Parenting

10 Reasons You Should Have Your Kids Close Together

by Samantha Rodman
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
Two toddlers and one slightly older child in a bathtub taking a bubble-bath

Having three kids under 3 or 4 or even 5 is no walk in the park. But there are plenty of reasons that it’s all worth it. And here are ten of the best reasons to have your kids close together! (Not the only ten that I could think of under duress. Definitely the best ones.)

1. You want an excuse not to exercise for 5 years. What’s the point of getting in shape if you’re only going to pop out another baby? It’s far more logical to eat everything in sight and use naptime to check Facebook. Workout videos are for people who aren’t pregnant or post-partum. Or pre-partum.

2. You want to watch your mother-in-law try to figure out ways to ask if your kids were all planned. This is a close second only to watching her try to figure out ways to tell you that you’ve gained weight. Who needs cat videos on YouTube when this source of entertainment exists?

3. You like the idea of paying $150,000 a year in college tuition when they all attend simultaneously. You needed a motivating force to get you back to work anyway! Besides getting out of the house away from your kids and talking to adults. And dressing like a person again. Hell, you’ll work till you’re 90.

4. You tend to be anxious. The surest cure for anxiety I know is being too busy to worry. With a preschooler, toddler, and baby, you’ll laugh your butt off at the moms who still think about things like germs and screen time limits. Well, not literally, unfortunately (see #1).

5. You think anticipation is sexy. If you’re bored by a predictable sex life, this is the lifestyle for you. It will really drive you wild when you can’t predict if you’ll get to have sex this week. Imagine how hot it is not to know if this month will work out, now that your toddler is back in the bed!

6. Your friends will be really complimentary. They’re all like, “Whoa, I don’t know how you do it!” And if you squint, you can mentally change the pity in their faces into admiration.

7. Your husband thrives in a crisis. Remember when you were dating and he told you about that time he helped a driver stranded on the side of the road? Swoon. Now he can use those skills to diaper the baby while making sure the toddler doesn’t stab anyone. WAIT HOW DID HE GET THAT STEAK KNIFE??

8. Your mom hates retirement. She’s so bored all the time. You can read between the lines when she tells you about her yoga class and her French club and feeling ten years younger. What she really needs is a houseful of kids under 5 on the weekends. And in the evenings.

9. You like drama. Your husband always says it when you’re arguing, and maybe it’s a little bit true. And gossiping about your friends’ love lives is a pale second compared to stopping your two-year-old from biting your four-year-old while you’re on the phone with the pediatrician because the baby’s poop looks weird.

10. You like being the one whose kids are out of diapers first. Ha ha! This is where you can make up for those five years that you had to dissociate through. When your kid’s first grade best friend has a new baby in the house, you can magnanimously offer to have her over for a playdate while her mom catches up on sleep. And then visualize her in 18 years, when you’ll be on a cruise around the world. Except that you’ll still have to pay for all that damn college. Shoot.

Related post: Things You Should Know About Having 3 Kids in Three Years

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