Wife wants another. I'm not excited about it

[alsdpa]

Over the past few weeks my wife has been more direct in asking about having another kid. She (38) is the middle child in a family with three kids and I (39) have a younger brother. Our son (5) has started making comments about not having a real brother (his brothers are all stuffed animals). Most of our friends in town have two or more kids.

My son's birth was scary. My wife was in labor for over 12 hours and then had an emergency c section due to a prolapsed cord. Everyone was fine but it's not an experience I want to repeat.

I love being a dad. I am just not excited about going through it all again with another kid. Our son was not a so-called angel baby. He refused to be swaddled and did not sleep consistently untill he was about four.

I am happy that the baby years are behind us. I feel like we have a good family and nothing is missing. I also like the idea of the three of us traveling more.

My wife feels like she has to have another kid because she will reach an age soon where she can't.

She says she wants for our son to have a friend and companion in life. We don't have any extended family nearby so he doesn't have a bunch of cousins or other relatives he can visit. He has a lot of friends at school but there's no way to know how long he'll stay in touch with them.

I want my family to be happy. But I don't want to carry around resentment for agreeing to have a second kid. Any advice?

 

[jperenon]

@alsdpa I had my second daughter because I felt guilty for not giving my first a sibling. A single child was almost taboo in our friends circles and families.

Looking back at this train of thoughts, I think I was wrong on a number of things :
* When we had our second, quality time with our first has falled drastically : we couldn't give her as much time as before and on the first week, when I told her I couldn't play with her because I had to take care of her sister, she said something like "before, daddy and mommy only took care of me "
* We are more tired and have less patience in general with our eldest daughter.
* The interaction are not so great : when her sister was a little baby, the older one wanted to manipulate her constantly but we couldn't let her, of course. Now they are fighting a lot on who will have this or that toy. Their age gap is 3 years, I guess yours' would be 6 or more.
* I can be very protective of the younger one, and become stressed when she's crying. I sometimes lose my temper with my eldest daughter when she makes too much noise while the navy is crying or sleeping.

So, all in all, I don't think that giving your single child a sibling is a good enough reason to have another child.

You and your wife should rather be asking : do we want to do it again because we love parenting? Do we want to do even more parenting?

 

[alsdpa]

@jperenon Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[lonniebiz]

@jperenon this would definitely be me… I’m grappling but leaning towards the one. I’m getting my rhythm back now that he’s 3 and in preschool so you get those thoughts about: I can do it again! but I know it would be a big hit to everyone in almost every way. I don’t think we should do it.

 

[born94]

@jperenon This is such a good answer. Thanks for sharing!

 

[woodbury]

@jperenon Thank you for your honesty!

 

[praynmama]

@jperenon Mm hmm. This is a good mindset to have.

 

[sisi]

@alsdpa I do think it's important to take the long view on decisions like this, because it is a decision about the rest of your life, not just the next few years. Birth and infancy are intense and so occupy a lot of our consideration when making these decisions, especially because they are the closest to us in time, but they are ultimately just a fraction of your time with children. Those years do matter, but they don't matter more than all the other years. What do you imagine your family looking like in 5, 10, 20, 30 years? Try to picture that first.

 

[greyowl]

@sisi This is good advice, and I agree that it is important to consider what you want your family to look like in the future. On the other hand the baby/toddler/preschool years are not really the only intense parenting years. Elementary, middle school, high school, and even college-aged children still can require very time-intensive parenting. Managing schoolwork, sports/activities, friendships/bullying, big emotions surrounding them figuring out who they are and who they want to be. All those years require a lot of emotional labor (not to mention $). Just wanted to throw that out there because many people act like once children start kindergarten, parenting gets easier somehow when that is not the case. You may get more sleep, otherwise in some ways, it is actually more challenging.

 

[alsdpa]

@greyowl My 5yo is in 1st grade and in some ways it is easier than the time before he was in school.

There are some new challenges but on the whole it has gotten easier not harder. We don't have any grandparents or other relatives nearby and available to help with childcare. (I'm also estranged from my FOO but that's a whole nother issue.)

We have a great school and have been lucky so far that he likes going and has been making friends. I sense my wife is reluctant to see this as a substitute for a sibling.

