[dk1138]

As a dad who has taken two 12w paternity, I realized a few things after the birth of my second child.

• There was no limit to the amount of love I could give to my second child.

• There was a limit of time and attention I could share with both children which I felt started to hamper my ability to share that love.

• The logistics of a second child made everything take exponentially more time. Meals, transport, dressing, wrangling...it all became much harder. Manageable with my wife--far more difficult when I am alone with them (which is every morning and evening since my wife has a longer commute).

At this point, I can't envision having a third child. I can't imagine splitting my time and attention into thirds. I have a minivan and I'm not sure how I'd fit the kids and requisite stuff in the car. I'm certainly not ready to handle getting three kids ready in the morning alone. And I'm not ready for the guilt when I travel for work.

How did paternity play into this? With insights from my brother who has two kids, the costs didn't take me by surprise. The effort and complete consumption of time and energy did. Would I trade it for anything? No. Do I think I can handle more children? I think I've learned about myself that no, I can't--both because I don't feel like I would be my best self in that situation and because that would then reflect on my interactions with my kids.

[nvusuvu]

I feel ya. I have 5 kids. I love them all, but there is only so much time in a day. I believe the key to make the effort to have one-on-one time, be there when they really need you, and support their growth/development with active planning. I also believe strongly in the term 'benign neglect'. It's not my job to keep them entertained every waking minute. They need to explore, be bored, use their imaginations, read books, etc. We have nightly scripture study, weekly in-house movie night with pizza and/or popcorn, a monthly go-out-to-eat dinner (with lessons in manners constantly reiterated) , and an annual trip to the beach. Life is good!

[theonemind]

Reminds me of the Jim Gaffigan joke: “You know what it’s like having a fourth kid? Imagine you’re drowning, then someone hands you a baby.”

[roflchoppa2]

You're not spacing them out correctly, you have to wait till the oldest one can help take care of the youngest one.

[Domenic_S]

Also depends on the temperament of the kids. My young daughter can dress herself, brush her hair, get her cereal, essentially take herself from waking up to ready to leave the house with minimum input from me. My son on the other hand will get distracted with toys, run around the house playing, and generally takes 90% of my attention to get ready for the day. 100% if I don't want a whirlwind of clothes and toys to clean up. Granted, he's 3... If I had two kids like that I couldn't imagine a third.

[r00fus]

Chiming in as someone with identical twins, one of them is far more self-reliant, while the other one has her head in the clouds most of the time.

[pwinnski]

As father to three children, my experience is that you only think two is exponentially more complex than one. At least with two, they don't always outnumber you!

[lostphilosopher]

"It's a whole different game when you have to switch from man on man coverage to zone defense."

[geebee]

And eventually, perimeter ;)

[aidenn0]

Also, thanks to combinatorics, the number of sibling fights that can happen increases superlinearly:

With a simplifying assumption of only pairs of siblings getting into fights, its C(n,2) which is 0,1,3,6,10,15 for 1-6 kids. I have a friend with 6 kids and can confirm that there are roughly 15x as many fights between the siblings as friends with 2 kids. Age differences do matter though (if your kids are much more than about 10 years apart, they tend to clash a bit less because they are less in competition with each other).