I want baby number 5 but hubby doesn't :(

[fizzyblush]

hello
me and my husband have 4 children together . I'd love one more but he is so done at 4. How do you deal with closing the book on having babies when you don't want to in your heart ? It's actually consuming my thoughts at the moment

How old are you, your husband and the kids?

Is this perimenopause knocking?

We have 5.

Luckily we are in a very privileged financial position but with 5 children we are constantly on the go.

Our 3 oldest do lots of clubs and extra curricular activities so we have to juggle this plus work etc.

I think the fact that your DH isn’t on board means it’s a no, You have to both be in it together otherwise I’m sure it will cause a lot of resentment.

I'm the youngest of 5 and I used to think it was nice but as we've all aged it's not great. My parents didn't really parent me. My siblings were all getting on with their lives and by and large I've been ignored most of my life.
I'm not saying you'd be the same obviously just getting it off my chest😂

If DH doesn't want more then that is final unless you get divorced and have a baby with someone else.

Put your time in to the kids you have, use the opportunity to get on further at work, save more to help out with future house deposits and Uni fees, get your pension boosted so you can retire early to be a hands on Granny etc.

You're amazed that people are still having children? I'm genuinely curious; do you think that people should stop having children? Because the human race will die out if we all stop reproducing. What am I missing?

🙄

Whilst we can’t necessarily be sure of the population we know how many people are drawing a pension (lots) and how many people are paying taxes. Its the number of people paying tax relative to those drawing pensions which poses the problem unfortunately

There’s a big difference between 5 and 22!

There are so many areas in life where, for various reasons, we exercise restraint and stop when we might really want to continue, because it's not going to be beneficial in the long run. I've never really understood why something as significant as having children seems to be treated as the exception to this. We can't always have everything we want just because we want it - or perhaps we can, but we shouldn't. Just be glad you have four healthy children.

It's really hard to spilt my time between 4. Luckily I have 4 years between all my boys. You have to make time to be 1:1 with each child every single week. I go out for dinner alone with my eldest, go on holiday alone with the next boy. Pick my daughter up alone from school and we take and collect alone for clubs. My other boy I have two hour long drives alone where we chat in the car. It's a real effort. I think age gaps help. I'm sorry you didn't have that time. I also try to drop everything when one comes to me with issue. I'm taken for gauranted and burnt out but that's my choice.

Out of interest, can I ask what you don’t think you would manage to do with 2 children, you mention your high standards?

both me and my husband come from big families and what we gain from having siblings is so valuable and far outlasts the benefits of going to after school clubs for example.

i don’t know why as a society now so many think you should only have children if you can afford to give them “everything they want and more” as someone said earlier on the thread.

its only my experience but what I ‘lost’ in not having my own room and wearing hand me down clothes i gained so much more in amazing times with my siblings and I think people miss a trick when they deny their children the same

Siblings are worth far more than money could ever buy

and on the childcare note… the research shows nurseries are detrimental before the age of 3 and mildly positive after the age of 3… so it’s not ‘sad’ !

Love this ! I agree .. buying and giving your children cars , houses etc isn't really anything anyone I know was just given as a child. Having a larger family has many benefits for the children as well as some negative implications like time etc but I think there are lots of positives

I agree ! I always wanted more siblings growing up .

More than is 2 is unnecessary. I,m expecting number 1, and my climate guilt and worry is so much already. There’s too many people on the planet already

There is no research nurseries are ‘detrimental’. Stop shaming those who chose and /or have to use childcare.

I can't believe people have climate guilt over children. The amount of kids the average person pops out makes little difference to the waste and pollution practices in other much larger countries. The consumption and methane you fart out is minimal compared to that

I’ll have to use childcare myself, so no shaming here, but yes unfortunately there is research to say it’s detrimental.

There's a lot of joy in small children and I think a lot of people miss this as their children get older and have more complex lives and problems. We want a return to those simpler days when our children were happy and not worried about exams and work etc. So we are tempted to try and recreate it with another baby.

....but you still have the older children getting older even if you keep having more new ones.

Yes, that's true. It's not logical - I just think done people really miss the unparalleled joy that is watching a child discover life and where the things we take for granted are still utterly amazing to them. I think that's why so many people enjoy being grandparents.

I think we have to recognise the feeling and not give in to it though. Especially if you can't afford/don't have time for/dh doesn't want another baby.

I had 4. There was a bit of a gap between the first 3 and the last baby. In many ways it was like starting again. I did have time for all of mine - none of them could say they lacked attention, but it doesn't leave a lot left over for me and dh.
I don't think I appreciated just how much young adult children can still need so much support.
The childhood years were easy by comparison with some of the issues teenagers and young adults have.

Each of her children already has three siblings.

Was replying to other poster

That's like saying your vote doesn't count or no-one should bother to recycle.

That's a load of rubbish. Nothing wrong sending kids to nursery before 3. My sons 2 and doing 2 mornings a week. He loves it.