Anyone ever have second thoughts?

[Navywife620]

I've ordered the plan, started the diet and had a set time to start trying in November. Now I'm having second thoughts about it all. I'm starting to think maybe 3 is a good number for us and I should be content with what I have. 4 will change a lot of the dynamic in the house. Such as rooms and stuff. We will no longer have a spare room. I don't know what I want anymore. Has anyone experienced this? How did you decide what to do?

[Serenity]

Hi Navywife,

I have second thoughts sometimes, and we only have two boys so far. In our case, I'm mostly worried about the amount of resources we have: not as much financially, because I think we will be OK as far as that goes, but more like how much energy, time, and attention we have to invest in each child.

I grew up in a family of four kids, and although I loved my siblings very much, I always felt that my parents were spread pretty thin in terms of attention to each child. I definitely did not get as much attention and time from my parents as I would have liked. The upside was that big family feeling that I miss - like every day is a party and there's always lots of people to hang out with. :happy:

I always told myself that I wouldn't have as many kids as my parents did, so I could really invest in each of my children the way they needed and deserved. I only wanted one or two children, three as an absolute maximum. Well, now I have two boys, and no guarantee that the next child might not be another boy, too. I understand that my wish for a daughter is valid and important, but I'm worried about the impact of this on the children I already have - will I just keep having child after child until I finally have a girl? What impact would that have on my wonderful boys? Why is my dream more important than their well being (answer: it's not). I especially worry about my oldest, who has special needs (ADHD), and really needs me to be a strong and present advocate for him at school.

I sometimes think that my husband is right, and that we should quit having children now, before we get into a situation that will be great in its own way, but that I personally never wanted to be in. And then I think: but having a big family is fun! For everyone! It's hard to know what's best. :confused:

[Georgia_Peach]

I am the same. I've heard lots of people say they are done having kids and that when you are done you just know. I never felt that with my third child... even though I was super thrilled to have my daughter. I just always wanted a larger family abd my lucky number has always been 4. I like the idea of the "older kids" and "younger ones which is what it would be in our case.
However having said that I do too question why I want one more. My family right now is perfect. We sometimes feel overwelmed with the 3 we have! Lol
I love babies. I like having a baby in the house. Is it me that's being selfish in wanting one more? Will the other kids have a compromised life due to having so many siblings? How do we afford university for 4 kids? So many questions go through my mind daily.
I'm not sure if you ever really know what's right or wrong or best for your family. So many factors come into the decision. I am just going with what's in my heart. .I just know I am not done. I know I'd regret ignoring that yerning for my last baby if I didn't go for it.
😊

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[DesiG]

Yes, I have so many times now, I really want a son so bad it's always been a dream of mine that just wont go away. We already have four girls, but I have always wanted a big family. I have changed my mind so many times now, but hubby just wants me to give it one more try for a son. Sometimes I think to myself what if I hear it's a girl again, could I handle that? And to be 100 percent honest I'm not sure, what will family think when they find out we are trying for another? At one point I was ready to just give up my dream of ever having a son, but after taking to hubby we have both decided it is very much worth one more try, and of course we will love and adore what ever we are blessed with, but I do hope and pray that are sway works out the way we planned it to.

[familymatters]

I have second thoughts constantly. Particularly when the 3 I have are giving me grief. I don't really want 4 children, but I'd really like one more girl. Which worries me because we have every chance of having another boy and then where would that leave me? 3 kids is a lot, would 4 just be too much? But then I think well I'll have two in school by the time the 4th arrived, life will get easier and easier the older they get....

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[Navywife620]

Well I am kind of glad I am not not the only one. It totally stinks that I just can't make up my mind. I still have no idea what I am going to do. I think I am just going to continue on the diet. Once november/december hits hopefully I will have made up my mind. I wish this was easier!

