Give it to me straight - how much is my life going to be a sh$t show now that we have 3 kids?

[Anonymous]

I am weeks away from having my 3rd. First two are 3 and almost 5 years old. Give it to me straight - are the next few years going to be a complete clusterf&ck and insane? Thankfully older two are reliable sleepers (12ish hours a day) and are potty trained. But when they are awake (they don't nap at home but do at daycare) its exhausting and insane. They play pretty well together but of course fight like normal siblings and want parents attention.

I have been pretty calm throughout this pregnancy but now that the end is getting closer I am getting majorly freaked out. None of our friends have 3 kids. Most of our friends are just starting to have kids. Nobody will be having 3 so I have nobody to talk to about this! Help!

[Anonymous]

Ah...the third is easy. Friend of mine joke once "like adding a gerbil". You've already learned how to deal with a baby, you've already learned how to juggle. The third baby - barring unforseen circumstances - is usually pretty easy. There will always be new challenges - but no - I didn't find it that hard at all. Mine are close together...3 under 3 and it wasn't that bad. You are already doing it - just adding one more!

[Anonymous]

If you survived having an infant and a toddler/terrible two at the same time when your second was born, you'll be okay.

[Anonymous]

I have a bigger gap between my second and third. I found adding a third to non napping who go to school a heck of a lot easier than having 2 kids exactly 2 years apart. Having both an infant and toddler were brutal.

[Anonymous]

I think the first two posters must have really easy kids. I didn't find the transition to three that difficult, but having three is a whole different ball of wax than having two. Our youngest is nearly four, and things are MUCH easier the older he gets. Yeah, I know there will be a lot of logistics as they get older, but that's manageable.

A few things helped us get through the first few years with three (my older ones were 4.5 and 2.5 when baby was born) :
-Containment when you're out. Playgrounds with fences, smaller indoor spaces, that kind of thing. Don't take them all to Udvar-Hazy or something. Start small
-Involving the older two in helping as much as possible, and then praise them out the wazoo when they do
-Acknowledge the change and don't BS them into thinking it's NBD. Of course it is. It's manageable, sure, but it's also another person in their lives, and that is a big deal
-Set aside time for the older two, together and individually. Keep that up.

Good luck and enjoy! I *love* having three, even though I find it much harder than having two. The payoff is so incredibly worth it.

[Anonymous]

We had the same age split. It's hard, but not difficult: That is, there's more of everything, but you generally have it down and know what to do. And your kids are way better sleepers than ours were.

I saw a neighbor carrying her newborn at the park, with her 2 and 5 year olds playing nearby, as she chased another toddler she was watching for a few minutes. I asked her: Remember when you thought one was hard?

And I think younger kids are more relaxed because parents are.

[Anonymous]

Same age gap here and it was easier to add the third than the second.

You got this!

[Anonymous]

I found three really hard and four much easier.

[Anonymous]

Key for us was to have older 2 have quiet time/nap time when baby was sleeping in the afternoon. They don't nap anymore, so they watch a movie on the weekend days when they arne't at school. We need that 1.5-2 hours of peace and quiet. Everyone has early bedtimes - baby (who is 2.5) goes down between 630 and 7, and the older two are in bed by 7:30. This also helps sanity. My husband often handles the older 2 and I handle the baby. A division of labor is also a sanity-saver. Finally, I love having 3. It is really a lot of fun.

[Anonymous]

I actually found the first year with the third was not so hard -- my harder year came after the third was mobile. But, by then your oldest will be six and really doing his own thing a lot. You will make it!!

[Anonymous]

It’s hard. We hired a great nanny for the baby which definitely helped. She did pick up for the older kids, took them to play dates and lessons. And did all the kids laundry as well as ordering/grocery shopping. To never run out of milk or lunch food and have birthday party gifts purchased and wrapped before the weekend was utterly fantastic.

Drop off to daycares and school in the dead of winter with three was too much for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found three really hard and four much easier.

Me too. Not sure if that’s because of personality (#4 is easygoing and #3 is not), or just that I adjusted to the chaos.

That said, I found the adjustment from 2 to 3 much easier than from 1 to 2. You know how to do the baby stuff. For me the hardest part was finding enough time to be with the older ones when I just wanted to snuggle the baby.

[Anonymous]

The earliest years were actually quite a breeze, with the transition to two kids harder than adding the third at least mentally.

I too found the challenging period to be when the third became mobile up to around age 3. The older kids were starting to do sports, needing more help with homework and staying up later, yet the youngest dropped his nap and started tantruming, etc.

Now my youngest is six and I'm really enjoying this phase. The kids are all fairly independent, they have their unique interests and activities, we can active and engaging things as a family like see movies together (not baby movies but more entertaining ones!) and family bingo/game nights, and we can travel internationally with carryon luggage and easier transitions to time zones, etc. It's really a lot of fun - definitely busy but fun.

[Anonymous]

My 3 are at the same age split as what you'll have and my third is now just 18 months old. The first year craziness got real, as others have mentioned, when my littlest became mobile. Relatively minor logistics that I didn't think about such as how to navigate a solo grocery shopping trip with all 3 were things that I had to figure out along the way (when all three want to sit in the 2-kid race car shopping cart, LOL). You're definitely outnumbered, but it just means that you have to be that much more prepared and organized to get through some things.

There will definitely be some moments where you're pulling your hair out and "feel" every bit outumbered. However, as I watch mine interact and start to develop their own relationships amongst each other, I wouldn't have it any other way. My 18 month old is starting to say her siblings' names, looks for them to play with her, and gets genuinely excited when they get home from school. My older ones have learned a lot about patience, sharing, and being gentle with littler ones. Its been an awesome experience all around.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to inform you Ms. You are f-ed.