When is family complete?

winelvr · September 2011

I'm on my second baby, and for some reason I keep thinking about having a third! But, I'm also wondering if when this baby arrives, my family will feel complete. When do you feel like you will stop? One, two, three, four(?!) ??

Also, what do you think, harder to go from one to two or two to three?

UAbride31007 · September 2011

I'm a FTM but DH and I have discussed wanting 3-5 kids. That being said, we are both open to the possibility of wanting fewer (or more). I think for us it will be apparent when our family is "complete" - I just don't know when that will be!

teacherlindz · September 2011

I am also a FTM and we always talked about having 2, but even with this insane terribly sick pregnancy, I am thinking 3 will be our magic number now that I am pregnant.

HopingForOne · September 2011

If it weren't for money (stupid bills...) I'd probably want more kids . But since we want to help pay for our kids' education, have family trips if we can, and stuff like that, I think we'll be good with two. I don't know if we will feel complete, but I think we'll be choosing to be complete.

cbcarden · September 2011

I have always wanted 3 children. We will probably try for two and hopefully adopt the third. I just hope it will be financially reasonable because I do not think it will be complete with out 3.

Kflie83 · September 2011

We still aren't sure if we want 2 or three. Once the new baby is here, I hope we'll be able to tell if our family is done. We'll just have to wait and see!

soralette · September 2011

First-timer here as well, also waffling between 2 and 3. DH is thinking "Definitely two!" ... I'm thinking, "But three could be nice..."

I have a feeling we'll have two, wait a suitable age gap, and then think about whether or not we want a third.

tracij12 · September 2011

I have always wanted more than 2, but coming from a family of 3 kids, I also said I wanted an even number (was always a bummer at theme parks and other places where you do things in pairs

) so I was stuck on 4. DH says no more than 2 so we will see. I do think you will just know when its time to stop.

yummymummy090 · September 2011

I am on my fourth baby and i feel like i could definatley have a fifth, and one to two is easy but two to three is a lot harder, three to four, well we'll have to wait and see!!

PhysChic7685 · September 2011

I think which is harder depends on how you look at it. When we were deciding whether we wanted a second, we did a lot of searching through advice and the like on the internet to see what others had to say on the issue. Can't say I know if these are really the case, but here's some of what we found.

From One to Two:

- You are no longer two adults with a child, you are a family

- It is not as easy to tote around two children to adult affairs as it is to do this with one, so your life revolves more around the kids and less around the adults when you add a second child.

- Having to start splitting attention

From Two to Three (or more):

- You are already used to doing things with more than one kid, so adding another can sometimes seem inconsequential

- More kids than one adult can handle (one per hand)

- You can no longer have one adult be responsible for each child (i.e. at meals)

- Splitting attention becomes harder

kthappy76 · September 2011

We are two and done. DH and I both feel strongly that dividing our resources (time, $) among more than that is not fair to them, so it's not really about how many we want, but what kind of life we want to give them. It costs ~$500K to raise a kid today.

KRISTA555 · September 2011

From what I've seen in my friends and family. going from 2 to 3 is very hard. But that's not scaring me away. Children are a blessing to us,and we are excited to see what the future holds.

My parents had 5, and they managed (without being wealthy) to give us great childhoods with family vacations and even private schooling with plenty of extra curricular activities. If you want to give your children something enough, you make it work.

We plan to have at least 4, and then we'll see how we feel then.

ryry1977 · September 2011

I am pretty set on having 3 kids, DH says 2 and we will see about a 3rd. So I hope that this second one is as good as DS so I won't have too much convincing to do!

Haley.Beth · September 2011

I am an only child, and feel that (even though I turned out socially adept because of a great family) I would have done better with a sibling. DH is one of 4, and he hated it. He is the youngest, and his entire life he always felt left out. Especially when it came to college, his parents had run out of money by that time, and had no help to give him. So our magic number is two, close together. We feel like that'll give them the companionship of siblings, but won't be a complete drain on us.

JENVALENTINE1981 · September 2011

When your heart and head tell you, mostly your heart though. You will know. I thought for sure that after our third we were done, I told everyone that and felt sure...then as the baby started flying through her milestones I felt sad about her growing up and being the last baby. Then in May we found out I was pregnant and it was very unexpected, then I lost it. Overnight my feeling of thinking our family was complete totally left me and then I felt overwhelmingly empty like something was missing...the next month we decided we would leave things in God's hands and if we were meant to have a fourth He would allow it to happen...that first month we conceived so I felt like this was meant to be, even though at times I still can't believe it or I feel scared about four, everything will work out. So I would say don't rush to an answer because things change! With that said, I would also say it needs to be within what you can physically and financially handle too, there are many factors to consider and it is an important choice, just don't rush the decision!

F&G777 · September 2011

I don't know....we will have as many as God wants to give us.....this will be our 2nd baby...but I am 35...so we'll see what happens but I would definitely want at least 1 more - maybe 2....if time allows....

silverflowers · September 2011

DH and I were prepared to go to 3 or 4 kids. We wanted to make sure we had at least one boy and one girl. Now that our first was a girl and our second looks like its a boy, we're thinking we could stop there, but since we left room for 3 or 4 there's always that nagging question... one more? I think if we do decide to have more, we will wait longer between the kids than we did the first two. Personally I could use a little more time to enjoy my non-pregnant self longer and the energy required to be a FTM and WAH mom.

Mrs_MBed · September 2011

After DD2 was born, DH said he was done, but I felt in my heart as though there was someone missing, so we talked about having a third. When I discovered I was pg for a third time, I felt as though our family would finally be complete. Apparently God had other plans for us, as we're expecting mono/di (identical) twins.

There are many factors that go into being "done". For some, its a feeling of completeness - having everyone there. Others are limited by financial resources.

It wasn't as hard as I thought to go from 1 to 2, but maybe that's b/c our girls are 25 months apart. I'm scared about going from 2 to 4, but I have a friend who did just that, so I've at least got a mentor

Jen0204 · September 2011

We were thinking either one or two kids, and leaning towards one, so after twins we'll definitely be done. I'm sure that my FIL will not be happy about that since he's said all along that we "have" to have boys and we're having girls, but oh well! We're not concerned with our children's sexes and have no intentions of trying for a boy. My FIL's sons were his sixth and seventh children - that many kids is just NOT for us!

bluejayway · September 2011

DH is talking vasectomy after this one arrives (will be our second). But, I'm kind of leaning towards three. We just say, "We'll see how two is" whenever it comes up. I always thought you'd have a feeling when your family was complete, but now I'm not sure. Right now, I am at SAHM, but I'd like to go back to my career. I think that'd be a lot harder the more we have.

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