Go Ahead, Have a Third Kid
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Aren’t they sweet?! Oh be still my heart. These are my three sons. Well, my three sons before the rest of the FishKids arrived.
In case you’ve ever wondered, our eldest was 3 1/2 when our second child was born. We’d had the miscarriages; we hadn’t planned on a big gap. Our third son was born a mere 19 months later.
When I was pregnant with our third, I was warned about how difficult everything would be.
- Oh my! How are you going to handle two babies?
- Oh my! Three is just so, so hard.
- Oh my! You’ll have your hands full.
You know what? They were wrong. Having a third baby, even a third so close in age to his older brother, was not so, so hard. In fact, it was much, much easier than I expected it to be. (Especially once I got that double stroller!)
Fish and I have talked about this over and over since then. Three is not harder than two. Quite the contrary, we thought the transition from one child to two children was the hardest transition of them all, even after a year of miscarriage and wanting that second child so much.
Having two was sooooooooooo very hard.
I thought I would die. And I think families with two experience that rough transition and they assume that having a third will be that much harder. I think some might even stop there out of fear.
That wasn’t the case for us. I’m so glad we pushed past the hard of having two children to see that having three really wasn’t all that harder.
You see, my theory is that when you have one child, one parent can be hands free if he or she chooses. With two, either one parent has his hands full or you’re both occupied. It took way more effort to transition to two kids than it did to three, four, five, six.
(After three, you’re already on zone defense, so it doesn’t matter.)
I say this not to convince you to have a large family or even to say that you should have a third baby. I know many families desiring more children and for a number of reasons, they cannot.
But, if you’re on the fence, if you’re wanting to grow your family but feel swayed by the populace to stop at two, I say go ahead. Have a third.
So true! We have 3 boys and I’m so glad I talked my husband into having 3. In fact, I would’ve had a couple more, but three was his limit. And that’s okay because having three is sooo good!
we stopped at two, and they were not quite 14 months apart when #2 came along. it was hard, but only because #2 came during my husband’s 16-month deployment! i fondly remember our double stroller. i couldn’t have surrvived without it!
At first I thought I could stick was the single stroller when they were that close together. Ha! What a fool! It was sooooooooo necessary. We still have it ten years later. Definitely got our money’s worth on that.
I really enjoyed the article and comments. My two little girls are 17 months apart. My baby is just two and a half months old… and frankly its has seemed kinda a nightmare. My baby was terribly colicly, screaming for hours, we finally figured out she is allergic to milk protein, and wow, what a difference. At the same time I was switching from nursing to Nutramigen to make sure that was the problem, we were hit with a BAD round of flu. So I had a fussy, baby, a very irritable toddler and sick myself and still trying to pump. (I didn’t want to dry up my milk only to discover the formula wasn’t the answer) It was Not Funny and I really thought maybe I was not going to survive 🙂 Now we are pretty much over the flu and baby is much, much better. I might eventually consider a third:) Actually probably will just need a little time and a few whole nights of sleep!
You have had a go of it. Don’t make any decisions until you’re all well. 😉
I never experienced going from 1 to 2, as my only two kids are twins. I’m on the fence about going for a third because I’m just now starting to regain my sanity (they recently turned 2). I could do the first year again, but the second year nearly killed me. Two babies is hard. Two toddlers is like… really hard. Thinking about throwing a pregnancy and then a newborn into the mix is really unappealing right now. But I go back and forth. Maybe in another year or so.
I have heard that there are special crowns in Heaven for moms of twins. 🙂 It took me two years to bounce back with each kid, so I’m sure twins is that much more exciting. I had a boss once who had had three sets of twins and one singleton. That poor singleton was so left out.
I have 4.5 year old twin girls & a 6 month old son. Betsy, I would say to give it time. 2 Two year olds are hard, but 3 year olds are much better (4 year olds are really fun!). Baby #3 was a surprise but we were always on the fence about wanting another. We are so glad he surprised us!!! A singleton is SO EASY compared to twins – from pregnancy, recovery, & taking care of him is so much easier! Give it another year, the twins will be potty trained, more independent, playing together more. If you want to have a 3rd just know it will be easier than it was with the twins.
