Before I ever got married, I pictured myself with three kids. Even though my first kid rocked my world, the month after I weaned him, I was ready to try for the next. But something changed after my second came along. My life felt so full that I truly couldn’t picture adding another baby. After my second weaned, I spent a whole year doing things for me – setting up a book club, joining a mom’s group, exercising, going on date nights, attending happy hours with friends. It was a fantastic year, and I didn’t want it to end. So, when the clock tolled on my “I just want to enjoy the year without being pregnant,” I seriously considered not having another kid. I had two wonderful, healthy kids. My job was busy and fulfilling. We had enough funds and time to meet everyone’s needs. Even if I felt a pause when putting away the baby bouncer or a panicky feeling about giving away the baby clothes, I felt a deep gratitude for what I had and a pressing desire not to mess it up. Why change anything?
Truly, I might not have if my husband hadn’t urged us to go for it. Somehow, he knew I would regret not going for the third even if I temporarily had to give up some of the things I’d enjoyed since #2 was born. I won’t lie and say it’s all been easy or straightforward, but what I can say is for us, it’s absolutely been worth it. And we had to think carefully about our time, money, space, health, and many other things. But in the end, we wanted this kid and we took the plunge.
Throughout my entire pregnancy, I read everything I could find about what a three kid family would look like. I treasured everything I found, both the positive and negative aspects because it helped me process the huge change to come. We’re still in the early days of three kids, so this post is an attempt to capture the beginnings of what you can expect after adding a third kid.
I can’t tell you what to decide or what that decision will look like for your family. Instead, I can share things we considered and a snapshot of what life with three looks like: the good, the bad, and the in-between.
How to Decide Whether to Have a Third Kid
Trust Your Instincts
Deciding whether to have a third child is deeply personal. If you keep going back and forth, try an exercise where you imagine your life without a third child. Commit to that belief for a set period of time and see how you feel at the end. If you feel regret or tension after living with that decision, use that as a data point.
Be Open to a Kid-Centric Life
It bears mentioning that it’s a lot harder to drag three kids to things that are adult focused. I think people know this but in practice it might feel surprising. You should probably enjoy doing kid-centered activities. I like taking my kids to the library or going to the county fair (play-doh is another story…) but if you can’t find a handful of kid things that you actually like, think twice about doubling down on a kid-heavy life.
Evaluate Your Current Family Dynamics
Think about your current kids—their temperaments, any special needs, and how they interact with each other. Then consider how adding a third will impact your family dynamics. This decision is about your family’s unique needs and your own capacity. Not every family is suited for a third child, and that’s okay.
Be Honest About Your Own Capacity
Now do the same exercise for yourself. Consider your health (physical and mental), career, finances, energy level, relationship, and general disposition. Another child is in theory 50% more work than you’re already doing. I’m not sure that really computes because there are some efficiencies to having many children, but it’s certainly true that it will be some degree of more of everything on you.
Follow Your Heart
This isn’t a decision you can make solely based on practical considerations or a pros and cons list. It is objectively harder to have more children. When you write it out on paper, does knowing that something will be harder really weigh against your wants and desires? I still think it’s helpful to consider what you’re signing on for but I don’t think it truly helps you make the decision. If, after reflecting and researching, you still feel unsettled, perhaps that’s your answer. If your heart says yes, then no list of cons will convince you otherwise.
What I Wish I Knew: The Bad
The Physical Aspects Get Harder
The third pregnancy was much, much more difficult for me. I got sicker. I gained more weight. I was more swollen. Each symptom from the previous pregnancies was magnified. This has also been true postpartum. I’ve had a much harder time losing weight than I did before. My general appearance has not been a “win” in this three-kid adventure. If I cared more about how I look this might be more upsetting but it’s kind of just the way it is right now. I know it will get better.
You Can Give Your All and Feel Like You’re Falling Short
Because there are so many kids now, I can spend tons of time doing an activity with one, turn around and tend to another, feel totally touched out and still have one kid who needs me. Some days it feels like I am doing things for my kids every second of the day. I am relieved to be a working mom sometimes (honest truth!).
This also shows up in my relationship. With having 3 kids, both people often feel like they’re doing the most they can and there is still so much more to do. It’s not both people giving 50/50, its both people feeling like they’re giving 100. I remember saying often to my husband, it’s not that I don’t think you’re doing enough it’s that I am at my own capacity for what I am doing. My husband and I joke a lot that we are a team and the kids are the enemy. It helps us remember that we love each other and we’re often not mad at each other, we’re frustrated with the situation or the kids. The only thing that helped was time!
