A Mom Wanted 4 Kids — Until She Had Her First Newborn
Now she says she's one and done, and she wants to know if this has happened to anyone else.
When I had my first baby, I remember staying up all night when she was about 3 months old. I was beyond exhausted, and I felt like I had given up my entire life to be a mom. In that moment, I had absolutely no clue how or why people had more than one child on purpose.
It turns out that I’m not alone. This week on the One and Done forum on Reddit, one new mom wanted to know just how many people change their family plan right after having their first child.
“I have absolutely no idea why more people don’t just stop at one,” she writes. “I wasn’t always one and done. I originally wanted 3-4 kids, but actually having my first child made me OAD. I cannot imagine having any more children; being a parent is SO hard.”
She goes on to say that her first child is still a newborn, and she sounds incredibly tired and frustrated.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my kid to death, but the newborn/infant stage alone is Hell on earth,” she continues. “It’s not even the lack of sleep that’s the worst of it— it’s the constant screaming if i’m not holding them, the cluster feeding and comfort nursing that never got better, and being worried that every single thing Im doing (or not doing) is gonna mess them up for life. My parents fed me these lies that my child would be a good sleeper because I slept great since birth. Lies lies lies, my child is ALLERGIC to sleeping.”
To add to that difficulty, it sounds like she doesn’t have a partner who is doing his entire part.
“My husband also didn’t make post-partum easy for me,” she explains. “The house fell apart and I can’t eat meals by myself unless someone other than him is here. I thought mothers were full of shit when they talked about the showering situation; I am lucky to get to shower as infrequently as I get to. I need to be able to have a tidy space for my mental health. I think even if he was any different than he is, I still wouldn’t want another baby; the mess will only get worse as they get more mobile.”
She truly wants to know: who goes through the experience of having a newborn and says, Let’s do this again!
And does anyone else move to the one-and-done camp after finding out how relentless parenting can be?
Down in the comments, she found a lot of encouragement and validation, along with a number of posters who said they felt (or feel) the same way.
“People are always telling moms, ‘Oh, just wait, you'll miss this stage one day.’ My daughter will be seven in May...and while I obviously love her more than life itself, there's still pretty much nothing that I miss about any of her previous stages,” wrote one poster. “I am very much enjoying the now and looking forward to all the cool things we'll get to experience together in the future...but I don't pine for the baby or toddler days, nor do I have any desire to repeat them with a new kiddo.”
“As someone who is having a relatively easy experience so far (ok-ish pregnancy, great birth, not bad recovery, amazing sleeper with an overall chill baby) we're still OAD because I know there's very good odds a second would break us,” another wrote.
“Yeah, I always thought I've have more until my baby was born and refused to sleep,” another said. “He's three now and it's way better but still not great.”
“My kid is 10 and I’m still baffled when I see people with more than one kid. Like, HOW?”
“I wanted 6 and that quickly turned to OAD.”
More than a few people pointed out the red flag of a husband who could be a large part of why newborn parenting feels so hard for her — and it’s a good point. Doing it all alone is twice as hard.
But any way that you land on the size of your family — it’s a personal journey for everyone and it looks different for everyone.
