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Second child coming - what am I in for?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Rhody31, Mar 14, 2014.

  1. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    For me, the hardest part with No. 2 was that I was never really able to take an hour to myself like I could with only 1. When we only had my daughter, I could wheel her around or take her to the park when my wife was overwhelmed or I could zone out on the couch and watch a game while my wife watched her if I needed a break. With two, it really cuts down on that time.

    The good news is that we weren't as freaked out by everything.
     
  2. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I thought it was a lot easier the second time around. Things that freak you out the first time leave you completely unfazed with the second.
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I do think that part is easier. I think the logistics are much tougher. More moving parts.
     
  4. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    It's interesting... The people I know who have three or more kids, assuming it's the same two parents, if they have them all within two years or so of each other, it's usually fine... The ones who have kids No. 3, 4, etc... 5-10 years later it's almost always a disaster.
     
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I read in book or magazine article that three is usually easier than two, because, at three, you surrender the idea that you can have a normal adult life. You typically, for example, don't see two working parents with three kids not in school yet.
     
  6. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    All the talk about being able to take a breath with one--totally why we're stopping at one. Well, that and the fact I'm 40 and my wife is 39 and we realize we can't financially afford to have more kids.

    But yeah, with one kid, if she's driving one of us nuts, the other can take the wheel for a bit. Or if one of us needs to carve out some time to do some work, the other can take her to Grandma's.

    My parents had me and my sister within 15 months in their mid-20s. A whole different time, in more ways than one. They'd already bought a house for $25K. And I imagine their energy level was a lot higher than ours.
     
  7. X-Hack

    X-Hack Well-Known Member

    I thought it was harder going from one kid to two than from zero to one. And the first few months were more stressful. Again, you're not worried about breaking the kid and you're a lot less uptight about the kid's well-being the second time around, it's just exhausting to the extreme to deal with a newborn and all the sleep-deprivation issues (my 2nd was a horrible sleeper and still is 6 years later) while simultaneously dealing with a toddler. And the amount of crap you have to travel with doubles. I also didn't bond with my second kid as quickly as I did with my first -- in a weird way, I was too worried about my first kid, who I had the tight pre-existing relationship with, and how the new kid, who I didn't really know yet, would affect him.

    That said, I wouldn't trade either of them for the world and I can't even remember anymore what it was like to feel that way for that temporary period of time.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    My cousin had five kids in six years (one set of twins...) and they're doing fine.

    I have a close friend who had three kids about two years apart and they're great too...

    My sister has an 11-year-old, a 9-year-old and a 6-month-old and she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

    I have two other friends who had two kids who were 8-10 and then they had a third child and they're really struggling too...
     
  9. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    It's amazing how rare it is for someone to stop after one by choice. I salute you. You know your limitations and you're aware that your age is an issue.

    I know so many people who can barely handle the kids they have and they just keep having them. I have a relative who when you run into them she'll start crying about how tired she is and how she never has any time for herself. Her kids are 4 and 1. But if you ask her if she wants more kids she'll tell you she'd love to have 3 or 4.
     
  10. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    I haven't given it much thought re: the rareness of being content at one, but I suppose you're right. My sister and brother-in-law got divorced a few years ago, and during therapy intended to try and salvage the marriage, it came out that my brother-in-law wanted at least two kids and my sister never budged on stopping at one. Well, that probably should have come up sooner, right?

    My wife's best friend had some serious complications after her third child was born and had her tubes tied immediately. They're pretty close to the poverty line, but every time my wife sees her the friend says she'd have five or six kids if she could. Generally the same thing with my best female friend. Had two kids with a shithead of an ex-husband, is struggling to raise them on her own and is also done having kids b/c of health issues. But she says she'd still be having them (at 39) if she could.

    At one, we're very happy, in terms of time management and what we think we can provide her going forward. We know having additional kids would change that ratio, to the detriment of all involved. No shame in knowing your limitations.

    That said, I can't lie. There's a little part of me that's like "Holy shit the [name redacted] lineage ends here" and ponders trying to have a boy. But I also realize that's an outdated way of thinking and that there's no guarantee the second (or third or fourth) kid would be a boy. There's some NFL player (I think a Jaguars lineman) who has six kids--all girls. Plus, my daughter's grandmothers are both from families with no boys. My Mom was one of two girls and my mother-in-law is one of three girls. Everyone turned out just fine.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    One of my friends had two daughters and his parents put quite a bit of pressure on him to keep having kids to try for the boy to carry the name along. He's 40, his wife is 42 and they're unwilling to push their luck. They have two healthy kids, but his wife had some issues during the last pregnancy and they were both fine stopping at two. He recently got snipped.

    His father is no longer talking with him because he has disgraced the family name by not trying to have a son to pass the name along...
     
  12. Rusty Shackleford

    Rusty Shackleford Active Member

    I think a lot of it is socio-economic too with regard to number of kids. How many rich people do you see with 4, 5, or 6 kids? Far fewer, I would guess, than the number of people just scraping by who have that many. Not sure what the relationship is, exactly, but that certainly seems to be the case, at least where I live.
     
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