Second child thoughts

[try1234]

My daughter is 18m old, she is happy and healthy. We live in London and my husband and I both full time and we both have high-flying careers. I love my job, I hated maternity leave. I think my daughter would love a sibling but I don't want to risk having a child that will make her life more difficult or monopolise our attention now or later in life.

I have a very complicated relationship with my sister, she has an undiagnosed genetic condition and learning difficulties and has always required my parents' support. She is also mean and manipulative and I hate that she tortures my mum and I can't say a thing about it (my mum always takes her side).

If I knew we would be a happy family of four I would go for it, but the risk seems too big now. My daughter is happy and healthy and developing normally (given my family history I always worried about this). Sometimes I think that If I knew I couldn't have more kids, I would feel relieved and try to give my daughter the happiest childhood and life possible with what we have. Does anyone else relate at all to what I'm saying or is this totally out of line?

How did you know having a second child or one and done was the right decision for your family?

We went for a second although we spent a long time thinking about it and ended up with a 4 year gap. That worked out well because, well realistically a newborn baby is definitely going to monopolise a parent's attention for at least a year or more! But by that age dc1 was independent and also in school so that gave me time to focus on dc2.

They get on great and on holidays and day trips it's a lovely dynamic to have a second dc there to get excited about it. I suppose families with onlies might bring along a friend but tbh that wouldn't suit me, I'd feel it was intruding into family time.

I wasn't bothered about my career and financially had enough investments to quit working to become a sahm. I think it would be definitely easier to maintain 2 careers with just one dc, and there are lots of onlies in my dc's prep school. You have to juggle so much with 2 dcs, especially if you want to give them lots of extracurriculars and support at home with music practice and homework.

If you hated maternity leave and despite presumably not needing to still work full time, then why would you want another child?

With a family history as you’ve described I wouldn’t risk it, no.