To have another child so that my son with ASD has someone to look out for him when I'm not here

[Whattodo14]

I have been pondering this a lot lately. My son is 7 , an only child, has mild to moderate ASD, he doesn't have a learning disability and is quite bright but very delayed socially and emotionally and his ability to communicate is limited. For example he has no sense of danger and often goes into his own world when we are out so he needs supervised when outside so he doesn't accidentally walk out into a road when he's lost in thought. He also doesn't understand people can be manipulative and could take advantage of him.
I am 36, his dad is 40, we don't want another child but we are also worried about what could happen to him when he's older and we are not around. We don't have much family either so my son really would be on his own when we are both gone and I feel so guilty about this.
AIBU to have another child just for my own peace of mind and for him, so that he at least has a sibling when we are no longer here?

I haven’t RTFT. We have just one child –a ‘perfectly normal neurotypical child’ . We worry about what might happen to him when he is older (especially as we are very much older parents ourselves) for many of the reasons that you do, perhaps with a little bit less justification. There’s no way we would ever have considered having another child for the reasons you describe, even though our support network is small and clearly it would be nice for them to have a sibling, particularly when we are gone. The reason is because we just don’t want another child, not to mention there’s no guarantee that they would get on anyway. What a betrayal of the second child that would be.

We’ve tried to build our support networks where we can and look after our health as best as we can, to give DC the best chance that we can. That’s all any of us can do.

This thread is from seven months ago.