I'm 42 with a 7 month old - want more but am EXHAUSTED

[gordon63]

My husband (39) and I (42) have a gorgeous, smiley, curious, babbly 7-month old.

For AGES, we both were on the same page that we'd either have 0 kids or 2+ kids. He had a great childhood with his sister (who is now estranged from him as an adult, but the childhood memories are still there), and I had a rather bad experience growing up an only child, so we were both adamant that if we bring kids into the world, we'd have 2+ even if we had to adopt, etc.

I got pregnant easily and the fun way at 41. Pregnancy was normal until I had to deliver 4 weeks early due to complications, but nothing overly traumatic, thankfully.

But man, am I STRUGGLING with having an infant. We both work from home; I'm an entrepreneur so income can be very feast / famine, and he has a great steady career in tech, but it's not like we're both in private equity or something super cashed-up.

We have our son in daycare on weekdays, but he still gets up in the middle of the night, wails, and when he's sick we're often sick (since it be that way) and it's just SO HARD. My business has clients from all over the world, but I can't work on multiple time zones anymore since as soon as daycare is done, I'm momming out again.

I'm also a runner and a writer. Running fast 5ks and half marathons fills my cup. Working on my novel and other short stories fills my cup. Being able to travel extensively (I was a digital nomad and an expat before meeting my husband) fills my cup, especially if I'm not flying in economy.

So I've lately been flirting with the idea of just having one child. I feel TERRIBLE about this, but given that we're not super cashed-up like our BigLaw partner or investment banking MD friends who have an army of nannies at their disposal, and that daycare costs as much as college tuition for ONE KID (let alone two), and that I do not know if I can mentally or emotionally "restart the clock" and care for another infant.... I don't know what to do.

My husband of course says this is just a phase that we need to power through, but I'm just not sure how much powering through the next few years (i.e. restarting the clock when I get pregnant again) will mess up my mental health.

Would love some advice / hugs / "i've been there" war stories...

 

[4jesusl0ver2]

@gordon63 I think having an only child really would suit your lifestyle well! Having multiple children doesn’t guarantee they will be bffs and having one child doesn’t mean that they will be lonely. And even though you didn’t have a great experience as an only you have an advantage of knowing what would make it a better experience for your son. It sounds like you know having 1 would suit you best but your husband doesn’t want to commit to that just yet.
Edit to add: I have 2 children but felt a strong urge to have another and now feel that our family is complete. But paying for two in daycare sucks and it’s adding on more years of bad sleep and is hard on your body so I always recommend not to have another kid unless you really really really want another!

 

[gordon63]

@4jesusl0ver2 Thanks for this. It'll take a WHILE for me to wrap my head around wanting an only child by choice. I always figured if I had just one, it would be by circumstance (i.e. we couldn't conceive again) and at that point, my husband and I would feel like we tried our best and there's nothing else we could do.

For so long, I pictured my son with a sibling - getting along, not getting along, whatever - but the sleepless nights, the endless cash burn on night nurses, daycare, medical costs ($2500 for a helmet to round out his flat spot that insurance doesn't pay for - eek) is just enough to bring you to your knees.

It's a $10k check here, a $5k check there, and money flies out of the bank account like you're a Kardashian. AND WE JUST HAVE ONE KID.

I don't know who said it cost $300k to raise a child over 18 years, because we're looking at a figure about 1/3 of that ANNUALLY PER KID PER YEAR.

My husband and I do well financially - maybe in the top 3-5% of earners nationwide (though more like top 50% in our friendship circle of other professionals, some with kids and some without) but that is not enough to guarantee anything these days. I see so many high-earning professionals in precarious financial positions due to layoffs these days.

I had such a cripplingly awful experience as an only, though. My parents - bless their hearts - did the best they could. But this whole "chosen family" thing that other only children harp on about - I didn't have that until I turned FORTY and met my husband. It wasn't for lack of trying. I kept putting myself out there again and again and kept getting rejected by people re: friendships. I once legit threw a party in my early 30s and NO ONE SHOWED UP.

So, yea, I want to spare my son the epic loneliness that I've felt in my life.

 

[4jesusl0ver2]

@gordon63 The cost of having children (particularly if you need childcare) is insane! My husband and I are both college grads (and I have a doctorate) and I think we have pretty good jobs but we still struggle to pay for 2! Inflation and daycare costs keep going up much more quickly than our pay! I’m also so sorry that you’ve struggled with loneliness- I don’t know what to say but that sounds so hard! I totally would have gone to your party - you seem like an awesome person and I bet it would have been a blast! Seems like people are very flakey nowadays unfortunately.