 

[sisi]

@greyowl While of course parenting does not ever become easy, and that each age brings its own challenges, I do not think it compares to the early years in intensity - just the simple fact that a baby/toddler depends on you for absolutely everything and cannot do anything themselves or on their own. Illustrated by the fact that OP has a 5-year-old and his focus is almost entirely about not wanting to go through the baby phase again. I don't think this is a controversial thing to say.

 

[greyowl]

@sisi I absolutely agree most people think the early years are the most challenging. I understand that. I was simply offering another perspective to consider. Some children have very difficult times in school and through adolescence which will wear you down far more than a toddler tantrum. Not trying to be argumentative. Just my experience.

 

[gsmrrr]

@alsdpa Ultimately, both parents should be on board for a new baby. You deserve that and so do your kid(s). Another child does not guarantee a friendship with your first kid. They might hate each other. Perhaps as he gets a little older and gets some close friends, you can let him pick a friend to take on fun family outings so he has a kid to play with. You can be the fun and safe house for his friends to hang out at and then send the extra kids home at the end of the day.

I understand that what makes this harder on your wife is that she probably wants to choose whether or not to have another and soon time might choose for her, which probably is making her feel pressured to decide now. I think you both need to have more conversations about why you really do or don't want another until you're on the same page. Good luck!

 

[phelven]

@alsdpa My son didn’t sleep until he was 4, almost 5. This reason alone holds me back a lot from going through with another. Our friends baby slept through the night at 6-8 weeks old. I’d 100% have another if this was only a few week situation.

 

[alsdpa]

@phelven Yeah. The sleep depravation is a real fear of mine. My son still thinks it's appropriate to wake up by yelling.

 

[2christian4u]

@phelven Mine is almost 3 and still wakes up between 1-3am. It’s exhausting and definitely has ensured he’s an only child.

 

[asheri]

@alsdpa I had my baby the month I turned 35 and he turns one tomorrow and I’m no where close to wanting another and I know if I had the time and could wait until baby was around 4 I’d maybe consider another but I don’t want to be pregnant again or go through the sleepless night again when I’m 40. I have to be honest with myself and I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it physically or mentally. To me it’s more important for me to be present and healthy and happy for my one child than for him to have a sibling. But you both need to be truly honest with each other. Does you wife want another just because she’ll feel bad about your son not having a sibling or because she truly, genuinely wants to being another human into the world and be responsible for that child for the rest of your life. IMO having a child just so your current child has a sibling is not a strong enough reason to have another.

 

[alsdpa]

@asheri

IMO having a child just so your current child has a sibling is not a strong enough reason to have another.

I agree.

 

[ipreachchrist]

@alsdpa Adding to this - if the concern is "a friend for life", then that's something that you can actively work to develop, even without cousins nearby. We have an only about the same age as yours, and there's a lot I do to really cultivate and strengthen her friendships for exactly this reason.

I definitely don't want to make sweeping generalisations about your specific family, but often times the 'social calendar' responsibilities for children fall to their moms to organise and maintain. If the 'lifelong friend' issue is something that your wife is concerned about, that's a very tangible way for you to step up and assuage her fear. If you can point to concrete ways in which YOU are taking the lead to help make that happen, that might help her feel less concerned about that particular aspect.

With an only, I've found that most parents of multiples are DELIGHTED to offload one of their kids with us for an afternoon or overnight. So you can do lots of stuff to make your house a fun-zone for kids, or always be prepared to get an extra ticket to the waterpark/movies/fair/whatever - and then REACH OUT to see if their kids is available to join. Also: often these long-lasting friendships work because the parents are friends as well. So it might be time for you to really start investing in developing relationships with the parents of his pals (again, this is stereotypically the purview of the mothers, so now's the time to turn that idea on its head!). Take the initiative and start organising get-togethers between your family and theirs, whether it be a monthly dinner, or standing dads-and-kids-to-the-park dates or yearly hiking/camping trips... we've found that this works particularly well with other families with onlies, but it's ALSO effective to do get-togethers with families with a much younger sibling too... my kiddo NEVER wants a younger sib after those get-togethers!

Again, I really don't want to assume that you're not an active part in the family/kid social calendar. But if that mental load often falls to your wife, she will likely resent that not only did you decide to keep the family small, but you also didn't take a big role in helping kiddo build sustaining friendships.

 

[alsdpa]

@ipreachchrist This is a great suggestion. I'd say that about 75 percent of my son's social calendar gets planned by my wife. A lot of that is because other moms text her when they are planning something.