Broody :-o

[Mumstepmum]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I am not ‘up with the lingo’ so bear with me!
I am 33, I have an 11 year old daughter from a previous relationship and 2 stepsons (12/13) from my husband.
My daughter and the youngest stepson live with us pretty much full time and the 13 year old weekends and 50% holidays.

Myself and my husband both have good jobs and a lovely home but I cannot shake the feeling that I ‘have another child in me’, I know that must sound weird but I just feel I am not done. My husband is totally open to a child between us and we always thought we would (been together 9 years) but we always put it off for some reason (house moves, wedding, degree and job changes).

I don’t know if my biological clock is ticking loudly or my fear of regret is playing on my mind but I just don’t know whether I need to ‘put it to bed’ and move on, or just do it.

Things which concern me:

Age gap as the others are very close age wise
Sleep and doing it with rose tinted glasses of when I was a young thing that didn’t need sleep!
Regret of doing or not doing it.

Any help, either way would be great because my head keep wanting to browse the babywear aisles and talk about breast pumps. X

Is it just me or is this football fantasy getting you down?

@Mumstepmum last year at 33 I decided to have the chat about a third child with my husband. We had a 7 and 4.5 year old kids and I had always wanted a third (I'm an only child) and DH hoped I'll change my mind. So we decided to crack on but Covid kicked in so we waited for a few months and I got pregnant and have a 7 week old three weeks before my 35th birthday.
My older two were born in my mid twenties but I think I'm handling the lack of sleep pretty well. I haven't slept well in 5 months due to SPD which I never had in previous pregnancies. The older kids love the baby and im glad we have her. The nights are brutal and breastfeeding is a lot tougher this time probably due to the long break after feeding the older two. But I don't mind as I know this will be our last child. Trying to book holidays and having to remind myself there are three children now
Your kids are a bit older than mine and your husband is on board, how will a new baby affect you and the time you spend with the other kids? If sleep is the main thing holding you back as you know that doesn't last too long. To address your comment about regret I knew it future I will regret not having another. I'm not sure I help Best of luck with your decision.

@MobilityCat

Is it just me or is this football fantasy getting you down?

@MobilityCat what football fantasy

My mum had my half sister when I was 11 (and my other half sister when I was 13) and actually the age gap worked out ok. I recall babysitting for them quite a bit. I'm not as close to them as they are to each other but we're still good friends.

It will mean resetting the time till you can do grown up only activities by another 11 years though. My mum died of cancer when dsis2 was 16 so she never got to experience the life after kids they were looking forward to.

However she had no regrets and I love having my sisters. I feel if you want to you should go for it.

I had my first at 33 and if we have more, which we hope for, I will be in the latter years of my 30s at least. Sleep is tough but not that bad at all. It depends on your own circumstances though. Some people need sleep. I have never needed much sleep, have a ridiculously demanding job which often sees me working into the wee hours or up at early hours to start and so I can probably cope better with less sleep because of it. I have therefore never understood people who think 30s is old to have young kids and worry about sleep - but thats in the context of me not needing alot of it.

I should say aswell alot of people talk about it being a benefit having kids young compared with older because of having a return to normal life etc after them when still young enough. I've never understood that either as by having kids later, I got more time before them to do everything I wanted. However for you it is a much bigger consideration as you'll have a longer time overall with small children given the larger gap - you'll have both started young and late so had younger children restricting freedom for longer.

You may not think that's an issue if you love being around young kids and enjoy the activities etc. Not everyone pines for a child free time. My own mum for example never pined for when she would be child free even though she had kids very early 20s. Infant, she now cares for grandkids during work hours because she loves being around and caring for children. She could have easily had kids in her 40s and not regretted it.