Will I regret not having a third?

[Anonymous]

anyone that is an anxious person, feels overwhelmed, etc should absolutely not have a third kid. It just adds more anxiety, chaos and mental load.

I have three kids, and I regret it. Don't get me wrong, I love my third with my whole heart, but I don't think it was a smart decision or fair to my other two. We are UMC too, and while we are doing ok, our childcare bills are absolutely nuts. If we hadn't restarted the clock on another round of daycare, our 529s and 401ks would be significantly healthier, we would be able to go on vacations etc.

[Anonymous]

We had two under two and didn't feel overwhelmed at all. We decided to have a third. We're a year into that and it's been amazing, but also overwhelming. It's so much harder with 3. If you're feeling like 2 is a lot to handle, I would stop there!

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind you are in peak baby fever time.

I’m an Only and my entire life wanted only 1 kid. Then we had infertility for 5 years. Finally had my one baby. And DH and I knew that our age, emotional bandwidth, and finances could only support 1 kid.

From about 1-2.5, I had the worst baby fever. Like every cell in my body was telling me “I NEED ANOTHER BABY!!” And we had 1 more embryo. The only thing keeping me from having another was that I knew 100% that one was perfect for us.
But if you are on the fence, and not sure, then the baby fever hormones will push you towards another child.

Yes, you might regret not having another. But I think that is preferable to having another and regretting it. Every path we take, means there are other paths we didn’t. And it’s really easy to fantasize about paths not taken.

If you are at your limit now, with a nanny, what happens if you have a 3rd with special needs? Or financial you can no longer afford a nanny? Or heaven forbid, something happens to DH and you have to raise them alone?

[Anonymous]

Yesterday someone told me in confidence they regret having the third because it has made life so much harder in various ways, of course financial being one of them. I think you’ll get a wide variation of responses and it’s really just an individual thing at the end of the day. I think it’s good to ask this kind of question on an anonymous forum because you’ll get overall honest answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind you are in peak baby fever time.

I’m an Only and my entire life wanted only 1 kid. Then we had infertility for 5 years. Finally had my one baby. And DH and I knew that our age, emotional bandwidth, and finances could only support 1 kid.

From about 1-2.5, I had the worst baby fever. Like every cell in my body was telling me “I NEED ANOTHER BABY!!” And we had 1 more embryo. The only thing keeping me from having another was that I knew 100% that one was perfect for us.
But if you are on the fence, and not sure, then the baby fever hormones will push you towards another child.

Yes, you might regret not having another. But I think that is preferable to having another and regretting it. Every path we take, means there are other paths we didn’t. And it’s really easy to fantasize about paths not taken.

If you are at your limit now, with a nanny, what happens if you have a 3rd with special needs? Or financial you can no longer afford a nanny? Or heaven forbid, something happens to DH and you have to raise them alone?

This. And sorry to be a downer but a lot of the divorces in my friend and family circles are couples with 3+. Even the observant Catholics.

[Anonymous]

I have a big gap between #2 and #3, purposely. And then had 4 soon after 3. But the difference is that I was not at all overwhelmed. So it was right for us. It doesn't sound like 3 would be right for you.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was in your shoes a few years ago when mine were 1 and 4 and I’m really happy we stopped at two. I really wanted a third but felt overwhelmed when my kids were those ages. We decided to revisit when the oldest was around kindergarten age. Then, the pandemic happened, we had no childcare, my oldest was going to virtual kindergarten, and we were even more completely overwhelmed than before. We had to say no more kids at that point. We never did have the third but I still felt that pang or sense of failure you’re talking about when I saw families with three or more kids for while.

Now, my youngest is 5.5 and I’m so happy we stopped at two kids. We are in a great place most of the time right now, and I feel certain I don’t have the emotional bandwidth or executive functioning skills I would have needed to give an additional kid what he/she needed - I’m at my max right now. PPs are right that older kids are exhausting in different ways than younger.

