My Dh is an only child, and the only negative personality trait he has is lack of patience he doesn't like waiting. Its not cause he was spoilt as such, simply that his mum only had him to pay attention too as there wasn't anyone else.
As a second child with a bigger older brother, I find it amusing as I'm used to having to wait for my turn, otherwise I got picked on or hassled.

Thanks for your feedback everyone.

DS is a cruisy, independent kind of child, and regardless of whether or not we end up having a #2, DH and I are adamant that he will not be spoilt or mollycoddled. It’s totally against our parenting styles. He’s already a generous kid – good at sharing and doesn’t cry or whinge about things if he doesn’t get his way.

We spend a lot of time with friends and family and their kids – so he gets interaction with other children there.

SpecialK - I totally agree with you that giving DS a sibling is not a good enough reason to have another child.

And I am open to the idea of changing my mind – in fact, I’m expecting to change my mind – it has just surprised me that I haven’t had ANY inclination yet, which is beginning to make me wonder if I ever will...

I know we don’t have to decide in any hurry – that it’s one of those things that will happen if/when we feel right about it – but I guess I’m just musing over possibilities...

I’m also finding it quite interesting that no-one has replied who has consciously decided to have just one child themselves. I wonder if there are many people who have?

How many of you have made the conscious decision to have just one child?

Why did you decide that?

Do you ever regret your decision?

The reason I ask is that, since DS has been born, DH and I have had some serious conversations about whether or not we want to have another child. So far the answer has always been no.

I find it quite surprising, as I’d always imagined we would have 2 kids (though DH had always said 3) maybe 2 or so years apart. But since having DS, neither of us have any desire to do it again.

The idea of being pg again kind of makes my skin crawl (even though the first time was relatively fine) but I went on to have a fairly traumatic 40hr labour + emergency CS.

Part of me feels like we’d be tempting fate by having a #2 – DS is SO awesome – such a cool baby & cruisy kid – that we’d undoubtedly end up with some demon child the second time round – like, how could we possibly be lucky enough to have another minter like DS? (Though I know this thought is unfounded.)

And also, DH works such ludicrously long hours that I’d effectively be raising both kids on my own – which wouldn’t be fun. I can cope with DS, but I don’t like the idea of adding another one to the mix.

At the moment I feel like the ONLY reason that we would consider having a #2 would be so DS wasn’t an only child. But then I think – is that really such a bad thing? There just seems to be a bit of a stigma attached to only children – that they’re somehow weird, or intrinsically spoilt – which, obviously I wouldn’t want DS to be – but is that actually the case in your opinion??