Children Dilemma - Need advice from 3 or more!

paradisemommy wrote: dh and i keep going back and forth on whether to have more children or not - we love kids and would welcome any and all..now our dilemma

dh was talking to a major up at work and she said that she would be set with 2 kids but now that she has 3 she feels like the youngest one is getting the short end of the stick cause they are so set in their ways that he's not able to do the things that say, the older 2 were able to do - like sports and extra curricular activities. i'm not sure if it's the age gap cause her two oldest were 9 and 10 when she had her 3rd. don't get me wrong i'm not saying she loves any of them more than the other - in fact it worked out perfectly cause her oldest 2 are girls and her youngest is a boy but what she was saying made sense which got dh and i thinking...

how is it possible to have 3 or more and not make someone feel left out?

right now we've got one on one which is great - in the long run - if our 2 get into sports then each of us can attend their games and such -with more than 2, how do you decide who goes where?

do i make sense at all??? HELP!!

C&K*s Mommie replied: The same way that your love is not divided among several children... instead it is multiplied among them. In that same way, you will still likely have the same urge to be able to go to the ends of the earth for each and every one of your children, in order for them to feel loved and not left out. Taking advantage the best that you can of each day with your child(ren) will help them to not feel left out. Spending an extra five minutes reading a bedtime story, or cuddling together, or the praises that you give every day, those along with the other loving things that you may do can go a long way in helping a child not feel so "left out".

Cece00 replied: I havd 3 kids and one on the way, but none of mine have been in activities @ the same time, except for swimming, but it was at the same time & place so I could watch both of them.

My oldest is going to start piano lessons soon, though, and about a month after that my middle son will go to tumbling.

Personally, I think you do the best you could...it wont be ALL the time that their activities are scheduled at the same time.

Not only that, but even people who have 2 kids can sometimes NOT make it to the activity, due to work or something of the like. Sometimes that is just a part of life.

If there are involved grandparents you could also ask one of them to go & watch one of the activities...

paradisemommy replied:
these are things that are done without having been said..

dh comes from a family of 3 - his older brother is a step but his dad adopted him when he was around 3 yrs old so that's all he's pretty much ever known. dh is the middle child and he has a younger sister. his memory of growing up is of not really having anyone around to care about him - he says when they would get somewhere from driving in a car his older brother always held hands with his mom, his younger sister was always a daddy's girl but nobody ever made an effort to hold his hand - hearing this just broke my heart. i don't think his mom and dad loved him any less than the others and i'm sure he had stories read to him and lots of "i love you's" but still, it hurt him so much that he ran away from home..

i'm not saying it's not possible to love more than 2 kids because i know i could love 10 kids if i could afford them all but even now - i feel guilty for not having more quality time with my son - my daughter is SO very clingy - much more than him which makes it hard for me to have one on one time with him..

sigh...maybe my hormones are just out of whack or something..but thanks for the responses..

skinkybaby replied: I'm the 3rd in my family. I never felt like my parents didn't have time for me. You just have to get creative with your time management.

3_call_me_mama replied: I don't know Tammy! I'll let ya know when this third one arrives!!! I had teh same fears and questions before we got pregnant. And we were set on 2 kids. Then SUPRISE and we are moer than thriled about the thired now. Kathleen is quite clingy stil and I'm not sure how she's gonna adjust when the baby arrives, but sahe is excited for it so we'll see. Also the one thing i tried to remember was that I was a middel of 3 and hated it, but that was due to not having a sister, so if you have 3 you might as well have 4! LOL
Seriously though my brothers weren't involved in anything and I was and there were still times when my parents couldnt' go to a field hockey game or whatever. BUT they did go to everything that they could of alll of us. Also not having the kids in so many activities that require them to be in separate places is a good plan to start with. THEN you can see them all Good luck in your decision!

coasterqueen replied: I don't have a third either so I really don't qualify to answer this post, but I will tell you we contemplated this long and hard too. DH and I always wanted just 2, we really didn't care if it was 1 of each or 2 of one, etc, and we still don't and it's not a decision on to whether to have a third or not. For awhile I really wanted a third, I just felt like I wasn't done. Dh was and still is. I'm still not sure, but we have made the choice to only have 2, and I think it was/is the right decision for us.

For many reasons:

- We really can't afford more than two and give them all the things we said we wanted to do for them. We want to put them through college and help them get a better start to life than what we were given (which was nothing) and that's very very important to us. We struggled for way too long and still do and we just don't want our girls to have to struggle as long. We want them to enjoy their college years, dating someone and not fighting about money, etc. Sounds strange to a lot of people, but DH and I hated struggling so much like we did. We are better people for it, but I believe we can raise our girls to be good people without making them do this.

