Go Ahead, Have a Third Kid
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I'll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!
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.
I have a 2 year old, a 4 year old and another due in just 9 weeks! So glad to hear it’s not that bad!!! Thank you!!!!
I was just thinking this same thing the other day! I agree with some of the commenters that it probably has a lot to do with the personality of the child, but I found that going from 2 to 3 was WAY easier than going from 1 to 2. (For reference, my boys are currently 4.5, 2.5 and 7 months.) I think much of the reason 1-2 was harder for us is that my second son has been the most challenging of the three (thus far) – he went from being a colicky baby to a screaming toddler without missing a beat.
Our first son was very mellow and even tempered until about 18 months, so we were utterly unprepared for the stress of having a baby that screamed all the time with no discernible cause. I was dead set on wanting 3 kids, and my husband thought I was insane for wanting another even in the midst of #2’s screaming, but our third son has been the happiest, jolliest little ray of sunshine. I heard so many horror stories about how the third kid was the hardest, thank you for putting out a different perspective!
I completely agree! Going from one to two was the most difficult thing I experienced so far as a mom. I felt so guilty not being able to play with my older one, who, before the new baby come into the picture, had my undivided attention. When the 3rd one came (all mine are 2 yrs apart), I didn’t feel so bad because they had each other to keep company. Having more children also help the kids learn patience and compassion….they have to help, wait, and love on their brothers & sisters.
Thank you for this. Just what I need to hear right now. It is so much harder transitioning to 2 kids than I thought. It’s going we’ll, but it just had me questioning things. We originally wanted a big family (at least 4 kids), but this had me thinking. Thanks for the encouragement!
I know you’ve shared you story regarding your multiple miscarriages, so I know this post wasn’t meant to make anyone feel bad. I so wish I could get past the fear and try again, but I feel so stuck. When we got pregnant the second time we found out we were expecting twins, so we were consumed with what the transition from 1 to 3 would be like. My son was stillborn and his twin sister will be 5 in May. I spent 5 weeks on hospital bedrest and my daughter was 7 weeks early, My oldest will be 9 next month. Needless to say our transition was nothing like I expected. After such a difficult ordeal we’ve been hesitant to say the least, to try again. I always thought we’d have 2 kids since we got a late start, but after finding out we were having twins we opened our hearts and minds to being a family of 5. There’s such an empty place in my heart and home these days. I feel like our indecision regarding attempting pregnancy after a loss may have decided for us. At 43 I’m not sure trying again is in the cards for us, but I really wish we could have another child.
Oh, Danielle, you’ve had such a rough go of it. I wish I could reach out and hug you. Or better, had some answers. All I can say is just pray, pray, pray that God would show you what He wants for your family. I know that your loss must still hurt.
I’m sorry that the post brought up those sad emotions. Blessings to you!
Good to know! Sometimes we feel so overwhelmed with the two we have (age 3 and 1.5). We want more in the family, but we often worry with finances and time commitment and all that. Thanks for the encouragement.
Well, since I have six, of course, I’m going to say go for it. I don’t think it’s that much more expensive to have more kids. We’ve never thought we needed a bigger house or anything, we’ve just folding kids in. (Of course, if we were going to move anyway, we looked for the biggest for the money, but I’m not convinced that the costs go up exponentially. It depends on expectations and lifestyle, I suppose.
My experience was a little different, our hardest transition was from 2-3. Our easiest was from 3-4! I blogged about adding children here: http://mylittlebitoflife.com/?p=1200 and here: http://mylittlebitoflife.com/?p=3343. I’m also planning on linking to this post in my post. I think the more perspectives we can get, the more we might be able to prepare others!
When I was reading the article, I was relieve, but then I started reading the posts and got worried again. I have a 3 year old, a 15 month old, and I’m 20 weeks pregnant. My two first babies are girls and they get alon very well most of the time. Now we are expecting baby boy and it is hard to imagine how it is going to be. With baby#1 I had a hard time so with #2 we had a babysitter coming 3 hours in the morning so I could sleep a little bit. That really help! The tradition between 1 and 2 has been hard so wmy husband and I, besides freaking out, are trying to plan the things we need to do so the transition between 2 and 3 is not so hard. We wanted all the kids close in age so they have been plan but we know is going to be crazy for the following 3 years… at least. My husband is a big planner and I have been learning to do it which is hard and it is hard to keep up with everything when you have two little ones wanting all your attention all the time. Any advise on what things we can plan to avoid making the tradition harder?
Life is crazy no matter how many kids you have. 🙂 I think be prepared for hard, plan for it, and then be pleasantly surprised if it’s better than you thought. Just don’t be scared, either way. God is crafting your family!
My third delivery was TWINS! I agree the transition from 1 to 2 was harder than 2 to 4 in my case. Heck, I even had that 5th one.
Thanks for the post! I’m due with my third next month, so it’s nice to have a little encouragement. 🙂