Expect Unrelenting Illness
My big kids had not missed more than a day or two of preschool in the year since our baby was born. But three days after our third came home from the hospital, we had to call an ambulance for my second kid (they were fine!) which eventually led to two very sick kids plus trying to manage a week old baby while freshly postpartum. This was the hardest time I’ve had since having the third. I knew when I had three kids I’d not be able to do everything for everyone just when they wanted but this was a crash course in not being able to comfort my very sick toddler in order to focus on a new baby who I frankly was still getting to know, yet was demanding the majority of my time. My husband and other family members supported us but this situation hurt my heart in a way I didn’t anticipate would happen before having three kids. We had three more big illnesses just during my maternity leave but its evened out a lot since then.
Compromise is Necessary and Uncomfortable
Everyone says this but I had no idea what it meant in practice. This first started coming up when all of my kids needed things and I couldn’t do all of them at once but it starts to come up way more with three kids as they get older. We can only attend preschools that also take babies. We can no longer attend every birthday party or sign up for every sport my kids may want to play. Everyone said this stuff but it’s different when you have to live through the raw feeling of having to do what is best for everyone even if it’s not quite the best for one kid. In the end, I think it’s all going to be alright.
I Miss the Big Kids. Then I Miss the Baby. On Repeat.
Since I am breastfeeding, I usually take point on putting the baby to bed every night. I therefore don’t get to participate as much in my big kids bedtime routine. Same goes for a lot of outings. If the baby is asleep and needs to feed when they wake, I stay home while everyone else goes out. I’m not the parent who takes the kids to birthday parties or other things. In general, I miss out on a lot. And because our lives are so much fuller than when I only had one or two kids, I still don’t get to spend the leisurely time with my baby playing on the floor or taking long walks like I used to. This is all okay. I’ve accepted it. It probably won’t be forever. And a lot of this comes from the way we like to parent – with a schedule, trying for crib naps, etc. But I wish I had known in a practical sense what the loss and isolation would feel like.
Struggles with Boundaries and Discipline
One serious pain point I’ve experienced is its incredibly challenging to enforce boundaries around bad behavior when you’re juggling so much. Often for me that would require some action on my part. Well now that there’s a baby I would often be stuck feeding the baby or changing them or whatever while the big kids got away with things. Or we’ve been up all night and we’re just tired! Or we want our big kids to but their own dang coats on. Or I cannot physically remove you from the park because my hands are full with baby and you’re running away from me and on and on it goes. Sometimes it’s really unpleasant I have to admit and having another kid just means there are more situations where the children outnumber and overpower you! I have no solution for this. It is what it is.
You Will Forget Things. A Lot.
I forget a lot of things these days. I mix up the dates for birthday parties. I write down the wrong location for sports class on the calendar. I forget it’s early pickup day at preschool. I have always been super high achieving and I like managing all of these things but there is something about the chaos of managing so many little people that my mind gets a little jumbled. Unfortunately, it began in pregnancy too. One day I showed up at a bakery to pick up a cake for my friend’s birthday dinner and they couldn’t find it in the orders in the back. Heavily pregnant I scanned the cases looking for a treat while I waited. Finally, a long time later they asked for my order number and I found it in my email – I found the number but it was from a different place. I had not ordered the cake from this bakery! I wish this was an isolated incident, but I showed up to my OB appts at the wrong location or times more than one time. It gets harder once the baby is here because you’re always thinking about feeding schedules, your big kids extracurriculars and routines, and all the other stuff you used to do with two kids. If you take away anything from the negatives of having a third kid, its just that you need to truly embrace patience and grace for yourself and your family during this time.
What I Wish I Knew: The Good
Finding Joy in Imperfection
I like the person I am as a mom of three kids more than I ever could’ve imagined. Having three kids has made me more patient. I don’t sweat the small stuff. There is too much demanding my attention that I really just cannot care anymore. I’ve also let go of worrying about what other people think of me (lots of people will have opinions about having three kids anyways!). I often don’t look the most stylish and I’ve made peace with that. At this stage of my life, I practice radical acceptance for myself and others. My expectations are so much lower and because of this I find joy a lot more often than I used to.
