What are the bad parts about having three kids?

[Anonymous]

Can people post any negatives/downsides/bad experiences of having a third baby, or having three kids in general?

My practical brain wants to stop at two, but my emotional side wants a third. I am really struggling with this decision and feel like some tough love about the realities of three will help!

[Anonymous]

Just do a search on this forum! It’s constant pro/con of having a 3rd

[Anonymous]

I have three, 11, 9, and 6, girl, boy, boy, respectively. I love having three. Of course there are downsides, including:

-More expensive
-More between-kid relationships to manage, often in flux
-Hard for a solo parent to manage, e.g., if one parent travels for work or goes away for a weekend
-Often, at least one of them isn’t happy about something
-Often, at least one of them wants my attention
-Harder to find babysitters for three
-Travel is harder (we just got back from a short trip away; five people in one hotel room really blows)
-Bigger cars aren’t necessary, but really come in handy
-Depending on the spacing of the kids, there’s either a lot of divide and conquer or the youngest gets schlepped around
-If both parents work, and even if they don’t, there’s much less bandwidth

I mean, I still love having three and would do it again in a heartbeat. But DH and I were never on the fence about three, nor did we ever feel overwhelmed when we had just two (or one).

[Anonymous]

^^oh, and of course, the activities as they get older. We work hard to manage that, but if you’re a parent who wants to put your kid in all the things or has a hard time telling your kid no, your schedule can get packed real fast

[Anonymous]

As one of three closely spaced kids, I can tell you that my experience as one of three was the reason I stopped at two myself. With three, two kids are ALWAYS fighting. Traveling is a pain-when I was a kid, us three kids either had to share one bed, or one of us (usually me) slept on the floor. Hotels are made for four. It’s much harder to get a table at a crowded restaurant for 5 because you need a table for 6. Three kids do not fit comfortably in the backseat of a standard sedan (speaking from personal experience).

Maybe if you had two, and then a third once the older two are out of car seats, it wouldn’t be so bad. But DH is the youngest of three by 9 years and that sucked in a different way.

[Anonymous]

- so hard to find someone that can watch all 3 (for us grands could handle 1 or maybe 2 but def not 3)

- so hard to get 1:1 time

- so little time spent playing and having fun with them versus managing them and getting needs met

parenting is just way less fun than it used to be and its so much harder to get a break from it

now that i have 3, i'd never give one up (i'm sure i'd say that at any number) but if i was reincarnated for a new life with new potential kids, i'd only have 2

[Anonymous]

The sibling dynamics between three can be challenging. I have two teens and a late elementary kid so I’ve seen the changes over time. I tend to find that it’s usually been the case that two are closer to each other than they are to the third, and it changes who pairs up with whom. When they were younger, the two boys were closest but when one boy reached teen age, the oldest (girl) and youngest boy became closer and left out the middle. Managing the emotional ups and downs of this as a parent can be hard.

[Anonymous]

The work is exponential.

I was really hard being pregnant and having a newborn. My older two are 2 years apart and so my oldest wasn't super mobile when my middle child was born. When the 3rd was born they were 5 and 3 and were all over the place. They had activities, loved being outside bike riding, at the pool, on and on. It was hard being pregnant and also breastfeeding trying to keep up with them. I was also tired in the evenings and didn't like that I was taking away from them.

Taxis are hard.

Regarding fighting- I actually think 3 is easier. When two of them are having a disagreement, they go and hang out with the 3rd instead. I also like seeing their relationships a lot: two oldest, two youngest, oldest and baby, all 3 together. I only had one sibling and there was only one relationship, her and me.

[Anonymous]

I have three and wish we'd had a fourth.

I read these responses of the cons, and I just think so many of them are bullshit. To address the objective, practical ones...we've sometimes brought an air mattress to hotel rooms if we thought they couldn't bring a cot. More often, though, we'll have a "suite" with two queens and a pullout couch.

