Positive only child stories please!

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Hi! I have a beautiful 14 mo LO who I love to bits. He is great but I don't want any more. Pregnancy for me was fine but he had a very traumatic birth which left me with PTSD. I struggled being a mum of a newborn and I still do tbh - I am 39 and left parenting quite late. I had a very good career, social life, friendship circle, travelled lots etc - although I make the most of the time with my baby, I am looking forward to him growing and us being able to do more together. I feel guilty not giving him a sibling but I don't think I could do the newborn phase again - the ONLY reason I would do it would be for him to have a sibling. Do I need to? Or are only children totally happy and content? I have a bro and my OH has a bro.

I’d be horrified if I’d been born to give my sibling a sister

It took a few weeks for us to come to terms with it after we decided to stop at one, but we haven't looked back since. DS is now 13, happy, confident, sociable. He turned out to have ADHD and it has been incredibly helpful to be able to gear many things to suit his needs, the symptoms are much more manageable the more his needs are met.

I am an Only and so is my daughter. We are both excellent humans. I had several very good reasons for sticking at one child and now I am glad, I sometime wonder and I think that is natural but really it is not such a big deal!

My ds is an only, he's 5 now and I did waffle for a while if we wanted another, decided against it for many reasons, the main one being he was tough as a toddler/ preschooler and I really dont think my mental health would have handled 2!
We are now in the school stage and he's mainly outgrown all the tantrums etc and he's an absolute pleasure to spend time with.
Financially, we can afford to do a lot more with him than if we had more.
We are a happy bunch of 3 (although I am keen on playdates and whatnot) for him.
Honestly, for us, a happy mum was more important that a hypothetical sibling relationship!

I'm so glad to have read all these. I have a 2 year old son and have recently felt the pull to have another but when I actually think about it properly I don't really want another, I just feel guilty about not giving my son a sibling. We have a great life as a family of three and I can be the best mum I can be. As someone else mentioned, motherhood doesn't come particularly naturally to me either. My son is friendly and happy and I know that quite soon our house will be overrun with his wee pals! 😊

Just realised this is quite an old thread but I've also really enjoyed reading it today! 😚 We've come to the decision to stay at 1 LO (also cemented by MH difficulties post-birth) but I think there'll still always be a hypothetical baby, where I think about how I'd do things 'this time' round... However, now all my friends are on their second babies and I'm finally coming back out into the world, I'm really looking forward to our future!

Have you stuck with your decision OP? X

I had DD at 41, loved pregnancy, birth and the newborn bit. I know unpopular to admit but I find it all rather easy as DD pretty straightforward (although she didn’t sleep). I’m still sticking at 1, there’s no-one missing in our family unit.

There’s no good reason for me to have another.

I'm an only child and I am very happy. I have a great relationships with my parents. I was never bored or lonely. I was happy to play by myself, with my parents, with friends, classmates or my cousins. And I also want to have one child.

I'm an only child who's also planning to only have one and can I just say... do not worry for a second about not "giving him a sibling". I absolutely loved my childhood! Very close with my parents, more time for one on one and conversations, cool holidays, more 'grown up' as I spent less time with kids and more with adults. Absolutely loved it and want the same for my future child

I have an only child through secondary infertility but actually it's worked out fine. We are so close to her and we have lots of resources to give her, through only having one. I know other families in a similar situation and there are no hassles. We are a happy little family. I have one brother and I'm not particularly close to him so...

I've spent the last few years debating whether to have another. We're very happy as a family of 3 but there us always the question in my heart about having another (I'm almost 40 so conscious of time). However, I agree there are so many benefits of having one child. For example, we are currently on a marvellous holiday which we got cheap due to a free child place. We have a room that sleeps 3 only with swim up pool. All the apartments sharing the pool are for 3 people only, so it's mainly one child families. All the 'ownlies' are just making friends with each other and playing. It is a 1 child family paradise!

Yes, having a sibling is great but life as an only can also be rich in other ways.

I wish I'd been an only! My 16 year old is very, very happy to be an only.

Where does the assumption even come from that being an only child is this terrible thing? Us only children are not all out there constantly lamenting how awful our childhood was, are we?

It's just a non-issue.

I'm actually really thankful to be an only. I have siblings, I chose them, it's how life is a lot of the time, you have friends that you just keep your whole life, your children call one another cousins and you call them auntie and uncle to your children naturally because they are like siblings.

And then you have so many people wondering how come they don't get on with their siblings, and all the guilt that comes with not liking a person you are related to.

I've gone four decades and never once missed having a biological sibling but have often thought about how great it is not to have any.