 

[gordon63]

@4jesusl0ver2 Aww, thank you! It was a going-away party (when I used to be an expat) and a ton of my friends were at work or pulled in a ton of different directions, and I just chatted up the bartenders and Facetimed with friends of mine in other countries.

But yeah, being an only child was a real mindfuck for a while. I had to put myself out there or else face rejection and the stakes were so much higher since I didn't have a built-in playmate at home. I wasn't a very confident kid, nor was I very popular or had social parents so I had to learn on the fly a lot of social stuff.

Eventually I got the hang of it and cobbled together a massive, beautiful friendship circle spanning almost every continent but it took time. I'd want to spare my son my experiences with rejection and loneliness, hence why I think we'd be doing him and our family a disservice if we stopped at just one.

If he said "my brother was my best friend, I don't need to make friends" I'd be the happiest mom in the world (that's what my dad always says - he doesn't need to make friends because he is so close to his brothers).

I also think life would be richer with two kids, but we'd need to be richer to be able to afford that without stressing. I can cope with one kid without feeling like the wolves are at the door, financially speaking. Two kids will make me feel like I'm facing financial ruin...and my husband and I are two multi-degreed professionals with 6-figure incomes in a major but not super expensive city.

 

[mic54]

@gordon63 I was an only child and loved it. My mom wasn’t social and was single. I made two of my best gfs in 3rd grade and were still bffs 27 years later. Not everyone has the same experience. If you want to continue living this beautiful life and show your son the world, traveling is way easier with 1 (and my deciding factor to be one and done and I’m 36)

 

[gordon63]

@mic54 As beautiful as my life shaped up to be, my husband is very adamant that our life will be richer with 2+ kids, and based on my not positive experiences being an only, I'd be happy to trade a good amount of travel experiences to give my child a sibling relationship.

All of this said, if I cannot conceive (which I very well may not be able to - I'm turning 43 in a month), I have a lot more comfort that my son will not be miserable as an only child.

On the flipside, I have a OAD friend who flies her 4-year old son EVERYWHERE. Homeboy has taken the lie-flat business class seats from JFK to Singapore and he is four. He's been to like 30 countries. But he looks ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE in every photo and the happiest I see him is when he's playing with his similarly-aged cousins.

One point that I considered when I decided to commit to trying again - we live in a neighborhood where the norm is to have 3 kids, and even 2-kid families are looked upon as either weird or with pity (like fertility or financial issues kept them from having 3 or more). I don't know a single OAD family in our neighborhood and I'm getting the impression that OAD isn't really done down here. But that's what you get from living in a "nice" suburb in the deep South.....

 

[mic54]

@gordon63 One thing that plagues me is that if my second ended up having some sort of ailment that took all attention and time away from my first who’s my best friend. The guilt would be too much. The one kid of your friend isn’t miserable bc he’s an only it’s prob bc his parents aren’t interacting with him as much as they should. I didn’t have a kid to not be engaged with her at all times. Time is precious and I want all my time spent with my daughter. We each have our reasons. I wouldn’t want two kids playing alone without me and then grow up and move out, the whole point of kids is to be hands on. Some ppl just have other kids so they can do “less work” and I get it. It’s just not my outlook.

 

[gordon63]

@mic54 The “second child with special needs” is a massive fear of ours as well, especially since I’m older and more at risk for stuff. We’d terminate for anything diagnosed in utero, but some stuff isn’t ascertainable until the kid is already out of the womb.

Our first is a unicorn - bright, sunny, bubbly, curious, strong, goofy, doofy - and while he’s not without his moments, I look at him with absolute wonder sometimes. How did we get so lucky.

We also do NOT have the bandwidth for a special needs child at all in terms of financial or mental health. I told my husband that my max is two kids with typical needs and the “kitchen” is closed after my next pregnancy lol.

I get that it’s a roll of the dice but I’d never forgive myself if I put my foot down on being OAD knowing what I’d potentially be depriving my son of.

Plus, EVERYONE in our neighborhood has siblings. HUGE southern families that LOVE Jesus and hate, like, Stacey Abrams. We’re already the oddballs in the neighborhood because I’ve lived abroad and we vacation in places like Hvar and Krakow and Ubud instead of, like, 30A or Tybee Island; and we don’t go to church.

