Deciding whether or not to have a 3rd...

Bahahahahahahhahaha....this was me a few months ago!!

I've now decided nope to #3. Even though a few months ago we decided to do a year of not trying not preventing. Now i'm preventing LOL

2 main reasons - financial - possible hierdiary defect.

Also I found that once I got to the stage where they are walking and attempting to talk, I was quite happy to leave the whole baby idea behind, but while C was a baby, man it tore at my heart strings.

We like overseas travel, 2 kids is bad enough on a plane, imagine 3!! Plus the added cost there as well.

Also my age, I'm very close to 35/DH near 40 & we would like freedom from kids in our old age & be young enough to have fun with grandkids <gulp>

There is also the increasing jaundice that happens in our kids in our family, my Aunt has cerebral palsy & although the reason isn't really known why, My Nana said that she was very yellow. C was bad enough with his yellow eyes.

So maybe do what we did, think of a gap that you might possibly want between the next one & then once you get to that date do a year of not trying not preventing & see how you feel further on in the year, if the urge doesn't go away then you can be more serious. If it does then it's not a huge issue either.

our no 3 was accidental. i tell everyone to stop at one or two.

My friend who has four advised me to stop at 2 lol

What you need to think about is not now, but when they are at school, activities cost so much. I limit my daughter to one ballet class & one gym class a week. This alone costs me $200 a term. Plus now she's playing touch with school but that is cheap at the moment. I'm lucky my two are further apart but imagine if you had three kids at primary school all wanting to do a couple of activities each...soon adds up.

Also think of how your house will stack up with 5 adult sized people in it. Unless you plan on moving at some stage.

I always said that I'd stop at two if we had two boys, cause i REALLY didn't want three boys!! but even by the time our youngest was a few weeks old I knew our family wasn't complete. I'd be happy to do it all again right now (unlikely, since i'm bf-ing but you never know) but DH wants us to wait till the oldest is at school...

I was the eldest of 4 kids so am well aware of the financial struggle several kids can entail, but on the other hand, i LOVED being part of a big (ish) family

hey just noticed our babies are born on the same day!

Thanks Deb!
We got a Honda Stream, I really like it.

I know what you mean, I had a whole bunch of reasons why I was ready to stop at 2 and I was really sure about them all.
When I got pregnant again I was so scared that they would be true and that it was going to ruin my bond with the baby and that I'd unfairly resent him for ruining what I had before.
Cheesy as it sounds, the minute I saw him I knew none of it was true though, he is my baby and I love him to bits.
I do have moments/days when I'm struggling and I picture my immediate future full of all the hard stuff that comes with tiny babies and just want to run away but overall I'm just so grateful and relieved that it is not like I was scared it would be and I'm just so happy to have him.

God, how cheesy do I sound?!
I do keep wondering if feeling like this is going to wear off eventually but I'm quite happy for it to stick around for the next year or so!

Edited by caraMel

Yep, we are regularly having this conversation too. To be honest not sure which way we will go at the moment. DH isn't keen on a third, not helped by the fact that neither boys are great sleepers and our youngest has cut 6 teeth in the last month

I think if the baby was born age 1, sleeping through the night etc, I could probably get my way

Got a while to make a decision though, as I am another one who would want a two year gap between #2 and #3.

DebandKaelen - i know what you mean about the reflux thing... I was devastated when I realised that our youngest had reflux as well after going through it with DS1 and thought then that I wouldn't want to risk that happening with No.3. But for us the reflux only lasts about 6 months (actually, DS2 is already off his gaviscon ) and that's such a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things.

DebandKaelen wrote: NovemberMum our kids are very similar ages aren't they? Yeah i was thinking about the whole room sharing thing but then i thought that isn't really a good enough reason. I shared a room with my older sister and it was no big drama. Well mostly. lol. They get used to it.

Deb yeah they are. and if I we did have a 3rd I would just stick Megan and Lucas in a room together (so the new born doesnt wake them).

I do know I hated having to share with my 1 year old sister when I was 15 but what 15 year old would if they had a room all to themselves for most of their lives but yeah small children i dont think it matters so much.

Wow Kalimirella all a year apart! Your poor mum. Hehe.

Well at the moment i'm definitely leaning more towards having another. Still not sure exactly when though.