To have a second? Advice and opinions please

[Sammie1990]

Hi all,

I currently have a 5 month old DS. I love being his Mum and absolutely adore him. However I am not one of those women who always dreamed about having kids and a big family. I was more focused on work and having fun to be honest hence I am a slightly older parent (35)

I am only child and grew up on a single parent family just me and my Mum. My Mum received no support from my ‘Dad’ (we laugh that he’s actually just more of a sperm donor’) and therefore my Mum worked all the hours under the sun. This meant that I was very often around other children at a couple of different babysitters. I also have a lot of cousins as my Mum has 6 siblings so I was never short of other children to play with.

However my DS won’t have this experience, as I am an only child he won’t have any cousins on my side. My DH has a brother who had 3 sons but they are already teenagers so by the time my DS grows up they will be grown men. Ultimately he isn’t going to have any children in the family that are his age.

im interested to know peoples experiences of going from 1 to 2 children. Some people say it’s great and I actually know others who said they wish they stuck with one because of how much harder it is. My only desire for another child is to give him a sibling and my DH agrees. Neither of us have a great yearning for another and I don’t particularly want to go through pregnancy again. However I’m not sure if I’ll regret it in the future….any parents of 2..how is it? X

The bit at the end struck me the most: ‘Neither of us have a great yearning for another’ and the thing that most hit me was ‘I don’t particularly want to go through pregnancy again’.

Stick with the one you love. He will be totally happy and well-adjusted as an only child, I promise.

I have DD 3 and DS 6 months. I love being a mum of two and my kids adore each other but I've always known I want two.
I'm also an only child and wasn't around loads of kids growing up but I loved it and didn't want any siblings.
It sounds like you're all happy as you are so I think stick at one and enjoy being a family of 3.

Give it time and see how you feel in a few years. You're in the thick of it now. But I wouldn't have a child just to give a child a sibling.

I was an only child. I don't for one second wish my parents had a second. I don't feel like I've missed out and frankly, they were dysfunctional enough just trying to raise one! It would not have improved my life to have a brother or sister.

Beyond the toddler years, children's primary socialisation with other children is with friends, not necessarily siblings. They don't need a sibling to give them someone to play with and frankly, lots of children don't get a long with their siblings as children. My two, I love them both dearly, but they fight like cats and dogs. I had two because I wanted to be the parent of two children, not for each other. And both of them often say that they wish they were an only child! 😂Unless you have two very close together, they will have different friend groups, different interests, etc.

Have a second child if you decide you want a second child, but I wouldn't focus on having one to create a sibling. That said, even though I always wanted 2 children, there is no way in hell I could have wrapped my head around having another at 5 months. Give it a few years and re-visit the decision once your child is a bit more independent and you have more of a grasp on what parenting a child (rather than a baby) will be like, the costs, etc. Then you can make an informed decision for all of you.

All that being said, I'm very happy having 2 children. I struggled a lot with my first and the second was actually very healing for me. They're very different in a lot of ways, but they both bring a lot of joy to my life. It was also much easier to go from 1 to 2 than from none to 1. I had my second at 37.