I just had my 2nd, 7 months ago, she is the easiest baby, my first I like to say is “high-maintenance”. Number 2 has been easy in comparison, she sleeps (first one still fights at age 3). After having the second baby I want a third already, but I’m also terrified to have a third. For me I want to wait a little while, I have very difficult pregnancies and my girls are 2 1/2 years apart so I can see them being great friends in the future and I think having another baby so close now, my high maintenance daughter will not have anyone to play with, which we both need, lol.
Our four boys are spaced across 7 years. They’ve all played nicely — when they want to. I think you’ll be good no matter what.
What a great post! It was just the pick me up I needed after spending the evening reorganizing my two kids’ baby clothes and longing for a third. My frugal side desperately needs another child to get use out of them! And my nurturing side just wants another beautiful child to love. I have PCOS and we have been trying for # 3 for two years and sometimes I feel like giving up. It’s amazing how posts like this come along when you need them!
Have hope! I have Pcos. And the 5 yr gap between kids 2 and 3 to go with it. Low carbs., exercise and metformin helped bring babies 3 and 4. It will happen for you too.
Haha! That’s my husband’s answer when we get the inevitable “how do you do it with 5?” He says “we just had to switch from a man defense to a zone”. 🙂 I agree with you though. #2 was hard. #5 was no big deal. 🙂
We just had our 3rd 8 weeks ago, and I can testify, 2 to 3 was a breeze compared to 1 to 2. I was not at all prepared for that transition, nobody warned us! But after a month,things settled and it was like we had been doing it all along. Can’t wait to find out what the transition from 3 to 4 will be like somewhere down the road 🙂
I love this! We just had our third in August and wow, what a sweetie! This kid is not discouraging me from having more babies, that’s for sure. He’s a happy, smiley, joy-filled little guy. And while we knew we wanted more kids, we really did not plan on having another one so soon! My oldest was 3 when he was born and my second was 18 months. When I found out we were expecting, all I could do was laugh. I decided then that this year would be both the most fun and the most challenging, simply because of our kids’ ages.
I would recommend that everyone plan a surprise baby if they can. =)
Haha! How cute. I will try to plan a surprise baby on your advice. lol
I liked the surprises the best because then if it was hard, I didn’t feel like I had made a bad decision. I knew that one was God ordained. (They are ALL God-ordained, but it seems the surprises are moreso.)
I love large families and was the youngest of six, but I will have to disagree. I found that having a third was much, much more difficult — keep in mind that as of now my third child is only three months old. My second child was a breeze. My older two kids are three and five and seem so independent that I’m having to get used to having another child that is in diapers, can’t feed himself, can’t walk, etc. Also, when I only had two, I didn’t have to play referee between the other two children like I’m doing now, half the time while nursing the infant while I walk.
Perhaps I blame the difficulty of child number three on the timing in our family. My husband started his own business a little more than a year ago and I work part-time from home. When child number two came my husband didn’t bring his job home and although I was teaching piano lessons, the time commitment for my work isn’t nearly what it is now.
In essence, I think that every woman and family is different as to what child will be the most difficult and how they adjust to their growing family. I love my little baby and I’m so grateful that we’ve had three so far, but I definitely found that number three was the hardest for me.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I imagine that there are probably a multitude of different perspectives, especially as children’s ages, dispositions, and spacing is concerned as well as what’s going on for Mom and Dad.
I hope I don’t sound dogmatic in the post. I just want folks not to be scared to go beyond the standard two kids — if they feel so inclined.
I always have trouble with each new baby to adjusting everything when the baby is small. After the baby is a year old, things start to get easier again.
I have 7; my oldest just runed 11 last month. It’s the same thing with each new one, but then things work themselves into a new routine again and things get easier. Give it about 9 months 🙂 Having a new little one changes everything every time!