1 kid vs. 2 kids - how did you decide?

[Anonymous]

The baby/ toddler years are so tough, but so short. I encourage you to think about having two kids beyond the baby years and see if that changes things for you. My oldest is 6 and such an unbelievably easy child (but not an easy baby or toddler). He absolutely adores his little sister who is 2.

[Anonymous]

Obviously some disagreement here, but I'm an only child and knew basically forever that I would not want to raise an only child. I don't have any expectation that my kids will be best friends when they are older (we have two), and from watching my parents I completely realize that siblings may flake when the parents are ill, etc. Basically I get that there are no guarantees that they will be there for each other as adults, though it is nice that it's at least a possibility. But I really just wanted more than one kid because I honestly feel that growing up in a house with another child has made, and will continue to make their lives better.

Two has been completely manageable for us; we both work full time and they are 2 years apart, both in the latter half of elementary now and both with a lot of activities, travel sports, etc. There was never a time when I felt like it was too much or that either child's life would be better if we had more time or resources to devote to them.

[Anonymous]

We went from 1 to 3. Twins! Just so you consider this possibility. Not sure I would have had anymore after 1 if I considered that. We are never not exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Tell me more about:
-How you came to the conclusion to have a 2nd child - we both had siblings and we always knew we wanted 2; our first is very high energy and I knew 2 would be more work, but it was never a consideration to only have one child.

-In hindsight, are there moments when you wish you made a different decision? If so, what are those? - Our kids are 3 years apart and get along really well. They can keep each other company for hours. I would never wish for a different choice. The disadvantage is the increased costs, obviously, and it did put stress on our marriage after the second child was born.
-Looking back, what advice would you give to yourself? What do you wish you knew at that time? - I think maybe I would hire more help with housework or more childcare help.


If you recognize that you feel exhausted with one child, then maybe that’s the right number for you.

[Anonymous]

PLease, please PLEASE, no one, have more than one kid solely because you are worried about the future and having them take care of you/that they'll be best friends. The best thing you can do if your future is the concern, is to have advance directives in place.

I work as an ICU nurse, and from most cases I've seen, it's one sibling that picks up the majority of the slack for the parent's care. Very rarely do all siblings share the load equally. It was the same for my sister and I when our father passed when we were in our early 20s, and we had a lot of resentment for each other for many years bc of it.

[Anonymous]

We didn't want a change in lifestyle/experiences. Sure, we could afford 2, but that would mean not enjoying restaurants, no international trips, etc. We love our family of 3. I'd rather us give her all the experiences we can, than for two kids to do less. I'll be honest, when I see a parent at the park/wherever lugging around 2+ kids, that would just make me feel miserable to get that many kids out the door and just absolutely zero time for me to look halfway decent. Not for me. I felt guilty about it first, but I've accepted it.

And it's "easy." She travels so well and is go-with-the-flow. I love it!

[Anonymous]

Stopped at 1. Zero regrets. Like others here have said it was a conscious decision about the life you want to create and live. One is one and two is a zoo. I know for certain our lives would have been different. No expat assignment, domestic instead of international trips, stretched finances, probably different career choices altogether. My DH went from sales engineering to being a math teacher which was a six figure drop in income and could not have been done with two daycare bills, two catholic school tuitions etc. I find it really happy and relatively calm to be a family of 3, travel is super easy, and we always fit in one row on a plane.

[Anonymous]

Don’t have a kid due to social pressure. Enjoy your family!

[Anonymous]

We went back and forth for months in the decision. So we decided to just pull the goalie a few months ago and leave it up to fate. We agreed to make peace with the possibility of various outcomes. It’s nice to just enjoy our family and see if we get pregnant again and not have to agonize. It’s just a roll of the dice, frankly. I’m not tracking ovulation or anything like that this time around. Que sera sera. I’m very Type A with everything else but the back and forth was killing me. So now, we will see. I’m 37 so the window will park close soon anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PLease, please PLEASE, no one, have more than one kid solely because you are worried about the future and having them take care of you/that they'll be best friends. The best thing you can do if your future is the concern, is to have advance directives in place.

I work as an ICU nurse, and from most cases I've seen, it's one sibling that picks up the majority of the slack for the parent's care. Very rarely do all siblings share the load equally. It was the same for my sister and I when our father passed when we were in our early 20s, and we had a lot of resentment for each other for many years bc of it.

Yep.

Youngest of three siblings here. I do most of the work and honestly my siblings just make things more difficult for me by expressing opinions but not helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were ambivalent about it. I have loved every moment of being a mom, but really did not want to go through the baby years again and sleepless nights. There are also specific health risks for me with another pregnancy.

At the same time I knew we would never regret another child and would love having them in our lives in future years, and this would be priceless.

We would have loved a sibling for our child though at the same time recognize some siblings are not close.

