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?

Well it sounds like you have the resources to cope with three, which is part of the battle. In answer to your questions:

3 could change the dynamics of the family, would one be left out? Three will definitely change the dynamics - how could it not? As for the one left out - this doesn't necessarily happen, but if it does it's often the middle one.

Would everything be so much harder and less enjoyable? Harder, yes. My DB has three and the juggling and nonsense is much more with three than with two (which I have, plus I have bigger gaps - they had three bang-bang-bang with 2 years between each other).

would 3 argue more than 2? Of course! There are now three to argue, rather than two.

Would mine and my husbands relationship feel more strained and less time the 2 of us? Probably. There will be less time to go around, after all. Plus, you can't guarantee that no. 3 won't be twins and then you'll have four (I know a woman this happened to!) Or that your third won't have a disability or a hundred other what ifs ...

I'd have gone for a third when my DS2 was under a year, but I'm bloody glad I didn't. My kids are now 11 and 7 and they're expensive and their clubs and parties and sporting things take up big chunks of all our weekends. But if you really, really want a third then no rational argument is going to make a dent in that.

I’m one of three and there’s only 3.5 years between all of us. I can’t speak to how my parents felt, but it was great for us growing up. There was always someone to play with, someone to get along with, someone to get advice from. As we got older we knew each other’s friends and would all hang out together. I won’t be able to have three because of age, but I’d have loved to otherwise. It was such a great childhood.

We are having this exact debate just now. My DCs are lower end of primary currently so if we did it in the next couple of years there would be a bigish age gap (8 years minimum).

I worry about things like not being able to afford holidays, having to buy three of everything instead of two (which is expensive enough). But they would be at very different life stages so not like I’d be needing to buy three of everything all the same all the time. We really don’t know what to do. We don’t want to be selfish and negatively affect the life of our current DCs. It’s really hard. I don’t want to get into my 40s and wish we’d gone for it.

Do twins run in your family? i considered 3 but we have twins on both sides of our families and more likely to have as older. The desire not too have 4 was more strong than the desire for one more!
joking apart I do think 3 works better if decent gaps between kids it does however give lots of issues with out of school activities logistic wise

Perhaps you should be a bit more objective and look at the expense of having a third child.
Can you afford to provide the essentials or some luxuries?
Will your budget for two children stretch to going three ways?
Is your accommodation sufficiently large?
Have you transport that will fit the growing family?
Emotions and broody feelings are a good reason for wanting but cold logic may show that the experience will negatively impact on the first two children and yourselves.