Here are my thoughts - I need Theodore to be: a) potty-trained, b) weaned and c) sleeping through the night before I can even think about that first trimester. Let's face it, if the next first trimester is anything like the last first trimester, I will need a good night's sleep and to NOT be changing poopy diapers for 4+ months. But the other part of me is of the thought that if I'm going to be awake with Theodore might as well add another one to the bed, right? I'm up anyways nursing him, might as well just stack them up on the breasts and feed two birds with one chest - *cringe*.
Even though everything can be related to autism nowadays (whatever autism even means), I came across a new study that linked having children close together to higher prevalence of autism. I haven't read the actual study, just the blog post on Babble, so I'm not sure if it's even sound.
Will this affect our child spacing in the future? Probably not. But now gives me a witty retort to my mother's comments about having more babies besides the whole... "my body, my family, my decision" spiel.
What influenced your decision to have additional children within a certain time frame? Was it an overwhelming desire for another baby? Wanting to keep your kids close together? Wanting them to be far apart for your own sanity? I'm telling Tim we should have a baby while I'm on my parents' insurance, and he thinks that is the worst reason ever. And since he does the majority of the child-rearing these days, he gets more say. But really... I'm not planning on another for a while. I want to go back to school next year, so having another baby would add undue stress to our mix. And we're all about simplification. Babies = complication.
At the same time... how can you resist this??
Our decision to have Charlie was partly due to baby hunger on my part, but also a desire to have two kids close together that could potentially be buds. Mason was getting bored. We plan on taking a large break though between Charlie and the next child (possibly even 5 years). I want some time for me. That may sound selfish, but I realized that maybe my reasons for having children were a little off. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but a lot of the time I wish I had taken it slower. It's sometimes hard to recognize those feelings in the Mormon culture that we find ourselves drowning in, but those feelings are ok. You don't need to have children close together. If you want to go back to school, do it! And although going to school with a child is possibly (I did it), it is ok NOT to. Unless God is telling you you need to have another one, spend some time just enjoying Theodore and spending your time focusing on you for a little while. There will always be time to have children. I wish I hadn't felt so much pressure, and I wish I hadn't used children to escape "real" life, but that's just me. I love my kids, but I wish someone had given me a big heap of perspective before I delved in so fast. I want an identity outside of being a mother, and it gets harder and harder to do that as you add more babies to the mix. Good luck with your decision. I miss seeing you!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to have 2 kids close together so they could be buds as well! Plus I also want to have 4-5 kids and want to be done relatively young (before i am 32). Plus Jackie was also bored and getting spoiled so we decided to add another. I love 2 kids :) Not sure about 3 kids though.....we will see when that time comes around!
ReplyDeleteI think the most important part is you do it for your self :) Have a kid when you feel you are ready for it, because really I think you just know when its time to add another little one to the bunch! :)
i didn't mean to get pregnant with alice but it worked out so well! better than i could have ever imagined. i can tell that we are ready for another one because i feel like i have mastered 95% of the day to day (diapers, food, laundry, cleaning, fun,etc.) and i can tell alice needs a sibling. also everyone tells me that it is way easier to have your kids close together because you don't forget about all the baby details and after a few years and having more independent kids a baby can be a shock again. another thing i have heard is that your first is the biggest adjustment, the second isn't as hard and by the third you are already used to juggling and so what's one more :).
ReplyDeleteof course this is just what others tell me.
also i have always had (maybe an undue amount of) faith in myself. and kids don't scare me. and i don't want to be having babies after i am thirty.
i didn't mean to get pregnant with alice but it worked out so well! better than i could have ever imagined. i can tell that we are ready for another one because i feel like i have mastered 95% of the day to day (diapers, food, laundry, cleaning, fun,etc.) and i can tell alice needs a sibling. also everyone tells me that it is way easier to have your kids close together because you don't forget about all the baby details and after a few years and having more independent kids a baby can be a shock again. another thing i have heard is that your first is the biggest adjustment, the second isn't as hard and by the third you are already used to juggling and so what's one more :).
ReplyDeleteof course this is just what others tell me.
also i have always had (maybe an undue amount of) faith in myself. and kids don't scare me. and i don't want to be having babies after i am thirty.
I used to wonder this to until we didn't have a choice:) I love that Lucy (who will be four when her siblings are born) has had this awesome only child time. She is old enough to really understand that we're having babies again and will be a huge help. I say wait until you really want to-I've waited long enough that I am excited to do all those baby things again-and I didn't feel that when Lucy was 1/12 or 2-she still WAS a baby!
ReplyDeletesince hillary and i are only 19 months apart, i grew up having a sister so close in age to me and we were and still are really close. i can't imagine what my childhood would have been like without my sis to play with all the time. thats why we decided we wanted to get pregnant around the time parker turned a year old, so they could be close in age and hopefully good friends. of course we didn't plan on twins! lol so you have to factor that in also - you never know if you could have twins. they don't even run in my family!
ReplyDeletei'm sure you'll know when the right time is. you'll either be baby hungry or have a prompting. just do whats best for you and tim and theodore. everything will work out great for u guys! your an awesome mom!
Pros and cons. I don't know if I could have done Ben's bedrest if Megan and Gavin were younger. But now, they want to do "big kid" stuff and Ben can't keep up. I think it's harder in the pregnancy/newborn stage when they are close together, but easier in the long run.
ReplyDeleteWe wanted our kids to be close in age, like two years apart. But then with Jacob getting out of the army we wanted them to fully pay for one more kid. That sounds bad, but I've had two kids completely free. We only had one shot to make that happen and it worked.
ReplyDeleteSo our kids are 17 months apart. Much closer than I would have originally planned, but it worked out. We are now taking a good long break, and then we'll probably have two more close in age, like two years apart.
It's hard now, but every parent or sibling close in age loves the outcome. They are so close, they are like best friends. It's just the baby stage that's pretty difficult to juggle.