Yeah, we have a minivan. But once they're all out of car seats, we can also squeeze into our standard, five-passenger vehicle when necessary or convenient.

The relationship issues among them have only been beneficial. My oldest has anxiety, and that's been challenging for all of us at times, but having two siblings makes it better for everyone, not worse.

Parenting has been fun, overall.

[Anonymous]

I stopped working at third and can’t seem to transition back. Granted I don’t want to go back.

I can’t imagine our family without our third. We had two boys before we had our daughter. She completes our family and we absolutely adore her.

We can’t fit in a normal hotel room. We always get a suite and a suite is almost more than two regular rooms. Even a one bedroom suite doesn’t work for us because my older kids don’t want to share a sofa bed.

This may be a negative or positive but she will be here after the older two are off to college.

We have constant conflicts, like always.

[Anonymous]

My two brothers and I were all born within three years and the upside is we were very close growing up. The downside from my mother's point of view was when we were little she only had two hands and it was a trial going anywhere with us. We were a bit exuberant to say the least as well so corralling all of us was a major job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have three and wish we'd had a fourth.

I read these responses of the cons, and I just think so many of them are bullshit. To address the objective, practical ones...we've sometimes brought an air mattress to hotel rooms if we thought they couldn't bring a cot. More often, though, we'll have a "suite" with two queens and a pullout couch.

Yeah, we have a minivan. But once they're all out of car seats, we can also squeeze into our standard, five-passenger vehicle when necessary or convenient.

The relationship issues among them have only been beneficial. My oldest has anxiety, and that's been challenging for all of us at times, but having two siblings makes it better for everyone, not worse.

Parenting has been fun, overall.

I’m 14:50 and agree that overall, parenting is fun. It’s also work. Your response implies that money isn’t a concern for your family - which is great - but it’s also not true for most of us. Things like childcare, college savings, car purchases, etc., can and do add up.

Also, if you’re the kind of person who easily dismisses financial concerns as “bullshit” and states that the relationship dynamics of three “have only been beneficial,” you’re likely missing some details. Overall, I think the dynamics of three have been preferable for our kids, but I don’t know that for a fact. Refusing to acknowledge any trade-offs of the decision to have three kids vs. two makes your judgment sus, as my kids would say.

[Anonymous]

Two hands

[Anonymous]

For me it is all about the money. We have a nice lifestyle with private school, nanny, nice house, nice vacations with business class travel, accounts well seeded for their education, wedding, inheritance. That wouldn’t necessarily all go away with three, but we would certainly have more money concerns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have three and wish we'd had a fourth.

I read these responses of the cons, and I just think so many of them are bullshit. To address the objective, practical ones...we've sometimes brought an air mattress to hotel rooms if we thought they couldn't bring a cot. More often, though, we'll have a "suite" with two queens and a pullout couch.

Yeah, we have a minivan. But once they're all out of car seats, we can also squeeze into our standard, five-passenger vehicle when necessary or convenient.

The relationship issues among them have only been beneficial. My oldest has anxiety, and that's been challenging for all of us at times, but having two siblings makes it better for everyone, not worse.

Parenting has been fun, overall.

I’m 14:50 and agree that overall, parenting is fun. It’s also work. Your response implies that money isn’t a concern for your family - which is great - but it’s also not true for most of us. Things like childcare, college savings, car purchases, etc., can and do add up.

Also, if you’re the kind of person who easily dismisses financial concerns as “bullshit” and states that the relationship dynamics of three “have only been beneficial,” you’re likely missing some details. Overall, I think the dynamics of three have been preferable for our kids, but I don’t know that for a fact. Refusing to acknowledge any trade-offs of the decision to have three kids vs. two makes your judgment sus, as my kids would say.

Lol. These responses always make me laugh. It’s like saying “the trade-off of having a mansion in Chevy Chase vs a shack in Silver Spring is that you have less money.” Uh yeah…no s*** sherlock. People choose to invest in what they want.