5 weeks and despite being adamant she would be my second and last for the 3 years it took to conceive her and all through the pregnancy I am now saying I might like a third.
I’m not sure if this urge is because of finding out I was pregnant just as the first lockdown was announced and then having her during the second one and feeling like we’ve missed out/are missing out on so much already or if it’s just that feeling of being so in love with your baby you want more!

When Dc1 was about a year old, I began to think that I wanted another. This feeling grew and grew, DH agreed, and DC2 was born just after DC1’s third birthday. I was 40 and I’d had 2 hyperemisis pregnancies and 2 emcs (one wads crash under general anasethic). I knew before DC2 was born that I didn’t want any more, and haven’t felt a moment of broodiness since she was born.

After unexpectedly getting twins when I had planned for "just one more", I feel the need to remind everyone who asks this question to keep in mind that #3 could mean you still end up with 4 in total 😀

About 4.45am this morning when DC2 woke for the 6th time, I had about 3 hours sleep across the night.

2 is such hard work, I can’t imagine having to do this again with another. My body is over it, my head is over it, my relationship is good but balancing the extra strain takes a lot of work from us both.... I love them, I put them above everything but I know I can’t split myself any further.

it’s almost like someone is missing when I watch the children playing
This is exactly what I felt like once my second was mobile; we had our third & I no longer feel that anyone is missing BUT I’m still broody.
DH absolutely doesn’t want another & got a vasectomy because he didn’t believe I would stop being broody after a third/fourth/fifth
I’m early 40s

Funny story here 🤣😳 I know someone who said just one more, had 2 at that time already, ended up having triplets 🤣🤣🤣😵😵😵😳😳

Wanted one more but then Dc3 was suddenly hard work so didn't get round to it in the timescale we'd planned. Now broody for a Grandchild

Thanks everyone! So interesting to hear about different experiences - glad I’m not the only one.

Just to be clear: I work full time in a professional services role and run my own business on the side, as well as having my two who are under 3 - and have a 22m age gap. I have MANY better things to do than have another baby, which is what makes my feelings all the more frustrating!

Like pp, I feel so sad that this might be the last time we use X or Y baby ítem, the last breastfeed, the last whatever... my second was a giant which didn’t help as I felt cheated out of the tiny newborn phase. He came out the size my eldest was at 6 weeks...

After my 6th :) :)

As soon as I gave birth to twins 😂

@ncbby

I understand the concept of desperately wanting a child but I can’t really grasp the inability to turn it off after one or two tbh.

You've mentioned you have a child, why weren't you able to turn off your desire to have them? It would have been better for your bank balance, your time & hobbies, maybe your body... What reason did you have for having a child? I think for some people broodiness is one of those core reasons of "I just desperately want this child".

Your reasons don't have to be the same as everyone else's for becoming a parent, but I think it is insensitive to come onto this thread and make your point known about broody women not having anything better to do than have kids.

I wanted very much to have a child -- initially would have liked to have two but my marriage broke down after one and by the time that was dealt with I was approaching being too old. I could have convinced myself I "desperately" wanted another child but I didn't, I cracked on and just put it out of my mind. As I would have done if I hadn't managed to have one.

Also very aware that my best friend tried desperately and failed to conceive a child and it caused her a great deal of pain.

I probably will get flamed for this but for so many people it is so bloody difficult to have and maintain one or two, that people saying they "desperately" feel the urge to have three, four, five and they felt this desperate "biological" pull seems a bit, dare I say it, self-indulgent.

Yes I can see it would be nice to see how three would have panned out or how they would have played together or how their personalities would have been different etc. But when some of us have to fight bloody hard to conceive and maintain one or two without support and I see women saying "my ovaries are desperately urging me on to have number five and I won't stop when I do", with all the huge pressures that is going to put on their families I just feel a bit, meh, be grateful you've got healthy kids at all.

Sorry if that offends people. But with all the other things going on in the world and the huge difficulties some of us have having any children at all I just struggle to feel huge sympathy for someone who feels cheated that they're not able to have a fourth kid.

There’s a definite urge to reproduce that isn’t just based on sexual attraction to your partner, IMO. I was never bothered about other babies but I wanted OURS. Desperately, even though our circumstances weren’t ideal at the time. We didn’t wait until it was a better time and had 2 kids. I had failed at breast feeding and for a few years after ds2 was born I yearned yo have another baby so I could try again. Don’t know what I was thinking. I would have hated to have a third in reality.

It gradually left me, that feeling. And then when I ha had to come off the pill in my mid40s for health reasons I became very aware I could actually get pregnant by accident if we weren’t very careful. And just like that, the urge went completely. MEnopause is round the corner so probably hormonal too.

We DID wait

Its all relative though. You cant judge people with different circumstances. I can be quite upsetting not to be able to have another child whether its your 1st or 10th. Some may also have had difficulties in between.

..and it can be quite upsetting for the precise reason you have outline @thepeopleversuswork. That you should be grateful. Which people are but it doesnt help when you know they are thinking it.

I am not offended btw, just appreciating others circumstances.

@Fortherosesjoni70

Its all relative though. You cant judge people with different circumstances. I can be quite upsetting not to be able to have another child whether its your 1st or 10th. Some may also have had difficulties in between.

Sorry, but not being able to have a 10th kid is not the same as not being able to have any at all.

That's definitely a want and not a need. Let's be honest about this. Biological craving or not, no-one needs 10 kids.

It went away for good after the 3rd. The thought makes me feel really ill now and I'm never jealous of anyone who says they are expecting.

The 3rd has been an absolute joy, but having 3 overall has been one of the hardest things I've ever done.

For me, i was so grateful for having children when i was quite young and then having more when i was older.

I have 4 children and I only stopped feeling broody when I knew that at 50 I would not have another child.

When my second became a threenager (at about 2 years old!) and I thought another toddler would finish me off

Interesting about broodiness. DH and I decided to ttc soon after we married - I had never actually felt broody up until then, just knew in an abstract sort of way that I wanted to have children. It wasn't until we had been trying for 18 months without success and gone to the doctor that the broodiness really kicked in. It did thankfully go away when I was in my mid 40s and knew, because of premature ovarian failure, that a late miracle pregnancy was unlikely to happen.