What caused you to decide to stick at one or have another?

[december2020]

We're currently contemplating trying for DC2 and making a final decision whether we go for it by end of this year or stay as a one-child family.

I'm no spring chicken (mid 30s) and while I know lots of women conceive later (power to you), I don't think its right for me.

Understood everyone's reasons are different and what is right for one person may not be right for another but I'd love to hear what was the reason you chose to have another or to stick at one.

I always always wanted a big family, I come from a big family (over 60 first cousins) and wanted a big family. Most of my siblings and cousins started around age 16 having kids. For me I saw many of my family stuck with losers as their children’s fathers and was desperate to have children with someone decent. Even my first “H” I wasn’t sure about. I was 35 when I met Mr Right so limited time, we had 3 children in quick succession. My only regret is we weren’t younger when we got together so we could have more. For me it was always I wanted more than one, DH I think he’d have been ok with one but also would be happy with more than 3.

We always wanted two, then got DS (who was a nightmare baby). I spent a year deliberating with DH whether we could survive the sleep torture again. In the end hormones and horniness decided it for me and DD came along. After that, I got bulletproof contraception in place.

Sometimes, it does come down to how you feel. It's certainly not logical!

I hated every minute of pregnancy and never wanted to go through it again.

Although every family is different, maybe something between 1 & 6 ?

I think I hit my capacity at 1 child, I’m not a natural mum, I love my DD but I don’t seem to have the feelings a lot of mums talk about on mumsnet. But I know 100% I would die for her. It caused me a lot of anxiety that I didn’t seem to feel this happiness other people talked about and I had PND for probably 3 years but I think it’s partly due to my own background, definitely not her, she’s a clever funny little thing.

This is exactly how I feel though my DC is only 18 months. I'd always imagined 2 and still feel sad sometimes this won't happen but then just need to remind myself of my own non existent sibling relationship to know it's not all its cracked up to be!

Me and my partner are separating soon so I'm hoping I meet with someone else with kids to build a family that way!

We're currently in a very similar should we/shouldn't we as we always thought we'd have 2 DC; I have 2 siblings, DH has 3.

We have a 13 month old and I honestly couldn't imagine not spending all our time with her. When we had her DH pretty much said he was 1 and done which really surprised me and I was really sad at the prospect of never being pregnant again (but we did have EMCS after a very straight forward pregnancy and DC had a rough first few months so think that coloured his view for a while).

About a week after her 1st birthday he announced he wanted another ASAP so something has switched in him whereas I'm more hesitant now - I think starting back at work is making me miss DC being a baby; with her being poorly I feel we didn't get to enjoy her being tiny and it just flies by doesn't it. I'd love another pregnancy and another baby, but then part of me is like do I actually want another baby or do I want to redo DC's baby time if that make sense?! Completely torn!

Thank you everyone so far for sharing all your experiences and stories!

I feel like I'm currently leaning for a second - (although (if DC2 is anything like DC1 - the first 2 years will be a slog) but equally we have such a good flow now too - I never expected this to be such a hard decision.

Im usually pretty quick to make big decisions (not knee-jerk decisions but something in my gut just knows) and I half expected this decision to be clear with how we'd feel but it's far from it.