Do you think that I am selfish for only wanting one child? (Long!)

[chinchilla]

I always thought that I wanted two or three children. Since having ds, both my dh and I have revised this to only having one. Our ds is gorgeous, and we both love him soooo much, but he is such hard work that we don't feel that we can cope with another.

Plus, my pregnancy was very hard. I hated being pregnant for various reasons. The end was horrible and very painful, and the birth was quite stressful. Both dh and I wonder if we are making parenting seem harder than it actually is, or whether we have been given a child who is just a bit more demanding than others.

He is very moany. My HV says that he is just very bright, requires constant stimulation, and that he will improve when he can toddle and talk, because he will be able to get things for himself, or ask for things.

I find myself thinking ahead with pleasure to those times, and feel bad for almost wishing his life away. The thought of getting him to this stage and then having another dependent baby is too stressful. I am constantly tired anyway, and had a hard time of it before ds slept though the night, so don't really relish the thought of more sleepless nights.

Having said all that, my body is starting to crave another baby, but my head says "DON'T DO IT". Did anyone else feel this way? Did you have another one anyway?

Chinchilla, I wrote about this and so did others on a thread called something like "first pregancy and labour too awful to contemplate another child". Could you wait until life gets easier and then see how you feel? Nothing wrong with thinking ahead to your ds being older and more independent - it is easier! And maybe you have just got a hard one or maybe it's just the shock of new parenthood? I recognise your feelings. I'd say wait a while.

The thread is here

chincilla, I too had wanted two or more children but a few months after the birth of ds, I realised that dh and I would prefer not to have any more children. We both absolutely adore ds and he is not particularly demanding but wwe still find it very hard and worry about coping if we had another baby who actually was more demanding.

We have now decided not to have any more children and it is only now, when ds is over 3 yrs old that I've stopped feeling guilty about the possible ramifications of our decision.

Chinchilla - I have a son,just five,and he is our only child - I'm happy with this and we decided that he was to be our only child. Having said that I do get pangs about him being an only child - part of it is a sadness at the passing of time - ie. babyhood,being a toddler etc- he's growing up which is great but it also makes me grieve for the time that has gone. However,I had quite a difficult time after his birth (dealing with the usual new baby exhaustion/shock of becoming a mother etc plus an existing psychiatric disorder - OCD - which flared up during pregnancy) so it wasn't easy. The pregnancy apart from that was fine,though I was extremely anxious most of the time and the birth was very difficult (long labour/forceps/ventouse). I used to think that maybe a combination of these things had frightened me. I'm pretty sure that we've made the right decision to stick at one (my husband definitely only wanted one child) but every so often I think that having another might've been a good idea. I was scared too of tipping the balance I'd managed to achieve (in terms of health and coping etc).
Incidentally Do other people with 1 child feel that although they are part of the big club that is parenthood,somehow we are a bit excluded from the sub-division of families with 2 or more ? or am I being paranoid ?? I absolutely adore my son and he's undoubtedly the best thing in my life.

I remember having a conversation with good friends of ours who had one daughter. We had 3 children at the time and they said that they would just have the one so that they could give her everything and concentrate on her fully. Not like us having to share attention etc.
Our friends brother then died of lung cancer at the age of 34. That was a huge turning point for them as they realised that if anything happened to them their dd was on her own. When she was 8 years old they had another dd followed 2yrs later by a ds. What they discovered that having more than one child was not detrimental for the first and they enjoyed their other children without the stress of being 'new parents'.
I am not saying that it is not OK to have one child. Our friends were adamant that was what they wanted but once they embarked on a larger family they have not regretted it. In fact she is talking about having a fourth!

I have commented on this subject many times on Mumsnet - but I feel very strongly about it - THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT SIBLINGS WILL GET ON IN LATER LIFE - my MIL is currently terminally ill & DH & SILs are sitting at her bedside BUT NOT TALKING - yes, I know it is absolutely ridiculous & pathetic but nothing I can do or say is changing the situation (fortunately they are all talking to me!!), please do not have a child, thinking 'it will be easier to deal with aged relatives' - it may be, it may not be.

I have consciously decided to stop at one child, we are very happy, he will have a full social life - we are always out & about ourselves, I do not think it is selfish to stop at one, quite honestly one could argue that having any children is a 'selfish' act - why don't we all go out and adopt children who really need a loving home.

Am currently readint 'Your Only Child' by Anne Coates which I recommend.

I think the point I was trying to make is that decisions made about having one child do not need to be permanent therefore you do not need to stress about it, but keep your options open.

My sisters ( 4 of them) and I fought through childhood and most of us get on well in adulthood. We all have a strained relationship at times with 1 sister but in recent times of crisis we have all pulled together and helped each other.

I fully appreciate not all families are like that.
Chinchilla - do not stress about something that may or may not happen. Relax and see where the future takes you.

Chinchilla, don't feel bad about it at all. It's very common nowadays to have one child and the only problem with it seems to be a drastic fall in the size of the population! Here in Australia the government is trying to encourage people to have AT LEAST one child (preferably more) because our population size is decreasing, due to people choosing to have less children or no children at all. But that aside, it is your business how many children you have - dh and I have a 2 year old son and that's all we want. I had him when I was almost 35 and have no desire to have any more, although I love him. We'll just have to make sure that he has regular contact with his little cousins and friends, and we will be encouraging him to have friends over to stay when he's a bit older. Don't feel pressured to do it if it's not what you really want.

It's helpful to read people's thoughts about this. We hoped for two children and have been trying for over 5 years. Our dd is three and a half and we have lost four (early miscarriages). I've been investigated and a potentially treatable cause found but I haven't been able to conceive again.