Being an “only” will further alienate and otherize our son, who will probably get teased to the high heavens when he shows up to a Nascar-themed birthday party dressed up as Max Verstappen. Our neighborhood is rapidly changing with more coastal types moving in, but there’s still a lot of people here who don’t know what the Met Gala is.

 

[keyslammer]

@gordon63 I havnt seen it mentioned yet but I'll put a plug in for r/oneanddone. A community for those with onlies by choice or circumstance. You'll find a lot of the stories echoed here (onlies are not inherently lonely, siblings don't guarantee build in friends)...but more than that you'll find lots of discussions about navigating having one child, pros and cons etc which may help you in your decision making process.

 

[gordon63]

@keyslammer Thanks. Up until, like, today I've been pretty anti "one and done." Like I don't give a F if someone has 0 kids or 12 kids...just don't have *just one.*

But after an awful couple of months of daycare germs plus an uneasy market where my business had a few epically large deals fall through, I'm really uncertain whether or not we can afford a second child from a financial or mental health perspective.

The flipside is that I know our son's life will be damaged if we only have one child, and what keeps me going is basically what my husband said - times may not be as flush with cash and sleep as you'd like them to be right now, but they don't last forever. And when we're 65, I don't want us sitting on a pile of cash wishing that our lives were richer in non-monetary ways because we opted to only have just one child. And I don't want our son to resent us or grow up lonely, isolated etc because he had no one to play with or relate to or identify with while growing up.

 

[bcraig_6973]

@gordon63 I have a complete opposite experience as you as an only now having an only. There are millions of only child especially in china. We are fine . I did have very supportive mom who made sure we had girls night out every week. She was my best friend and I had regular Best friends as well. My husband wish he was an only child . He was emotionally neglected after his parents had bil because bil was more needy. They are not close they never played together. Bil still hasn’t met our two year old toddler . To each of their own

 

[2christian4u]

@gordon63 And if having a second child costs you your mental health, aren’t you doing a disservice to your first child?

I feel like your comments in this thread really point to you knowing your limit is 1 child and that’s fine. I think your husband needs to be on board with it too as it’s clearly affecting your mental health more than his at this point. The flip side is having a second child breaks you mentally, costs you financially and maybe also ends up sacrificing your marriage. It’s not just the first two years of having a second child, it’s the years after that too. Having to decide if you can afford to travel, to send two kids to extra curricular activities, to look after two sick kids, etc.

 

[gordon63]

@2christian4u That’s a good point re: my mental health. I really, really wanted two - and I’ve always kinda rooted for our next pregnancy being twins so we could have three under two!

But being sick AND caring for my son AND having to work 10 hour days has knocked me on my ass. I actually took yesterday off work and I’m taking today off work as well. Aside from my delivery and emergency lifesaving surgery that I needed, I’ve NEVER taken sick days.

I’m beginning to realize the benefits of having just one and how it may be my limit when it comes to being a good mom + doing all the things I love to do and fulfill me. I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m stealing from my son’s cup to fill my cup, though.

And my husband is pretty adamant re: two+ kids. If we try and I can’t conceive, he’d be fine with accepting just one. But he definitely would not be OK if we didn’t try again.

 

[2christian4u]

@gordon63 I was also wanting two kids but after having to deal with sickness and my mental health deteriorating, we decided one and done was where we needed to be. If you have a village to lean on, then having more than one is fine. We don’t and I think it’s important to recognise that too.

I think your husband should consider the toll this is taking on you because quite frankly, it sounds quite selfish to want another kid when your partner is already drowning with the one. So if he really wants another one, he has to take more off your plate to give you that space.

And re your cup, you cannot pour from an empty cup either. This is a big one for me. I’m a shitty mum when I’m touched out, exhausted, stressed etc. however, if I get some time to myself to recharge then I’m a much more present and engaged parent.

I understand you have trauma from your upbringing as an only and you know what you lacked (social interaction). Maybe in order to fill your son’s cup, you can make sure you have a weekly play date, activities like swimming or gymboree (not sure if it’s a thing there) etc.

 

[keyslammer]

@gordon63 Oof.

I'm really concerned that you think having one child "damages" them. That's really not the case and you need to change your attitude around this.

Onlies are not damaged.

Onlies aren't lonely.

Onlies aren't lesser.

You obviously have a lot of hang ups and possible trauma stemming from your own time as an only. That's not because you were an only. That was because your parents and other caregivers didn't take the time to properly raise you. I know that sounds harsh but that's the gist of it.