[atomic sagebrush]

As an only child (till my parents divorced, remarried, and had children when I was much much older) I will say that the opposite is true too - I felt that my parents were TOO focused on me and had too much time, energy, interest, and self-esteem riding on "how I turned out". It was a terrible amount of pressure and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

I think that the grass is always greener and while someone from a family of 4,5,6 may think "oh my parents never had enough time for me" there are also tons of benefits to having siblings and to have less parental attention. I'm not sure kids need as much parenting as we have been told by the "experts" and some parents (at least, MY parents LOL) actually cause long lasting harm by having in essence too much time and energy to expend worrying about every tiny detail in a child's life. :/

[charlie2016]

I feel the same as familymatters, I really would love another girl but thinking about having 4 children scares me a bit. I always wanted three, but then when the third came along after a while I thought why not. Now that my third is almost 1 year old, I feel like okay it is time to try soon. I wake up on some days and think yes! let's go for it and then on some others no, I can't go through all the steepness nights again and everything that comes with it again. We are fine now.
But then do I regret it later as things usually get easier after a year ... ? and what if it is a boy (which it probably will be even though I am trying the girl swaying :o) ... but then am working on this and am getting more used to the thought as I don't want to be too disappointed if it turns out the other way.

[Serenity]

Thank you very much for that perspective, Atomic. It's one I've never really considered (probably just because of how I grew up).

What I think is that life isn't perfect, and neither is any family. You can't totally control how your kids experience their childhood, and even if you make it as "perfect" as possible, there's no guarantee that that's how they will view it anyways.

So if I had had one girl and one boy, many would consider that to be the "perfect" family, but maybe my daughter would always secretly be sad that she didn't have a sister, or maybe my son would always be sad that he didn't have a brother. With the family I've got right now (2 boys), the boys will probably always feel OK about that family makeup, but if we leave it this way I'll probably always be sad that I didn't have a daughter, and that will have some kind of impact on them, too. If I do happen to have a girl next, she still won't have a sister, and then say I went ahead and had another child and gave her a sister - well, then now I have four kids, and maybe someone feels later that they didn't get enough of my time or attention. My parents used to tell me that because of my sensitive personality, I should have been an only child, but then I might have ended up feeling like Atomic did.

It seems to me that there is actually no "perfect" family. I don't know anyone (who's being honest and also not fooling themselves) who can say that their parents were perfect, or their childhood was perfect. Maybe we just have to do our best as parents, love our kids, and make choices based on what we feel is best for everyone, as far as we can see in the moment.

For me right now, I can see upsides and downsides of either choice I make next: either my boys have to split our resources (time, money, energy, attention) another way, or they have to deal with my ongoing grief over never having a daughter. Or potentially both, if it turns out that I have another boy...that's not a very comforting thought, although I know all of us would love another boy very much as well.

I do know that for me, three kids will probably be my limit either way, because of my previous experience. Take my opinion with an (iodized :p) grain of salt, however: my parents had many problems that had nothing to do with family size, and my own childhood probably would not have been made much better by having fewer siblings. What you're hearing in my posts on this thread is my rather pathetic attempt to control the uncontrollable - I had such a terrible childhood and want very much for my own kids to have a positive experience.

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes exactly and the grass is greener for me too, of course - I very well could have hated growing up in a big family too and just like Serenity says, they had their own personal issues as well. :agree:

EVery situation has its benefits and downsides and sometimes I think we focus too much on the idea that there is some "perfect" idea when things are done "right". I guess my point is simply that because we're sold a bill of goods in 2016 that the "right" way to do things is to have lots of one on one individualized time per child that doesn't necessarily mean it it the case or the necessary way to do things. I could have done with a little less of that haha. I just hate to see people think that if they have more kids than the norm, that it meant they are somehow letting their kids down or harming them when really there are no right or wrongs and good things and bad things about every situation under the sun.

[atomic sagebrush]

Yes exactly and the grass is greener for me too, of course - I very well could have hated growing up in a big family too and just like Serenity says, they had their own personal issues as well. :agree:

EVery situation has its benefits and downsides and sometimes I think we focus too much on the idea that there is some "perfect" idea when things are done "right". I guess my point is simply that because we're sold a bill of goods in 2016 that the "right" way to do things is to have lots of one on one individualized time and money per child that doesn't necessarily mean it it the case or the ONLY "correct" way to do things, and that anyone who doesn't is therefore being highly irresponsible. I could have done with a little less of that one on one time haha. I just hate to see people think that if they have more kids than the norm, that it meant they are somehow letting their kids down or harming them when really there are no right or wrongs and good things and bad things about every situation under the sun.