Living in the Moment
I don’t plan too far ahead or worry about as much beyond what’s right in front of me. I just don’t have the brain capacity. I can see what is special about my kids at each of their ages and I know it wont last forever. I am not as strict as I used to be and it’s turned out fine. Everything is messier and louder and it’s not the end of the world. I know that I can’t control so much of my life and accepting that has freed me from a lot of strife. My house is lived in and my kids are real people and I’m just a human figuring this out day by day and that’s okay. Perfection is the enemy. (To keep it real, I say this as someone who had very high standards for everyone in my life so objectively to an outsider I probably still have high standards, just not sky high. Having really high expectations can breed a lot of disappointment, so being able to let go of some of that really can make you happier.).
Confidence is Key
Once you get to three kids you pretty much have a sense of what kind of parent you are and what’s important to you. I knew that we would be big on schedules and naps at home. Sure, there are new challenges, but I was so incredibly prepared for this baby and parenting experience. I also have no appetite for other people’s parenting opinions and I remember many days with my first or second where I felt like I had to do something someone else was telling me. Third time really is the charm.
More of Everything
My older two have had more meltdowns and conflict since the baby was born, but they also have played better together independently – seems like it’s just true that three is more of everything, good and bad. When I reflect on my days though, what feels overwhelming is the joy. The hard parts are hard in the moment but they don’t endure. The smiles and love do. I saw someone recently say that with these things, its really easy to tangibly name the negative aspects but hard to describe the limitless love.
None of the Negatives Matter
Everything I read before having the third said travel would be harder, XYZ would be expensive, blah blah blah. Sure, that’s true. But now that our baby is here, truly none of this other stuff matters. It’s just part of our amazing, busy, crazy lives now and I wouldn’t change a thing. My favorite thing I have ever read on the internet was a comment deep into an old blog post years ago. A mom wrote about parenting and navigating the challenging moments:
Hard is not the same as bad and most rewarding things we do in life are hard, at least some of the time. What a humbling privilege it is to show another person what it means to live and how to do it well, even when sometimes you’re still trying to figure it out yourself.
Tips and Tricks for Parents of Three
Your Attitude is Contagious
You set the tone for your house and family. Lead by example and don’t allow hard moments to fix a black cloud over your family. There are going to be challenges. You are going to feel really tired and frustrated a lot of the time. There is going to be so much you cannot control. The one thing you can control is your attitude and how you treat other people. Greet your kids every time you see them before/after parting – in the morning, after school, at bedtime – like it’s the best part of your day and they will internalize this. Apologize when you make mistakes and lose your cool, because you will. Kids are resilient and they’ll get over it.
Get Out of the House
Leave the house. Go outside. When the squabbling starts feeling overwhelming for me and the baby is crying and my husband is trying to tell me about the fall recruits for his sports team…. I step outside and away from the madness! Or we all go on a walk. Or we send the big kids outside. It seems to cure everything.
Plan A Lot. Expect Many of Them Not to Work. Do It Anyways.
Life requires a lot of planning now. We are constantly thinking of how to fit in everyone’s needs in the limited amount of time we have. I have checklists for days and my notes app is crowded. Routines are key to our survival and especially important to us for food, sleep, and laundry. Everything takes longer so you really need to be thoughtful about how to get out of the house and into car seats for school, or how to get dinner on the table during baby’s bedtime. This is something I excel at but it is still requires effort daily. Then, many of the plans won’t work out. The baby was home sick for many days right when I went back to work. I am often juggling some kid thing while trying to get a deliverable out. I’ve been working more at night to catch up. This stinks and it won’t be forever but adapting is required in this stage of life! I’ll probably expand on this in another post at some point.
Separate the Kids When Necessary
Separating the kids can be really helpful for defusing difficult moments and remembering the things that are special about each one. You have to be strategic about this now. Some easy wins are when you’re taking one kid to an extracurricular. If you can have both parents do bedtime 1:1 (and baby somewhere in a bouncer?) for each kid. Picking one kid up early from preschool. You can do mommy and me ballet with a baby in a carrier and while it wasn’t my favorite 30 minutes of the day and we were late every single class, it was the highlight of one of my kids weekends for 12 weeks. And getting out of the house gave us something to do.
Establish a Safe Place for Baby
From day one, it’s helpful to have a safe space for the baby, like a large pack-and-play, where they can be while you manage the other kids or just take a break. I made a mistake with my first kid and did not do this and then they would never ever willingly spend time in one without screaming. We started putting my second one in there from the very beginning and they loved their little private play space and the third seems to so far too!
