To wonder how people manage with bigger families?

[Lemonwoe]

First of all: I’m not judging: everyone makes different life choices: and what suits me won’t suit everyone else.

But I’ve often wondered how people manage with larger families (ie any more than one child): things like space in the home: financially, energy to look after them all.
Most of my friends and family have more than one child (my close friend has 4), and I honestly don’t know how they manage without having a breakdown.

I only have one child (and work 4 days a week) but I’m blooming knackered: particularly the last year with lockdown and homeschooling

shouldistop - in RL I know many sized families but on MN I've often read two children is "ideal" and have increasingly noticed posts stating one is the "ideal".

It's just a bit of a narrivate shift I've notcied

DH is an only child by choice IL have made that clear over the years and I grew up with couple of only children - all perfectly lovely people so I'm aware only children aren't a 'new thing' before anyone suggests I'm implying that.

I have four and agree with a pp that it was easier during lockdown for us than smaller families. They all occupied each other playing together, no boredom here! I am a sahm and studying though so that makes it easier. We have five bed house.

I have one and am expecting a second.

I desperately want our second child but I keep having wobbles about whether I can do it. After work, parenting, dog walking and housework I often feel I have absolutely nothing left to give by the end of the day. I hope I can find more.

I have 4 from 2 to 9. It's everything I ever wanted.

Sacrifices are:
Days are long. Toddler is up at 6 and eldest is awake til 9ish.
We pay £££ for jobs like lawn mowing, decorating. We don't have a cleaner but have lowish standards.
We only have one weekday evening where we're all home from 5.30ish. Lots of shuttle runs in the crap, old, massive car.
Holidays are self catered and UK based (apart from Disneyland. Bloody loved those holidays)
I work in a low paid but flexi hours job so we don't have to pay childcare.

It is worth it because it was and is my absolute dream. I cannot believe this is my life.

Things that make it easier are DP totally on board, flex in the budget for treats / takeaways / next day delivery when needed, massive washing machine, living walking distance from school, big enough house, and luck.

In my experience they manage by being 'selfish' and expecting social engagements/friends/workplaces etc to fit around them and their life choices

I have four- all between the ages of 16 and 22 now. It has been very difficult. We are ok space wise, they all have their own room but we had to turn the downstairs front room into a bedroom to make this happen- not a problem as we have plenty of space elsewhere downstairs. When they were all little it was very difficult to juggle four kids , I worked nights and weekends and was constantly exhausted, I can't remember much of those years which makes me sad. Things have got better as they have got older and I can work 9-5 . Financially things were tough when they were young, we both worked so got nothing more than child benefit. Now they are older it is costly to get them through Uni, driving lessons etc but manageable. I'm sure I used to shout at them and be irritable a lot when they were little purely because I was so knackered and depressed. If I had my time again I would not have four but obviously don't regret the ones I have as they are mostly lovely !!

Hi OP. We have 4, but they’re older now - eldest is 18 then descending ages of roughly 2 year intervals. I’ve always been SAH and that’s probably how we coped, to be honest. It would have been too much otherwise. I’m lucky that I never had to worry about money and we have plenty of space. Also loads of friends around me and I live where I wasn’t to live which is a great part of London. I would have gone mental in the countryside of a boring place. When I think back to when they were ages say 6, 4, 2 and a newborn I can’t really remember what I did and it’s all a blur. DH was often away with work and I had no family help. I never had a nanny because, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have the energy to find one or deal with one on top of everything else. But overall, no regrets and I’d do it again (if I was ever 30 again)!

I had three under three. It was easy because I didn't have to go to work and we had enough money (I didn't have nannies or cleaners or anything either). I know not everyone can, or would want to, do this though.

I grew up in a large family so having 4 children feels normal to me, and not much more work now the baby years are over.

• cooking dinner for 4 is no more work than cooking for 1
• they have each other to play with so don't need much entertaining

It's more expensive yes but we are both lucky to have well paid yet flexible careers so we can afford to have a bedroom for each of them even in the south east. I say lucky, but I guess we also prioritised family friendly employers when job hunting

We pay for a cleaner and tutors and they have lots of hobbies.

The only real pain is holidays etc that are often priced around a 2 adults and 2 children policy, or finding hotel rooms etc that can meet our needs.

I used to have occasional daydreams of being surrounded by maybe 6, 7, 8 ... children and being the most organised, pragmatic, loving (and not at all egomaniacal fantasist ) person in the world. Or else, some sort of post apocalyptic scenario where we desperately needed to repopulate...

Then remember that, while I like children and could probably (and, tbh, this might be a massive overestimation of my abilities) bring up a large family fairly well, I don't NEED to do that. A lot of it came from a competitive bent (go back a generation or so in my family and 6-8 kids wasn't unusual, and I reckoned if they could do it, so could I). I wasn't going to get a medal for proving that I could do it.

In more sensible moments, DH and I figured that we could give 4 the time and attention we wanted, fit 3 in a normal sized car and have 2 without being outnumbered. We have 2. I'm happy with that. Sometimes, I think I'd have liked more, but I couldn't possibly predict how that would have turned out.

• As an aside, even single child families on here seem to do way more laundry than us... We might just be grubby.

It depends on their age and your circumstances and also where you live.

I have 2DC 6 and 2. The younger one is full on and a liability at times. He doesn't play like a normal kid - just wants to run off and throw himself off things. We both work FT and have a 2 bed flat, so space is an issue and I don't get a good deal of time to declutter or decorate, so I don't like the space we live in. These things can make life feel chaotic.