Your problem isn't having an only child, your problem is with your parents and you are projecting your fears and misgivings onto your child.

Take a step outside your experience and bubble. Head over to r/oneanddone and try to break these myths and walls you've put up around having a single child.

You may ultimately choose to have another, and if that works for your family great. But under all of this you need to start to deconstruct your biases.

 

[gordon63]

@keyslammer My parents did an amazing job raising me. I just found the only child experience to be very isolating and otherizing. My parents were not terribly social and didn’t put a premium on friendships (mine or theirs), so that might have had something to do with it.

I hold space for others who had a different experience - maybe they lived closer to their cousins or had parents that were more social.

 

[keyslammer]

@gordon63 I'm sure they were great parents overall so I don't want you to think me to harsh but the language you are using around being an only child on this thread like them being "lonely", "maladjusted" and "damaged" is hurtful and misplaced and borders on being rude if it weren't for your own traumatic past. You have a hard bias, and it's twisted your point of view. I encourage you to seek outside perspectives and to open your heart to onlies. That doesn't mean you have to go the only route but just that confronting your past and letting go will do you a lot of good and healing.

If you want me to be frank I think both you and your husband need to confront a lot of demons individually and as a couple. From all you have said here it's clear you have a lot to work through before you welcome another baby. You aren't ready (yet).

 

[elvisrene10]

@gordon63 Been there! Second at 46 with ivf. First at 40. Working is hard, we are very tired people and similar economically and re travel.

Think about what is core to your identity. I had to put digital nomad in my rear view mirror and travel into the future.

My thoughts:

YOU are enough. You are enough. That’s the whole comment here. Rest is details. Work on feeling like you are whole and enough.

Baby 1 is lucky for mature wise parents who have seen so much.

I am hearing a double arrow of guilt, like you are taking from your first. My first kid is adamant she would be better off with more parental attention instead of a cute baby. She’s only been jealous for baby’s 14 months of life so perhaps it’s a phase, sigh.

Really honestly, my work hours HAVE to flex to baby. And my partner is doing more than his share too. Baby is MORE mobile now.

So I’m missing travel. Baby set the clock back: we aren’t flying so much and trips got postponed w rsv, croup, etc.

Again honestly, i see our affluent friends make this work with way more paid help. Or we have grandma power. This works with 3 caretakers.

Be clear, know yourself. Have open conversations. Onlies end up on vacation with their best friends. There are lots of ways to fill in needs. Scientific evidence is clear multiple children is not more advantageous.

Keep talking with your spouse with inquiry and curiosity. Understand your individual needs.

And care is a fortune! And we are in a high COL city and I basically changed our housing path by requiring more space. One kid: we fit into less costly housing. Those awesome posts of 2 kids in a little space? That is a lot of daily decluttering.

You can make either work, 1 or 2. But there is a tradeoff on time, money, career, travel, mental energy. There is no right answer!

I knew I could downscale my work. I am trying to push out something for work but am writing you half dressed while baby needed attention this AM. I have to watch her, get ready and she’s too rough on my laptop. This AM bath post poo, food, packing daycare bag, staggered grown up showers).

Good luck!

 

[gordon63]

@elvisrene10 I really appreciated this - and the inquiry about what's core to my identity.

We live in the suburbs now in a beautiful home that we're lucky enough to own, so I'm very happy to put my nomading days behind me.

But travel is essential to my identity. As is being an athlete and an entrepreneur. And, now, being a mom and a wife! But I want to be all of those things, and ideally at the same time without giving *too much* up at once.

I don't need to be *super cashed up* - I gave up a lucrative but time-intensive and bad-for-your-mental-health career to have more time and flexibility (which I don't regret), but I see my friends who stuck with the hard-but-lucrative careers, and they are able to afford the type of childcare that I feel like we would need for us to have a second kid and preserve my mental health.

I can downscale my hours but my income is quite meaningful to the family. Not to mention that I work in an industry that is very dependent on the markets (like real estate) so during "down" years, we may have to severely strip the quality of our life (i.e. no travel, no eating out) to make ends meet if we have 2 kids.

My husband did put it this way - we will get our lives back if we have a second child, and is it worth it at 65 to be sitting on piles of cash and terabytes of vacation photos and only one, lonely, maladjusted only child if we could have simply endured 2 more years of the tough times to achieve an overall richer life?