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Motherhood: how do you know that you’re done having children?

June 22, 2017 by Shari

I woke up the other morning, after I had had a full night’s sleep {read, the Z man slept through and didn’t require me to breast feed him during the night} and thought…hmmm, these be tricky times. When my eldest started sleeping through was when I fell pregnant with my second. My eldest and my second are 17 months apart. If I fell pregnant now, the Z man and my fourth would be 17 months apart. So it brings me to the question; how do you know that you’re done having children?

Now adding a fourth to the mix now just might send me to the looney bin. I mean, I have had three children in three and a half years and at present I am single parenting for the majority of the time whilst my husband has been working interstate. I actually just looked at the calendar and can’t believe that he has been working interstate for the past eight weeks.

In this set up, he works Tuesday-Saturday in our Canberra based business and upon returning to Sydney on Saturday night he works Sunday and Monday in our Sydney based business – with every second Sunday-Monday off. So we see Daddy at home 2 days out of every fortnight. It’s not ideal, but we make it work.

GoodFoodWeek - with her youngest son {8 months}

I was talking to another friend who has had three small children in a short amount of time and we were both commenting on the fact that we didn’t believe that our families were complete. And I raised the question with her ‘How do you know that you’re done having children?’ Some might think that it is crazy or maybe even greedy that we are contemplating a fourth baby. But it just feels like another person is meant for our family.

I love these little boys with all of my heart. And yet, I am amazed at the birth of another how much love my heart is capable of giving to them and how much I have felt like our family needed that member. I know that I would have enough LOVE for another little person to come into our lives, but I also am aware of the fact that it takes a lot of money to raise a child these days and I don’t want my babies to miss out on anything because of the size of our family.

It seems like it is a constant see-saw in my mind, as to whether or not a fourth would be a good idea. Can we afford a fourth? Would I be able to handle a fourth child? Do I think our tribe is complete? Would a fourth complete our tribe or would I always feel like I could have had one more baby? I read somewhere that we all have one less child then we would like to have had.

I have always liked the thought of having a big family. Both my parents are one of five children – although in today’s world, it seems like three is the new five.

GoodFoodWeek with her eldest {4 years}

Now discussing to have or not to have another baby with the internet is not a new concept. I mean, if you are also considering having another child, you might like to check out these bloggers:

  • Claire from Life on Wallace, was a Mum of three little boys and then she fell pregnant with twins – two beautiful baby girls!
  • Erin from The Mums Group is also a Mum of three little boys and then fell pregnant with baby Olivia and I love seeing her life with four kids on Instagram.
  • Beth from BabyMac had two older girls and then gave herself the shortest window to fall pregnant with a third and precious Maggie was born.
  • And Michaela over at Not Another Slippery Dip shares her experience of falling pregnant with her fourth after a miscarriage.

Actually, in putting that all down, it is interesting to see that they have all had girls. If I were to fall pregnant again, it would be to create another member for our tribe and not to just ‘try for a girl’. It’s interesting just how many people ask me if I am going to try for a girl.

So tell me; how do you know that you’re done having children? How many children have you had? What age gaps did you have between your children?

 

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Filed Under: motherhood Tagged With: having babies, having more children, large families, mum of boys, mum of three, raising boys

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Hi, I’m Shari Wakefield and I am the creative director and social media manager behind the food/lifestyle blog GoodFoodWeek. I’m a mum to four beautiful boys, who spends her days working in corporate communications and her nights cooking up a storm in her kitchen. We reside in Sydney, Australiaread more

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goodfoodweek

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I’ve been working with brands and writing sponsored content since 2010.
Some of the brands that I have worked with include; Foxtel, Tommee Tippee, Murray Valley Pork, Mater Mothers, Redbelly Citrus, Home Hello, Majestic Mushrooms, and Littlebean Organics.
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GoodFoodWeek started in 2008 as a way of sharing recipes with uni friends and family who were spread near and far. It has evolved over the years to contain my ramblings as I’ve searched for a house, planned the perfect veggie patch, stumbled through farmer’s markets with my eye half open (because you need to be there at 6am to get the fresh eggs), had babies, gathered family and friends around a shared table, laughed out loud and enjoyed life to the fullest! Read More…

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