Never Turn Down an Offer of Help
I feel uncomfortable accepting help but I promised myself I’d never reject any offer of help and I’m so glad I didn’t! Friends bought food. They drove my kids to events. Friends from afar sent food gift cards. My MIL stayed for a week. These people kept me sane and made me feel loved during times when life felt really overwhelming. If you don’t have a village, see my post on building a village and don’t forget the importance of being a villager yourself!
Lean On Your Partner
My partner has shown up in ways I didn’t think possible. Both for me and the kids. When I was pregnant and comatose on the couch for months, he did dinner and bedtime for the kids without complaint. He also handled all middle of the night wake-ups for the big kids during pregnancy. Since the baby was born, he’s taken point on running the big kids ragged outside so the baby and I can get some peace. I could not do this alone and I really don’t recommend planning for a third kid unless you feel very supported by your partner, you share the load in whatever ways make sense for you and you both want to pursue this. Any issues that you have are going to be exacerbated by adding another kid and it’s not good for anyone in your family to put strain on the people who hold it all together.
Be Flexible
We let things go a lot. We don’t watch tv during the week as a general rule and we let that go a LOT when the baby was little. Once we didn’t need it as much, we cut back and literally there were no ill effects. We let our kids pack of bag of random stuff and drag it along to preschool if that would get us out the door. We just stopped having so many battles about lots of little things. It truly doesn’t matter if you bend a bit here and there as long as you can keep the kids’ overall boundaries/structure.
Train Your Big Kids Early
We started a routine of hand-washing every time we returned to the house. I’m not sure if it did anything but it felt productive. I started asking my kids to carry their coats and water bottles into the house to and from preschool. We bought each kid a backpack for them to carry their own nap blanket and art. We trained each kid to put their own shoes on (in theory, capability does not equal compliance…). In every way I could, I started trying to get my big kids to be more self-sufficient. We rely HEAVILY on routines as well and my kids know what to expect and when. This has been comforting for them when their world feels upside down with a new person in our family. I’m so proud of them and their amazing capacity to grow and love the baby, but it hasn’t been without its hiccups and tantrums.
Have a Sense of Humor
Sometimes when all hell is breaking loose around us, my husband and I share a look like what the frick and it makes us laugh. Or when I was pregnant my friend, also a mom of three, would tease me when my kids were getting crazy and say, you know what would make this situation even better, how about adding screaming baby right about now? If you can hear that and laugh instead of wanting to pull your hair out, you’ll be okay.
Lower Your Expectations For Yourself and Your Family
I am used to being able to do all the little and not so little things I want for my family and myself and lately its not all possible. At one point I was really burned out during a particularly trying time and I had to admit I needed a break. Right now it feels like if I let up on any one thing, then my house of cards will collapse. Balls will be dropped and that should be an expectation not a surprise. It goes without saying that you should do whatever is possible to streamline, automate, and reduce your mental and physical load wherever possible. We were late to literally every extracurricular activity for a while after the baby was born. It really stressed me out and then I asked myself why I was putting so much pressure on myself and getting stressed because I was late for toddler ballet class.
It bears repeating but you are not perfect! Your spouse is not perfect. Your kids are definitely not perfect. Everyone is trying their best. Don’t allow yourself to think anything different (if someone isn’t pulling their weight that is a different conversation).
Time Goes Faster Than You Think
Every hard moment will eventually pass. Everything is so incredibly fleeting. Try to think of one thing that you will be sad about once this phase is over for any challenging times. It will get easier and then harder. You’ve done this before and you can do it again! In a way, the pace of life sometimes makes me sad because it feels like everything is sped up. I try as hard as I can to slow down and focus on the little moments every day.
What Didn’t Work For Us
Grocery Delivery
I like grocery shopping and I like leaving the house to do it. I would rather go with one baby then be stuck at home still spending the time curating a grocery list online with three children screaming in the same room.
Sleep In The Next Days Clothes
I have never had my kids sleep in their clothes for the next day. They have 100 pairs of pajamas that they love. Bathtime and getting into pajamas is a key part of our evenings. They are also filthy eaters at breakfast. I see this on so many advice lists and it just will never be my thing.
Share Your Thoughts
I welcome your experiences in the comment section! What worked or didnt work for you?