I've felt desperate at times at the thought of dd being an only child. I tried hard to rationalise it - I love my sibs but dh wouldn't care if he never saw his again. We work hard to make sure dd has plenty of close contact with other children.

Recently I realised that the dread I felt was not about dd at all but about me. If I'd been an only child, my childhood would have been miserable, perhaps unbearable. But - finally I've twigged on - she's not me. I'm not my mother and dh is not my father. She doesn't need what I needed and she doesn't miss it.

We haven't given up but I feel much better about the whole thing. I've been able to stop grieving for the lost babies and start looking ahead further than my next menstrual cycle. What a relief!

It's true that you sometimes feel people don't class you as a proper parent when you have only one child. In my case, though, I've been oversensitive at times because my feelings were raw.

Considering what a minefield the whole area of pregnancy and birth is, it's a wonder anyone is bold enough to make judgemental comments without knowing the circumstances. But when they do, I fob them off with something bland. I don't owe it to them to discuss anything so personal.

Chinchilla, I can only speak from my experiences as an only child. Having grown up without siblings, I can't imagine what it would be like with them (although I have dd & ds myself). It has never been an issue for me. I think it probably bothered my parents more than me (they wanted another one, but it just never happened). They always went out of their way to make sure I was with other children (hols etc) and it was great.

I don't think I was in any way spoilt (other than with love), which I guess is the point. It doesn't matter whether we have 1 child, 2.4 or 10 children; it's the way we look after them.

So, from one only child, please don't feel anything other than joy in your ds (and frustration, annoyance, amusement etc etc! ). And if you decide to have another baby, well, thatt's great too

Thanks everyone. I feel a bit better now. I visited a friend with a 6/7 week old baby today (her second). She seemed so relaxed and happy. Her ds is 3, and very lively, but she copes well.

I felt a bit broody about the baby stage, and would like another baby from having seen her, but the memories are still too fresh. If another friend has a baby say in a year, I will no doubt have forgotten the bad stuff, and be totally broody again.

It's funny though, I'm not one of those women who go gooey over just any baby. I can appreciate that they are cute, and like a hold of them, but I have only felt really besotted over my own. My 2 SILs and my dh's aunt are all the type of women who are really into babies, and I used to think I would get like that once I had my own. Then, when I didn't, I thought that there must be a 'Mother Earth' gene missing!

I now realise that I am not abnormal, merely in love with in my own child. If I have another, I will have enough love for that one too.

Chinchilla,

I remember vividly my dh driving me to hospital to be induced the next day with ds no.2. We had a conversation where i said to him I couldn't imagining loving another baby the same way that we loved ds no.1. It is so amazing that you actually can without any detriment to the first born. When ds no.2 arrived it was so lovely having them both with afterwards and ds no.1 welcoming him. Love is so overwhelming and all encompassing that it is there for all my 4 children. You need not worry - that's what life is all about.

By the way I'm on the wine - ask me tomorrow

On BB the other night I think it was Kate that said that both her parents are only children and someone remarked 'so you've got no Aunts or Uncles?'. Not judging here just repeating what was said. R

Echoing what people have already said, really. I'm an only child and had a totally lovely childhood - lots of friends that I've kept to this day, can't remember feeling particularly lonely at all, etc, etc. I do know that my Mum felt terribly guilty for a while (and that she became really annoyed at people remarking on her decision to have only one - some quite nastily) and that she made a really conscious effort not to 'spoil' me, but she stuck to her guns and it worked for our family.

I'm having more than one, but it's got nothing to do with being an 'only' myself (and, actually, although I adore toddlerdom, I find babies a bit dull, to be honest, so no 'mother earth' here, promise).

I think you've just got to do what is right for you - what feels right, whenever it feels right, and not worry too much about it. Does that sound really daft? Hope not.

That's interesting, Rhiannon, as my parents were both only children and I had no aunts or uncles, and of course, no cousins. I used to be a bit peeved as a child that I didn't receive any of the little presents and so on that my friends did at birthdays but I soon realised that also meant I didn't have to write endless thank you letters, either, LOL!

My dad is dead and my mum is now in her 70's and she does feel lonely, these days. She says she finds it upsetting that she has no one with whom she can talk about the past, reminiscing about her parents and so on. Oddly enough, she had ten uncles & aunts plus many cousins, but all the cousins died young and she is the only one of her generation. Strange how nature works.

Not sure what I'm saying here - not much at all, really, just that whatever plans we make, nothing is guaranteed!!

It's been great reading all this as the subject of two v. one is really on my mind at present. What's bothering me is that I feel completely undecided about whether I want a second child, never getting a strong sense of yes or no. Dh feels similarly I think, though denies it and always says he hopes we do have another one, leaving me as the indecisive one. What we're doing in practice is leaving it up to chance - not using contraception but not "trying" all that hard either (to conceive dd took a pretty concerted effort!). Each month I go through the thing of wondering if I could be pregnant and when I'm not, my feelings are split down the middle - part disappointment, part relief. Part of me loves the idea of two children and feels it would be wonderful for dd to have a sib, part of me is terrified, conjuring up terrible visions of constant fighting and jealousy, my health going down the drain and dh and I falling apart through exhaustion and never having a minute alone together. Considering this is one of the most important questions in my whole life I would desperately like to have a clearer sense of what I want but it doesn't seem to be coming. A huge factor is my age (I'm 40 in Sept) which means we have absolutely no time to hang around thinking about it. Does anyone else have any similar experience or advice?