Finances would have been tighter but we could have afforded it, and would have just made the 12 weeks paid parental leave for federal employees, for each of us. We didn't have that with our first

I got pregnant, and DH had a scary health problem which fortunately was ok in the end. I had an early miscarriage in the midst of that and felt relieved, esp as pregnancy carries some risks for me and one/both of us needs to be there for our child we already have. At mid-40s and late 30s for me, we just felt done like our family is complete. We have family and friends in areas of the country where a couple our age has kids old enough to be out of the home already as a grown adult, these are people who stayed in the hometown didn't move to DC.

I love our family the way it is and being able to focus all our time, energy, and resources on our one child. I like the older kid years much better than the baby years, as cute as babies are. It is the right decision for us.

Same outcome, similar story. We thought and thought and pro’d and con’d and ultimately decided to try for a second. For the record, I don’t buy any of the arguments about having a kid so that your first kid can have a sibling. I think that’s really flawed logic, and as a second child in my own family, I sincerely hope my parents didn’t have me to entertain my sibling, or so that my sibling could benefit from the “social” experience of my existence. There is plenty of research out there about how siblings do not offer the benefits (social, emotional, etc) to each other that we as a society believe they do. So when we were thinking about the idea of a second child, I thought and still do, that the only GOOD reason to have a second (or third, or fourth) child is because you and your partner really want to raise another child. Full stop. Using the aforementioned reasoning and after a long period of pro/con-ing, we decided to try for a second child.

Anyway, I got pregnant immediately, which was not the case the first time around and was somewhat unexpected. Like PP, I had a miscarriage. After the miscarriage...although we both felt sad, we also felt deeply relieved. It made us realize that we had been “bracing” for another child. That we had planned to “endure” the short term squeeze of a baby—an experience that was incredibly difficult for us with our first child—for some long term benefit that we imagined (more adult children at the holiday dinner table?) but that may not even come to fruition, or that may not actually be that important to us. So the answer came out of the relief. We figured we’d re-visit the conversation regularly and if we changed our minds, so be it. We haven’t changed our minds. Kid is younger elementary.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you’re leaning towards sticking with one.

I have 2 and they are 2 years apart. I wanted a big family and DH was adamant about having 2... and was open to 3. Our first was a super challenging baby but once we got him sleeping, number 2 was a no brainer for us.
I would have had more but DH was firmly done at 2. I am so glad I have 2... I cannot imagine my life without my second child (and of course my first too)- both my children are the light of my lives and just very glad we went for 2. In a perfect world I would have had one more.

[Anonymous]

I didn't have a fixed idea of how big our family should be, and I had a rough pregnancy and rougher delivery and DS1 was a high-need baby and toddler, so for a long time I didn't even think about having another. But when DS1 was around 4, I finally felt like I was coming up for air. I was 36 and knew it was time to act if we were going to. DH was fine either way, but I felt like our life was a little lonely. I grew up with just one sibling but lots of extended family around. But DH and I lived far from our families and I hated Idea that DS1 didn't really have family around him--no sibling, no cousins, aunts and uncles that he knew well. I just wanted more people around I guess. So we had DS2 when DS1 was 5.5.

Honestly, I've never had one regret. In fact, I was so happy after DS2 was born that I toyed with the idea of having a 3rd. But that would have been a real financial stretch for us, and DH not particularly excited anout the idea, so we stuck with 2.

My kids have always gotten along great in spite of their age gap, and I actually really like this gap. It's worked well for us.

[Anonymous]

We have an only. She's 8 and we are 41 / 43. Overall it was the right decision. I had a little baby fever at 39 and we did TTC for a while but I had 3 miscarriages and we decided to let it go rather than pursue interventions. I like babies but I didn't want a second that badly.

I always expected that parenting would be difficult for us, given our personalities, and so the plan was always zero or one. It turns out that I love parenting and would probably be a happy SAHM to multiple kids, but I didn't want to take that on while also being the breadwinner with a long commute. Everything was too hard already, DD was an intense baby/toddler, I had PPA, I never lost the baby weight, etc.

Parenting also revealed a lot of weaknesses in our marriage, and frankly DH needed to grow up quite a bit. We are in a good place now but it took years, and counseling, to get here.

Things are really good now. Once DD got to about six, the intensity receded. Her learning to read was a game changer, in terms of being able to accomplish things during her waking hours. We just got back from a vacation 5 hours away by car, which we would not have attempted when she was little. Because she's an only we could afford to move her to private school for covid and we can consider keeping her there if we want.

DD would be a great big sister, but she's also benefited from being the focus of a lot of attention and resources. And she wants to be a mom some day, which I never did because I always heard how draining and hard it is: I'm glad I have the bandwidth to give her a different impression.

[Anonymous]

I actually wanted more than 2 so I settled with two because I knew it would be hard financially and energy wise and it just seems hard with more than two in the city. I grew up as one of 5 so at least one sibling was really important to me and I never really considered just one.