Is having a 3rd child a good idea?

[lucy117]

We have 2 beautiful boys 4 and 1 that we absolutely love and feel like life is pretty perfect right now, although I found the initial shock of going from 1 to 2 really hard, however we change our mind daily on whether or not to have a third( mainly if we're having a good day or bad) we are fortunate to be financially secure have a 4 bedroom home, we are both self employed which works well around the kids and lots of family around so logistically we could manage 3 children, plus the idea of potentially having a little girl would be amazing although we would love a boy just as much, however I worry that 3 could change the dynamics of the family, would one be left out? Would everything be so much harder and less enjoyable? would 3 argue more than 2? Would mine and my husbands relationship feel more strained and less time the 2 of us? I wonder if something isn't broken why fix it? Or would 3 be even more amazing than 2, would love to hear people's experiences and advice?

Having two sisters, I would say having two siblings is better than one because if you are fighting with one you can be friends with the other. While if you only have one sibling, when you're fighting with them you have nobody.

I have 3 (3rd was a surprise) and obviously I wouldn't change that, but we have found that (logistically) having three is more difficult. We have embraced camping and youth-hostelling because hotels are not geared up for larger families. You are outnumbered and it takes more organisation to facilitate their activities - we are managing, but a friend has one child who does a sport competitively - training 5 times a week and regular weekends at competitions - which leaves the other two with just one parent for quite long periods - and I don't know what they would do if another child wanted the same opportunities. Many of my friends have 3 boys, so don't go for a 3rd if you will be disappointed if you don't get a girl.

I'm with Tiger. We have 3, and there is always another one there, when one goes out / goes away.
Your love grows (as it did going 0 - 1 and 1 - 2) so don't worry about that.
I didn't find it harder - I found number 3 fitted right in, and, if anything, by then I was a much more relaxed parent. I realised that everything is a phase, and I realised things I'd fretted about with my first, weren't really that important after all.

No.
Always one left out. Iv never seen it end well.

I love being a mum to three!

I think you're in a good position to have a third

I had always said I would only have two kids, because of being outnumbered, only having two hands & arms, one always missing out, car seats not fitting in normal cars, holiday room configurations, the expense, the chaos, the exhaustion, the serious sacrifice of time for any of your needs to be met, the pressure on one's marriage etc, and aaaall the other reasons.

We had DS1, tried for DS2 and unexpectedly (no IVF, no family history of twins) got twin boys who were born when DS1 was 2.5. And lo! It hath verily been really, really difficult for all the reasons I was never going to have 3. 😄

I love them all very much. I still would only ever recommend having 2. I look at people who had 3 or more kids on purpose in complete bemusement.

(To be fair I think it's a different story if you have lots of money that can buy paid help and plenty of space, á la Wills and Kate.)

How would you feel if you tried for DC3 and ended up with twins (or more)? Not a rhetorical question. 🙂

Sorry that should read 'tried for DC2'

Following as in a similar position!!

I’m one of 3 kids, and have 2 girls & 1 boy. I always wanted 3 kids. I love being a bit ‘more’ - more people, more stuff, more dynamics, just more! The hard thing - exactly the same thing.

My kids are 10, 7 and 3 now, so moving out of the little years but my gosh they still have such emotional needs & there are 3 of them to balance!

We never did hotel type holidays anyway so it hasn’t made a difference from that point of view, but yes a bigger car, 3 pairs of shoes, 3 ice creams, 3 of everything...

I always wanted 3 kids, mainly because i only have one sister and she was a cow to me growing up, I’d have liked an alternative sibling! I’d have had 4 if we could afford it but we can’t.

I love having three kids. Middle one gets on with both siblings. Older one is lovely to his baby sister. It’s such a nice dynamic.

I love having three. But yes, logistically it is harder. Plus everything takes longer and costs more. Car seat/car size was the first big expense. Totally agree in holidays, hotels expect 2 children per family.