-One night we were watching a family movie. Dh had Kylie in his arms on one couch and I had Megan in mine on the other. We were wathing a movie as a family and it was great. Dh looked over at me and I looked at him and I said "what would we do if we had a 3rd?". Dh said, "see this is why our family is perfect the way it is". And he's right. At least for us it is. We struggle on a daily basis to give the girls all the attention we can and if Dh has one and I have the other, who is going to have the 3rd (tending to their needs)? Someone is going to get short changed, IMO. Granted my parents were both from big families and they survived, but we don't WANT to short change anyone and we find it enough struggle to give the girls all the attention they want and need now. I see no reason to do that to them for our selfish reasons of wanting more.

There are a ton more, but these two were big for us. My mornings are filled with both girls wanting my attention so much they fight over who gets to sit on mommy's lap. Lucky I have two legs, they both get one side of my lap. It's perfect just like that. I sometimes feel now that Kylie gets short changed more than I'd like her too because Megan is super clingy and needs my attention 24/7. I have to find special time for Kylie and I just to make up for all the times she NEEDS my attention and I can't give it to her because I'm tending to Megan. I don't want to have a 3rd and do that to both of them.

I know many don't feel this way, especially those that have more than 2. You just have to do what you feel is in your heart and what works for your family. Sure in my heart I want more babies, but for me I really think it's because I miss being pregnant, holding a little baby, etc, etc...all things for me...not what's in the best interest of my girls that are already here now. Sure if I did have a 3rd or more I'd have just as much love for them, but my husband is right in so many ways, we are just perfect like we are now.

So look at your family, your heart will tell you what the right thing to do is for you and them. I'm sure of it because mine told me, it just took awhile.

paradisemommy replied: carrie..keep tabs with me on how things are with the newest one!!

and karen - thanks for your reply..it helped tremendously and it's exactly how i feel - nice to see i'm not alone..i guess for now, time will tell but like megan - skyler is so so clingy too that i would never want to force her to grow up too fast...

thanks gals..

ZandersMama replied: My DH and I have made the decision to only have two because we both come from families with three. We are both middle children and both felt short-changed , him moreso then me. I still see it with his dad, (his mom passed away right before we were married). He has a hard time even getting his dad to come see zander. Soooooo, as much as I would hope we wouldn't be like that, I worry that someone would feel left out.

luvmykids replied: For me personally, I do feel like it is a HUGE challenge with three.... and not only because they outnumber two parents but because it's mostly just me. I do try to schedule into my day little bits of one on one time but even when they're playing it seems like there is always a third wheel, 2 playing well and one left out I think the youngest is far from getting the short end of the stick though, I feel it's the twins who do because the youngest gets treated like "the baby". I don't know about when they get older and have activities, especially since the twins are boy/girl they will likely have very different activities so the hope of combining much doesn't seem very likely. I've at times felt like we'd just have to limit it so we could be there for all of them equally but then I feel like I'd also be depriving them of something just for the sake of "equal time", kwim? I guess I'll just wing it and cross that bridge when I come to it.

On the other hand, one of my best friends is from a family of 5 and they are the tightest family I've ever seen, seriously. All of the kids are extremely close and all of them are super close to the parents too, they are the biggest success I have ever seen of truly being one big unit instead of anyone feeling left out or deprived in any way. I'm gonna have to pick her moms brain and get her to tell me their secrets.

redchief replied: Sometimes we do feel like we've given one or the other the short end, but a quick poll shows that none of them feel that way. So, I guess, at least in their minds, we've done okay.

Brias3 replied: We've been having the same discussions in my house recently. We have three right now and are currently contemplating a fourth, as my husband really wants another. I think your question depends on the family. In our case, our kids do have a bit of age between them. I've found as they are getting older now and into more activities outside the house, this age difference helps. It really distinguishes them as individuals and with some planning, allows me or DH individual time with them, be it going to sports, etc. In our family, my husband travels often and for sometimes longer periods of time so we've had to incorporate scheduled time that we have with each of the kids individually, etc. My older two have gone through periods where their behavior is really reflected on how much attention they are getting from each of us so its necessary for us to do this to maintain a sense of peace in the household.

I definitely agree that its a huge challenge. Between just getting done what needs to be done AND tending to the kids by myself in one day, its alot of work. It can be done though. Now that my youngest is out of the "baby" stage, I feel like he's the one who's shorted the most so I'm trying to switch that around right now. This of course will get a little easier during the school year when its just him and I outside of his nursery school times. To make a long story short, I've seen it both ways. I've seen large families who somehow make it work and make time for everyone, I've seen small families who the parents just never seem to be around/able to give adequate attention to the kids.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: We have three...and we don't feel that we short change anybody. When we go out from the car or whatever, we put the baby in a stroller, and both kids each hold one side of the stroller...that's how we've always done it. We put our kids in the same activities too...so they all get to do it.

We'd always said to ourselves that if we'd had a 3rd child, then we'd have to have a 4th so that the 3rd is not left out... but my two older kids absolutely adore their baby sister and they both tend to her, so I reeally don't feel that any of them feels left out.

Good luck!

paradisemommy replied: thanks everyone for your responses!! they were very helpful!