Disagreement about third child

My wife and I have an 8-year-old son, and a 5-year-old daughter. My wife would like a third. There are times when my wife accepts not having a third, but she'll frequently find herself wanting another. She is worried she'll regret not having another one, and the ones we have are growing some quickly.

As much as I try, I can not come to terms with having a third. I try, but for a variety of reasons, I don't want another one, but I worry about my wife.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you and take care.

ST

In article ,
Scott wrote:

My wife and I have an 8-year-old son, and a 5-year-old daughter. My wife
would like a third. There are times when my wife accepts not having a
third, but she'll frequently find herself wanting another. She is
worried she'll regret not having another one, and the ones we have are
growing some quickly.

As much as I try, I can not come to terms with having a third. I try,
but for a variety of reasons, I don't want another one, but I worry
about my wife.

Well, I don't have suggestions, but we did have a third when our first
two were 7.5 and 4.75 years old. My DH was a bit hesitant, and went
along with it because he knew I really wanted another. But now he is
very glad we did have the third, as he has had more chance to spend
time with him and enjoy him than he did with the other two. The "baby"
is now 4. I still kind of want another, but DH is holding firm. ;-)
Actually, from a practical standpoint, I don't *really* want another,
but emotionally I'd still *like* one.

It is hard going back to naps and diapers once you have two reasonably
self-sufficient children. On the other hand, your older children will
be old enough to be genuinely helpful (if not with the baby in particular,
just in general). Having one much younger child complicates family
activities, outings and vacations (and adds to the expense of these).
That said, we are both really glad we decided to go ahead and have a
third child. It's been a really nice experience for older boys as well.

It's really tough disagreeing about something major like this. I hope
you get some good advice here and are able to figure something out.

Take care,
Robyn

Scott wrote:
My wife and I have an 8-year-old son, and a 5-year-old daughter. My wife
would like a third. There are times when my wife accepts not having a
third, but she'll frequently find herself wanting another. She is
worried she'll regret not having another one, and the ones we have are
growing some quickly.

As much as I try, I can not come to terms with having a third. I try,
but for a variety of reasons, I don't want another one, but I worry
about my wife.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you and take care.


Who's in charge of birth control?

I suggest you talk for a long time about this
with your wife. One of you, or both, does not
understand/accept what the other is saying.
Worried about future regret is not a very
strong reason to have a child, IMO. What's
she really worried about?

There are at least two families on my block
in which the wife wanted a kid, and husband
didn't. Both families got dogs


Scott DS 11 and DD 9

In article ,
Scott wrote:

There are at least two families on my block
in which the wife wanted a kid, and husband
didn't. Both families got dogs


I have to say that a dog wouldn't have cut it for me.
Before we had our third, I wanted another child very much.
I had/have no interest in having a dog ;-) I certainly
didn't want to embark on something so significant to our
family without my husband's buy-in, but I would definitely
have had regrets if we hadn't had our third.

One thing the couple in question might want to consider is
doing some fostering. It could be a way for the mom to
have someone else to nurture without it being a permanent
situation. I think it takes a very special type of person
to be able to care for a child and then give them back,
and I'm not sure I could do it, but it is something I
considered looking into if we decided not to have another
child of our own.

I wish the OP and his wife luck in sorting out their
feelings on this issue. There really isn't anything we
can tell them that will help very much, IMO.

--Robyn

In article ,
(Robyn Kozierok) wrote:

It is hard going back to naps and diapers once you have two reasonably
self-sufficient children. On the other hand, your older children will
be old enough to be genuinely helpful (if not with the baby in particular,
just in general). Having one much younger child complicates family
activities, outings and vacations (and adds to the expense of these).
That said, we are both really glad we decided to go ahead and have a
third child. It's been a really nice experience for older boys as well.
Nicely put pros and cons.

Communication has been the key to my husband and I deciding when enough
is enough and/or when enough is not enough. The majority of our
concerns have been about how more children would affect our marriage.
We really didn't want to talk about those issues, so we lingered long
over our decision.

Karen G