The twin risk is real. We know a family who had 4 under 4 at one point...

I have never regretted it. Helps that ours all get on, which is great. Some families with three kids have constant fights. Then again, the same is true when there are 2 kids.

@Littlepond exactly why I liked having 2 sisters!

To parents it probably seems like your kids are always fighting but in reality it's one fight that just goes around in a circle (child A and B against C, then child B and C against A, etc)

My third child was brain damaged at birth. It has changed all of our lives (including her siblings) forever. They were almost 4 and almost 2 when she was born and our family life was turned upside down by long term
Hospital stays and many medical appointments a week. You can only do your best.

'plus the idea of potentially having a little girl would be amazing'

Do you think you would want a third if you already had a girl?

I'd think really carefully

The first month of having 3 was hard (still only 3 months in) and we routinely looked at each other and burst out laughing (hysteria) at the madness of it all. We would also forget that we couldn't divide and conquer in the same way anymore.

No doubt our life will be harder but we wouldn't change it for the world.

I'm the same OP!

Got a boy and girl, but I'm one of 3, and I loved it as a child. It feels like more of a 'gang' on holidays and weekends, and there's always someone to play with.

But finding 2 difficult! I'm an introvert and need lots of 'me' time, so think we might stop at 2....

I have three, two boys and a little girl. It was quite easy switching to three and the boys loved having a little sister but now she is three and talking they argue like crazy! So be warned lol.

I have two, my youngest is 9. I would have loved to have had a third and often day dream about it.

But it was the right decision for us. As they are older they are a lot, lot more expensive. We couldn’t afford holidays and eating out that we all enjoy as a family. Tickets for shows, clothes everything. Plus, most hotels won’t put more than 4people in one room so we would have to book two rooms instead of a family room etc. Then there is the endless driving to music lessons and sport, money and time are not elastic, even if love is.

No-one will ever regret a child. It doesn’t follow that the best course of action is just to keep having them. That said, it will be horses for courses.

The three-kid families that I know are the ones where there is a gap of at least three years between all of the kids. I would not recommend having any close gaps with three kids.

Families I know with three (or more) kids in close succession... the parents appear utterly knackered and frankly miserable a lot of the time, and sometimes the quality of the care that the kids receive is not brilliant (I don't mean stuff that would make me want to call social services, just... corners being cut. Like a lot more crap food and screentime than I would be OK with, very messy and chaotic house, not a lot of time for things like sharing books or educational things etc.)

With a little bit of a gap, the kids are able to establish different roles in the family rather than falling out with each other or two ganging up on the other, and the oldest one will be old enough to actually be some genuine help with housework and baby care once the baby comes along.

I would give it a couple of years or so and see how you feel then.

Sorry, that first sentence should real "The three-kid families that I know that appear to be happiest with their choice are the ones where there is a gap of at least three years between all of the kids."

I’m nearly 2 weeks in to having 3, older siblings are 5 and 3. Sometimes I think ‘what the hell were we thinking?’, as life was just starting to get easy again. I’m so glad we went for it though.
We were lucky enough to already have a big enough house and car, and we tend to hire cottages/villas for holidays so that won’t affect us much (obviously an extra plane ticket).
I imagine life is going to be crazy for a couple of years but hopefully worth it in the long run.

By the way--interesting statistical quirk, but the odds of getting a girl go up as a woman gets older, EXCEPT if she already has two or more boys. With each boy that you already have, the chances of a boy keep going up and up (nobody knows why, but it seems that once a woman's body has gone down the route of having boys, it is more likely than not to keep going in that direction).

Do you think you would want a third if you already had a girl?

I thought this too. Is your 3rd going to be a disappointment if they're a boy? If they're a girl are they going to become "the favourite"?

Children are bad for the environment. You can’t take one each. I thought about 3 (so appreciate that 3 kids are not great for the env) but decided against and I have one of each.