If you are a SAHP with five angelic kids (most of whom are in school) and your partner has a high income you will probably find things easier than others. Although I know of one SAHP who has two kids in school and one at home and "struggles" to cope. I think it's subjective and also down to the help you get from family or DP. In this case the SAHP does all the domestic stuff, which I know is impossible with kids around.

Do any of you worry about uni costs and helping the kids on the housing ladder etc? I’m an older parent with 1, absolutely knackered and worried about how to make sure we have a reasonable retirement plus help our DD as much as we can. It keeps me up at night a bit tbh.

@Roomonb I only have 2 but if they choose to go to uni then there are several good ones within public transport distance of our house. They're welcome to stay at home for as long as they want / are studying. I'm in Scotland so no fees currently, they can take a loan if they like.
We're lucky that my mums dh is very wealthy and has started savings accounts for the kids.

@zoeydollie

I have 4. Most important things are:

Big wall calendar
DH who pulls his weight
Don't sweat the small stuff
Never skip a day of laundry

I have 5 and I pretty much agree with this !

Do any of you worry about uni costs and helping the kids on the housing ladder etc?

We've been saving a little since they were young for Uni and apparently DGP may have as well - but they'll have to go into debt and we'll have to fund it for a few years as well.

Houses - well we didn't get any help there and I do understand it's even harder now than it was for us - they can probably stop and save with us and if we can we'll probably help - but frankly our pensions will have to be prioritised at some point.

I don't think they'll be much worse position than most of the children they go to school with.

@Strikethrough not sure what to say - I tend to do 1-2 loads a day have one inside airer. Rarely tumble dry. I don't have any delicates though and just split laundry into darks/coloureds/lights. Maybe reduce the amount of clothes you have?

@Roomonb hmm, I don't "worry" but I am very aware of it. We expect to have savings pots of around £20k per child by uni age. We are fortunate as we had them young - just circumstances, we met in our teens - and an inheritance has meant we can save for them. We'll be under 50 by the time the youngest is 18, so hope that we'll both be working and with good income throughout their university careers.

To be honest I don’t tend to worry about uni costs/helping kids onto the housing ladder. We have set up (admittedly small) savings accounts for them but DH and I got onto the housing ladder ourselves, no help from anyone, and we don’t see it as a failing from PILs. They couldn’t have afforded to help us and we never would have expected them to.

We would be happy for kids to stay with us and save while working or studying though.

@Comedycook

I wonder this...for me, I wonder about logistics. I have two dc and very often have to be in two places at once due to activities, friends etc. Not to mention, managing their school lives, school admin, uniform, dress up days, homework, friendship issues etc. Then there's appointments, doctor, dentist, optician, and so often one could have more problematic health problems than the norm. I'm often juggling school drop offs with hospital appointments. Honestly, one more child would tip the balance for me

It's hard for one parent to manage everything. We have two equal parents and split a lot of things (I do dentist appointments/dance classes/holiday camps he does opticians/cub scouts/martial arts) and have active grandparents living very close by who are happy to do some ferrying about.

I've got four under ten.

It's noisy, it's busy but it's manageable most of the time.

My experience as a child would vary widely from the adults view of the situation re large family. I’ve limited my own family size as didn’t want the same for them.

@zoeydollie & @gwenneh thanks for answering! I'm a sahm...kids are both in school...dh helps if I ask him to but is not especially hands on which is fine as I don't work or have very young dc but it does mean it's all on me...no grandparents either, well certainly no useful ones!

[quote zoeydollie]@Strikethrough not sure what to say - I tend to do 1-2 loads a day have one inside airer. Rarely tumble dry. I don't have any delicates though and just split laundry into darks/coloureds/lights. Maybe reduce the amount of clothes you have?[/quote]
Thanks for replying. Do your things dry on the airer in less than 24hrs? With the weather the way it is at the moment I have to leave things hanging inside for at least two days, I couldn't hang up one day and take them down the next (fortunately we have more than one airer!). I'm not sure how reducing the amount of clothes we have would help, it's the amount we wear that creates the laundry! Toddler has one drawer of tops & trousers, one for underwear/socks/sweaters/swimming things and one for pyjamas and old baby blankets (they rarely get used now, occasionally to make a fort or bed for poorly toys). All seasons' clothes in that one three-drawer dresser.

I don't think we wear an outrageous amount of clothes (the preschooler has clean PJs every day but we don't wear them so I guess that balances out ) but it must be less than some large families manage to wash! Do you change all beds on one day (and if so how do you get it all washed and dried) or do you do one bed at a time? We have two king-size beds (the toddler cosleeps with one of us) so even changing them only once a fortnight each that's more than half a load a week in our large capacity machine. I do change hand towels quite a lot as they're not drying throughly on their hangers at the moment but it can't be enough to create all this laundry

We've been away recently so I'm currently doing two loads a day to try to get everything through but with one load on an airer and the other in the tumble dryer that's the most I can push through per day.

@Roomonb

Do any of you worry about uni costs and helping the kids on the housing ladder etc? I’m an older parent with 1, absolutely knackered and worried about how to make sure we have a reasonable retirement plus help our DD as much as we can. It keeps me up at night a bit tbh.

Do we worry about it? Yes. We have a financial advisor who reviews our plans for retirement, the DC's schooling costs, life & critical illness insurance, etc. every year to make sure we can stay on track with it all.