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Following . I have one (3 year old) and contemplating 2nd. I am 40 and obv running out of time. I grew up as an only child and I don’t feel like I “missed out” on childhood and did get certain things other kids wouldn’t. However as an adult… it’d be pretty great to have a sibling so I am leaning more towards yes because I don’t want my son to be alone when he grows up.
Congratulations!!
Wanting more than one was a no brainer for me, choosing to have kids inherently meant 2+ for me. I don’t love the family dynamics with only children and knew I wanted my kids to have siblings. The transition from 1 to 2 was easy, partly because #2 was an easy baby and partly because we were experienced parents and a second just fit into the fold. My third is a newborn and is a harder baby but it’s nothing like 0 to 1 in terms of difficulty. In a dream world I would like to have at least once more but from an age/health/finances perspective it’s getting impractical.
I think everyone’s experience is different for a number of reasons. For us I think the biggest factor that made everything hard is because we don’t have a village.
We knew we wanted a second, we weren’t ready but we wanted to “get the hard parts over with”. Not sure I would do it the same way again if I had to choose. It also kinda shook my executive functioning quite a bit so it took me a year of support and life changes to figure out how to adapt. Just now coming out of it.
Not sure how helpful that is but at the end of the day everyone has a different journey and just follow your gut. Would you be okay with one kid? Do you feel incomplete without a second?
Does anyone have experience with a 4 yr age gap? I have 4 embryos (did IVF in April) and waiting for my husband to get a job (he’s out of work atm) before we transfer the eggs. My son just turned 3 and I’m nervous to wait too long bc of the age gap. I’m also 40- got my eggs out at 39 😅 so feeling the age pressure as well. Is there ago/nogo scenario?
I’m about to have number two and we made the decision because it just felt like someone was missing. Maybe that sounds silly, but it felt like the natural next step for our family. Plus, our first (who just turned 2) was not meant to be an only child 😂 We think it’s going to be fun.
I'm right there with PWC1. If I had one, I would undoubtedly have a second and maybe more, and I'm expecting my second. I have always been sooo close with my two siblings and can't imagine not having/had (my sister passed away...yet another reason to have more than one imo) my siblings in my life. We share parents, our childhood and many experiences. A sibling *could/might* understand you and know your strengths and weaknesses more than most people do. I recognize and fully understand that having a good/healthy sibling relationship is not guaranteed, so apart from that, I think having another sibling around (as long as they're close-ish in age) has the potential to prepare a child for the future both socially and emotionally. I could go on and on!
Two is easier than one if they are close in age because they play together. More than one is much better for the child both in childhood and adulthood imo - I have 4 siblings.
I was almost an only child (was 11 when my sibling was born so was just a weird dynamic) and my spouse was an only. We did wish we would have had siblings so we knew we wanted 2-3. Our two are 19 months apart.
Maybe it’s because my second is a terrible sleeper and I’m not out of the trenches (7 mo old and 2 year old), but I feel like I have really struggled with the 1 to 2 transition. 0 to 1 is very different because obviously your whole life is turned upside down, but it felt like we could hand off between us when we had one, but there is no hot potato with two, someone always needs something 😂 and so you’re both on call.
Trust your gut, whatever you decide is the right call!
I am eight weeks PG with my second and it was a very very hard decision. I was not ready to even think about it until my eldest was 3.5. This age gap works for us. I can finally see the benefit of a sibling, things finally feel easy because he’s much more independent. Personally, I absolutely cannot imagine having another kid if you have a two-year-old but I know some people make it work.
I’m glad I have 2. The transition was really hard. I was already stretched thin and now I’m stretched more thin. I had really bad PPD and 9 mo later I’m starting to feel better. At first, I felt guilty of my second taking time away from my first. Now, I feel guilty bc I can’t spend the time with my second (helping them learn) like I did my first. Vicious cycle. Someone told me that it gets 10% better every month and it does
Mine are 22 mo apart (Not planned. 2nd was a big surprise). I come from a big family and thought I wanted that. Now I really don’t want more than 2.