One & Done: Only child
SMac2013
member
Having only one
SMac2013
member
any parents out there decided to have only one child? I just want one but my husband wants more. I would like to hear positive things about having just one child from experienced parents!
Re: Having only one
Why do you want to have just one kid? Maybe if you explain your point of view and all the reasons of not having the second child, your husband will think about pros and cons of this decision and he will accept this in time.
Positive thing is that you definitely will have enough time to do all sorts of things with your child. He will not occupy you too much and you can keep on working in your usual schedule.
Though, I think you need to consider all aspects of this choice. Maybe someday you will want another child and your husband has to wait until that happens.
If you do all the hard work, your husband must let you raise just one baby or start to be supportive.
I have a sibling and we are very close, so I cannot really say that it is not that important.
However, the choice is yours. Having one child is not that bad.
She LOVES LOVES LOVES them! My mom has 4 sisters & 1 brother & gets along great with 2 & not with the other 3. & i get along great with my 2 sisters & a rollercoaster relationship with my brother.
If your worry is that he wont help you let him know that, ultimately its your choice. Tell him not to push you on having another baby if hes not gonna help. & he needs to start helping with the baby you have now. But dont punish yourself out of not having another baby if you want another deep down just because he wont help. & dont punish your baby out of not having a sibling because you dont have a relationship with yours.
Maybe give youself time but remember its all up to you. Cus its true 99% of the work falls on us moms. But there is nothing wrong with having just 1 & nothing wrong with having more than 1. Do what a PP said weight out the pros & cons with your husband. Maybe he'll see things a little clearer.
Good luck
However, if you feel like your husband isn't helping enough with the one you have now, it's natural that you would be hesitant to have another. Definitely talk to him about it. There are lots of reasons to have more than one too. Some people like having a big family, for their kids to have siblings (both for friendship and to help lessen the load when it comes time for them to care for you and your husband), to try to have one of each sex, etc.
While I see nothing wrong with only having one, and I am not close to my two siblings, I didn't want to base DD and her sibling relationships on what happened with mine. Just because my siblings and I aren't that close, doesn't mean that DD wont be close with her sibling. She also begged for two years for a sibling, and then started posing with her friends younger siblings for pictures when their parents were trying to get shots of the older child with the younger one. In the end, I knew that the future positives (for our family), outweighed the negatives of having a completely depended baby again (and having it all fall on my shoulders...again). Which is why I am glad that we have a decent age gap between them, so I had time to enjoy being a mom and getting everything settled, before throwing a newborn into the loop.
Good luck with whatever you choose!
so I have 2 kids a year apart. It's hard.
3.5 years between is the best per our therapist for development of the older child.
Is there really stigma to 1 kid? I wanted 1 to prove the stigma wrong. I had a life still. It was easy to run to the store. Now I can do just 1 thing per outing.
Id google it & pick the top reasons pro & con for you.
@SMac2013 I don't know if this will help, but here are my thought and opinions. I am currently pregnant with our first and have decided it will be our only. There are a few reasons why we made this decision. I think one of the main reasons is that I really don't like kids. Funny, right, that I don't like kids, but really wanted one. I just don't like lots of kids all at once. I'm usually fine with one or two alone. Another factor is our ages. I'm almost 36 and my FI is 43. I know that I would not be able to have two kids close in age. I just don't have the patience to deal with a baby and a toddler. So if we waited until our first was in school, we'd be too old to want to start over again with another baby and then chase after a toddler. A third reason is financial. Kids are so expensive. We're living on my FI salary alone, mostly so I can stay at home and we don't need to pay for day care when the baby comes. I never made much in my job, and if I were to go back to work, my entire salary would be spend on day care, so we would still be living on my FI's salary alone. We just won't be able to afford a second child and feel that it would be unfair to both of us as well as any kids we have to increase that financial burden.
I'm not advocating either having one kid or having multiples. I'm not saying people who are not financially well off shouldn't have multiple kids. I'm not saying older women shouldn't have kids. Ultimately the decision is up to you. I'm just laying out the reasons my FI and I have decided to only have one.
First, I think it's important to nip this "DH doesn't help" thing in the bud. What is this 'help' you speak of? Because I take it you are both adults and being an adult in general comes with responsibilities. Being an adult who chose to have a child with another adult does not diminish the previous responsibilities but increases those responsibilities and he should never be expected to help. You should be demanding that he be a responsible adult and take care of what he needs to AS AN ADULT. There is no excuse for his slack and quite frankly, I don't blame you for not wanting to increase your own responsibilities with another child if he's unwilling to do the same.
Second, having said the above, I don't think that the decision is ultimately yours alone to make. Being a partner in a marriage means coming to a decision together and moving forward from there. If after talking this out you both can't come to an agreement, you will have to ask yourselves if you can continue in a relationship if the desires of your husband to have more children cannot be met. Would this disagreement be a dealbreaker for him? Would it be a dealbreaker for you?
Third, there are pros and cons to having one child just as there are pros and cons to having more than one child. One child is financially more doable, you only have to go through each milestone/phase once, your attention is always focused on one. You may find yourself one day longing for a second child and it's ok to take your time to figure this out.
You just have to figure out all of the reasons why you only want one and see if any of those are temporary. If they are, you may find yourself in a different place in a few years.
Big Bro 7/14/13
Little Bro 2/6/17
First, I think it's important to nip this "DH doesn't help" thing in the bud. What is this 'help' you speak of? Because I take it you are both adults and being an adult in general comes with responsibilities. Being an adult who chose to have a child with another adult does not diminish the previous responsibilities but increases those responsibilities and he should never be expected to help. You should be demanding that he be a responsible adult and take care of what he needs to AS AN ADULT. There is no excuse for his slack and quite frankly, I don't blame you for not wanting to increase your own responsibilities with another child if he's unwilling to do the same.
Second, having said the above, I don't think that the decision is ultimately yours alone to make. Being a partner in a marriage means coming to a decision together and moving forward from there. If after talking this out you both can't come to an agreement, you will have to ask yourselves if you can continue in a relationship if the desires of your husband to have more children cannot be met. Would this disagreement be a dealbreaker for him? Would it be a dealbreaker for you?
Third, there are pros and cons to having one child just as there are pros and cons to having more than one child. One child is financially more doable, you only have to go through each milestone/phase once, your attention is always focused on one. You may find yourself one day longing for a second child and it's ok to take your time to figure this out.
You just have to figure out all of the reasons why you only want one and see if any of those are temporary. If they are, you may find yourself in a different place in a few years.
Big Bro 7/14/13
Little Bro 2/6/17