[Serenity]

I just hate to see people think that if they have more kids than the norm, that it meant they are somehow letting their kids down or harming them when really there are no right or wrongs and good things and bad things about every situation under the sun.

You know, I think I really DO think I am letting my boys down by considering having another baby. I feel like I am being selfish, and letting my wish for a daughter override their day to day needs. And that's really ridiculous, because I have recently quit the face-to-face part of my job and now I work from home, which means that all I will be doing is sitting around writing occasional emails and putting around the house for most of the day while my boys are at school and preschool. I have SO MUCH ROOM in my life for another little person, and honestly, nothing in the world would make me happier.

Maybe my boys would benefit from a really happy mom... :happy:

[atomic sagebrush]

It gets even more obvious as they get older. I had my first two boys and raised them in a very hands on, one on one way, which was great and I loved that experience, but do you know what happened?? They grew UP!! Those inconsiderate little twerps went and grew up on me!! Suddenly they wanted to do their own things and while we did and do remain close, I just had so much more time and love to give to other children. They won't be little forever and they're going to WANT you to have something else to occupy your time other than their Instagram pages haha.

When I got pregnant with my 3rd, I had zero gender desire either way. I just wanted another baby. My older boys were 13 and 16 when he was born and had not needed (nor welcomed LOL) massive quantities of one on one attention from me for probably 5-7 years before that. I think we really overestimate their need for hands-on mothering and underestimate their need for freedom and personal space as they get older - the level they need from you just doesn't stay the same as they get older as it does when they're little. :)

[essnce629]

As an only child (till my parents divorced, remarried, and had children when I was much much older) I will say that the opposite is true too - I felt that my parents were TOO focused on me and had too much time, energy, interest, and self-esteem riding on "how I turned out". It was a terrible amount of pressure and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

I think that the grass is always greener and while someone from a family of 4,5,6 may think "oh my parents never had enough time for me" there are also tons of benefits to having siblings and to have less parental attention. I'm not sure kids need as much parenting as we have been told by the "experts" and some parents (at least, MY parents LOL) actually cause long lasting harm by having in essence too much time and energy to expend worrying about every tiny detail in a child's life. :/

Yes! I was an only child and HATED it! Every birthday wish, Santa wish, prayer, wishing well wish, was for a baby sister! That was up until my parents got divorced when I was 10 and then my dad also went on to have more children (who I barely know). I actually think my only child childhood is why my desire for a daughter is so strong. I always wanted a sister and when that didn't happen, I just assumed I'd be able to fill that void with a daughter one day (three daughters actually is what I hoped for)! Because I am an only child my kids have no cousins and our family just seems so small and boring. My DH has one sibling, a brother, who lives on the other side of the world in Vietnam and doesn't have kids yet. His parents live in Connecticut and we're in California. My DH has only one aunt, who never had kids, so he also has zero cousins and grew up with just his parents and single set of grandparents. I get jealous of all the people I know with lots of siblings and therefore lots of cousins for their kids to grow up with. It's one of the reasons I always wanted 3-5 kids (although I think 3 would be my limit now), so that eventually our family can be bigger with a better chance of having cousins, aunts and uncles, large family gatherings, etc.

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[atomic sagebrush]

:agree: and while this is not a concern yet for most of us thankfully and hopefully never will be, it was really hard when my husband's dad got sick because there was only he and his sister and we lived really far away. It's a lot to ask one child to shoulder that whole burden for sure.

[atomic sagebrush]

And before anyone chimes in here, we mention these things not to make anyone who chooses to have 1-2 kids by choice or circumstance to feel bad. We are responding to the poster's concerns that she was somehow doing her kids wrong by pursuing a desire to have a third. I feel that the social pressure is overwhelmingly towards small families and so we mention this not to put down small families, but simply as a counterpoint to the conventional wisdom that there are no benefits to larger families and that we as parents are being somehow selfish and harming our children, if we should so choose to have more children than the current norm of our society.

[srg09cag11]

I feel this very much when considering whether or not to have a fourth child. My three girls now drive me absolutely crazy at times, but there is a gap between #2 and #3, and I often think how nice it would be for #3 to have a playmate close in age like the first two do! However, I definitely worry that I'm already spread too thin with three; how could I possibly manage a fourth?! I don't feel done, and my husband seems to want to go one more time (we both agree that is our limit). We shall see!