How did you decide how many kids to have?

[pinkpantherxx]

So I’m just looking for peoples stories on how they decided wether they wanted more kids or not.

For context, I have a 3 year old daughter and an 11 year old step daughter and I can’t decide whether to have another child or not.

For the past few months I’ve been wanting another but I feel I should’ve by now for a closer age gap and I am worried if I don’t have one soon, I will regret not having more kids in the future

please tell me your stores and advice

Or for me it was simple. Whatever god sends me. (Or whatever fate sends me I should say - I’m not religious). We wanted one child, but a number of miscarriages, one ectopic, one stillbirth and a couple of failed IVFs later, I had two embrios transferred, as this slightly raises the likelihood of a positive outcome, and got twins. It is more expensive than one child of course. I sometimes think - oh wouldn’t it be great to have a third child, but I only think about it for a moment, as I remember the spinal injury from the epidural, the broken night sleep and, mainly, the huge expense of raising kids. I know three families with three kids, they are mostly uber rich (holidays in Tahiti, acres of land). Most have one or two, some are childless. My husband is one of four, but they were a religious family (his dad was a vicar), they had a lot of money bequeathed to them by some childless aunts for the kids’ education, but I think it was too much for his mum, she was really tired she let slip recently. (She wouldn’t complain otherwise, stiff upper lip and so on). I am one of two.

I would have more definitely. Adopted probably. If I had acres of land and went to Tahiti regularly. I’d have nannies etc etc.

We had a very difficult time having one and once we’d had her we definitely weren’t going to do it again. DH has two older DC as well. We made a last minute decision to try and just see what happened and ended up having another very quickly after that and there’s a 4 year gap between them and while it felt like a huge gap at the time I love it now and it’s perfect for us. I always wanted 4 as I’ve got 3 siblings but I hadn’t planned on a failed first marriage or the nightmare I’d have staying pregnant for years in my second. Second delivery was a mare and DH got a vasectomy within months.

I wanted 2, my partner wanted 3, medical issues after the first meant it stayed at 1.

However, now, a few years later neither of us actually have ended up with regrets or feeling bad about it. It is really nice that our son is growing up and progressing through stages, and we are already getting a bit more of our life back, which wouldn't be possible if more young ones were on the way behind.

I think as well, its hard to know until you have 1, whether 1 is ok... and 2, whether 2 is the best, 3, whether 3 is... etc. because until you have lived that reality, its just how you imagine it to be.

Personally I don't think you should focus on regret, because you can regret in either direction. There are certainly people who regret not having a 3rd, but equally you see stories of people on here who had another child and who then, by no fault of the child (and unfortunately often related to ND/SEN issues) ends up leaving the parents tinged with a guilty regret for having "messed up" the perfect family they had.

Things can go wrong in either direction, so you just have to take the action based on your heart and desire, and fully except that either way, you might end up loving the outcome, or not, and that is just part of what life gives us to deal with.