How many kids is too many???

[applesandbananas1]

More and more I see families have 3+ kids and it blows my mind… in this day and age I cannot fathom navigating parenting of more than 2 kids… it only gets harder as they grow up and I think loads fall into the trap of adding to their family while the older kids are still very young and the challenges of a 21st century childhood are less noticeable.

It’s none of your business how many kids folks have - why are you so bothered by other people’s choices?

The environmental impact alone means it's inexcusably selfish to have 3 or more.

One. Definitely one is too many 😂

Depends on the kids as well I suppose. My two are fab, both good sleepers and eaters thank god, so I’d have another couple. We’ve said we’ll stop at 3 though if the next one is more difficult

I have 2 and that's plenty for me. It gets eye wateringly expensive, when you're talking about helping them with driving lessons, a car, insurance, rent on a place when they want to move out, not to mention university or weddings. The stuff you want to be able to help with to try to successfully launch them into adult life.

Yes this!
and if I’d had a 4th pregnancy and got twins I’m not sure we’d have coped with that!!! I love to see twins tho but 5 kids would make it very difficult for me to work and I need to, financially and mentally too.

Vast numbers of people who are one of two, or only children also grumble about their upbringing!

Too many is more than a couple/parent can afford or deal with - unforeseen changes of circumstance notwithstanding. Because some struggle with one or two does not mean others aren’t doing a good job with five.

It's more than you can cope with and quite frankly this varies between people. I've seen my sil struggle with one child as a sahm and with family support compared to a friend who is a working mum with 4 children and no support beyond her dh.

I have 3. At one point I did have 2 under 2 and yes that was tiring and I did have a period of constantly just chasing my tail. However, they are very close and ds (dc2) keeps an eye out for his older sister as she does him. Dc3 came 4 years after dc2 and if I could go back I would have had her earlier but that is life. As it stands I am very happy with my 3. I enjoy parenting, accept the drudgery and have an equal partner in dh. I'm calm in nature and don't easily get overwhelmed so I think that helps. It's a true joy to be their mum and I'm very grateful. I recognise that each stage has its challenges but I am up for it. We haven't ever had any family support.

I do recognise that a 4th would not have been a good idea for me. From a health perspective it would have been a higher risk pregnancy than even my previous 3 but more importantly I don't have the mental energy for another. I feel I would struggle to give my existing children the time and energy I do now. Other considerations were that something would have to give in terms of my working hours, the need for a cleaner and having the time or energy to do things important to me such as cooking homemade food. I am not judging parents of 4+ by saying this, it is just me recognising my own personal limits! I was a child of 4 but my mum was a sahm.

I don't understand or believe the mumsnet trope that people shouldn't have more kids than they do bedrooms. Ours do have their own rooms but on a weekend they often all bunk in with each other by choice.

All families parent differently. Dh and I do take the time to spend individual time with each of our children. We make the time to do so because we recognise it is important. We also do a lot together as a family because it's fun.

This is sort of my point though - “more than you can cope with” - how does a parent know how many they can cope with? Adding more children increases the risk (for most) of not being able to cope?

They have however many they have plus enough resources and capacity to reasonably expect to comfortably have another. It's a lot less risky than 0-1.

The clue there is that they all went to private school. The family has enough money to meet the needs of a large family. We had the one child we could afford and finances were tight.

My (little) kids share a double bed but there is a spare bedroom waiting for the day they need their own space. I would never force children to share because I couldn't house them adequately. It might be a modern day problem because presumably we want a better quality of life for them, and they spend so much more time indoors than kids ever have done before.

By the time I had 2 I knew myself as a mother enough to know I wouldn’t have the patience for 3 and certainly knew I didn’t have the income to support 3 how I wanted to. I think the thing I struggle with is when you see posts of “my DH is a dick, we have 4 kids…” and long sad story about their miserable life and how she’s trapped, because she’s got 4 kids. I think 3+ children is when things like divorce, death and disease get really complicated, risk appetite is obviously deeply personal but for me, the thing that scared me most about going for a 3rd was the roll of the dice of how things would turn out; it’s one thing when it’s just you, your partner and maybe one child you’re trying to give a sibling to, but it’s a whole different thing when you’ve now got to consider your 2 pre existing children, my urge to protect them was always must stronger than my yearning for a non existent child. But as I say, that’s personal, other people aren’t as pessimistic as that!!

This is sort of my point though - “more than you can cope with” - how does a parent know how many they can cope with? Adding more children increases the risk (for most) of not being able to cope?

Why have any then - just seen yet another thread arguing that as some mothers dislike being parents so no-one should have or want kids as risk is too high you might be one of those.

I loved having kids - would have coped with a fourth if we'd gone down that route. Every pg someone in family had an opinion that we shouldn't have done that even with first. Other people are adults who are able to make the choice for their lives other option is to impose limits on people which frankly I think is worse option.

I don't think that 3dc is the game changer that people carry on about.

I'm not sure why the addition of one extra child would significantly change the dial on divorce, death and disease @han6729

I think the problem is that a lot of studies seem to look at 0,1,2, 3+ but the latter category could be 3 or 8 or 20...and so it seems a more risky proposition than one extra child merits.

@Upstartled because being a single parent to 3 children will of course be harder than to 2, financially and in terms of time. I think it is disingenuous to say a third child doesn’t have an impact, I just don’t believe the concept of “they slot in” they’re a whole person, of course it will have a profound impact finances and time.

Yes, finances, obviously. And my third was never as simple as just slotting in, but there isn't an intense learning curve and there's already an established routine built around children in the house, so it was much easier.

But really, I was just remarking on your observation about risk, and assumed you meant the risk of divorce, death and disease increased with the third child.

If you meant having to raise kids alone as a result of death, divorce and disease would be harder with three than two then, yes, I agree, especially during the early years.

@Upstartled oh no sorry I don’t mean I think the risk increases with a 3rd, just that the impact is bigger with 3. As I say I know it’s quite a pessimistic way of deciding and I certainly don’t expect everyone to think the same way, but it was one of the factors that came into my decision making.

It's okay for anything to limit your family size for whatever reason, however unlikely or pessimistic. I'm pretty sure the size of the laundry pile might have clinched the decision for us not to have a fourth.

One would be too many for me 🤷🏻‍♀️

Can confirm - have four kids and the laundry is utterly beyond control. DH and I get very excited for sunshine these days. Not because we have time to sit in the pub garden with a beer, but because we can hang several loads of washing out!

OP, your post is judgement thinly veiled as 'I was just wondering'. If you cannot cope with more than two, that's fine. Not everyone is the same.

Depends on the family, I think. We have kids sharing rooms but ours are a quite outdoorsy and sociable lot. They don't tend to spend loads of time indoors. I don't consider them to be 'inadequately housed'. I also didn't have my own room growing up - shared with my sister. No ill effects.

I mean practically I'd say four would the absolute limit for most families (and that's two too many for me). But I only know two families with four and one family with five. Everyone else has between 1-3, which is the norm.

I had mine 16 months apart because it was then or not at all. I wasn't keen on the baby stage and knew that if I got out of it and had an independent, potty trained 4 year old that I would just not have a 2nd because I wouldn't want to go through that stage again.

Then I had twins so ended up with 3 under 2. So it was absolute carnage for a while but now they are slightly older, it has worked out really well and I have no regrets.

@SouthLondonMum22glad it worked out for you in the end. I can imagine 3 under 2 being madness. My second while lovely is quite hard work so it’s mostly put me off having a third. I feel like ds1 would have been ok at any age but I do like the gap we have now.