[Anonymous]

A list of stuff that is MUCH harder with three kids versus two:

- Travel
- Balancing activities once they are a bit older
- Saving for college
- Managing a significant issue with one or more kids, whether a learning disorder, a disorder like ADHD, a physical health concern, etc.
- Housing

There are others but those are the big ones. That doesn't mean having kids is bad, but this stuff is all harder, sometimes exponentially so. Don't think about what it will be like to have 3 kids under the age of 6 or 7. It seems like that's the hard part -- it's not. Think about what it will be like to have a kid in middle school and two in elementary, or one kid that is on a travel soccer team and and other that needs occupational therapy twice a week. Think about what happens if you decide you want to do private school. Do you already live in a 4-5 bedroom house? If not, get ready for real debates about who shares with who and why, and also having your options limited in searching for a new house. And yeah, family vacations are going to be a little fun but mostly exhausting for the next 10 years, at least. Plus of course three college educations. Do you want to help kids with down payments, graduate school, starting a business? Unless you are truly wealthy, probably not anymore. And so on.

Three kids is so hard.

[Anonymous]

I have 2 small ones, with pangs for having 3, yet also am overwhelmed by my 2 and have what-if thoughts about if we had stuck with 1. But at a rational level, I am not seriously considering anymore children and have taken steps to prevent that accordingly, but the longing and feelings that I will regret it is there. One takeaway from the responses here are that it's totally normal to want more children, even if you don't actually have more, and maybe a bit of sadness about family size will linger. But, there are lots of regrets in life about paths not taken, and day to day we can end up okay and happy even if wistful.

[Anonymous]

My second out of four has special needs.

[Anonymous]

You won’t regret stopping at two. Three is a lot harder, says my friend with four. I also remember a study showing 3 is the hardest number. Even harder than four.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you currently have a nanny and still don't have enough bandwidth to handle kids and logistics of family life, do not have a 3rd child. Will you occasionally regret it? Probably, but let's be real, OP. You cannot handle having a 3rd.

This was exactly my thought- having a nanny rather than daycare should (in theory at least) make the mental load/logistics stuff a LOT easier. It doesn't mean that having kids is ever easy, but if things still feel incredibly overwhelming with a nanny in the home, I would not continue on and have a third, at least for now.

I had our third child this summer and recently went back to work. My oldest is in kindergarten and my two younger kids are at daycare. By far, the toughest part has been managing packing the daycare bags/lunches/all the things for the next day and being very tired while doing it. If I had a nanny in my home, I wouldn't have to do most of the prep, the commute, daycare sick days, etc. Just a suggestion- are there tasks that the nanny could complete that could lessen your load? As long as it is discussed, many nannies are at least willing to take care of tasks related to the kids- laundry, tidying toys at the end of the day, washing bottles, and so on. Even if you don't have a third, I would think that through and sort it out. Also, what is your husband's role in all of this? Are there things he could be taking on as well, or is he already sharing the load with you?

[Anonymous]

There's no way I wanted to go through a third pregnancy. I think my husband wanted more and I said we could do it if we adopted. We stuck at two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. I was on the fence, now my kids are teens. I can't imagine going through the teen years one more time. I just cannot. You have to look beyond the sweet baby years to the tough parts and the expensive parts.

THIS. And I have “good” kids without major issues and still feel this way. To parent teens correctly requires a lot of emotional support. Many parents become super hands off in the teen years though and things start to go sideways.

[Anonymous]

I always wanted 3. Once I was in that window of opportunity, my life had changed so much that having a 3rd didn't make sense. I was worried I would regret not having another. But now at ages 9 and 12 absofrigginlutely no regrets. My 9 yo is very, very difficult with some mental health stuff to manage. At these ages there's a lot that should be getting easier and if I also had a 6 or 7 year old in the mix? I don't think I could handle it. And financially, these buggers are expensive. I don't want another 529 to fund, more camp to pay for, more holiday gifts to figure out, birthday parties to plan....I like the level of attention and money I can afford with 2, but 3 would be far more difficult.