Research says having THREE kids is the best (and FOUR is great too!)
If you’re teetering on the brink of growing your family, wondering if you should stop at one … or two … or even three, then this research might help make a big decision a little easier.
Three and easy
Popular UK parenting website Mumsnet surveyed over 1000 parent users of their site, and the facts and figures they came up with provide an interesting snapshot of family life.
Firstly, parents revealed that baby number THREE was the most fuss-free transition, and that parents found making room for this third child “easier” on the whole than the first two.
Mumsnet report that “55 percent of those who have three children said going from two children to three was easier than the transition from one to two children, and also easier than welcoming a baby into the family for the first time.”
Middle Child Syndrome?
The survey results showed that baby number three was easiest on other siblings too. A substantial 60 percent of mums and/or dads said that “the transition from two to three is the easiest” for the kids in their family.
Parents, however, had more cause for concern when their third kiddo came along – “54 percent of parents who have more than three children admitted they worried about ‘middle child syndrome’, in which the eldest and youngest get more attention.”
Read more about larger families:
- 8 challenges that all parents with big families can relate to
- Three kids later and I still feel like a parenting rookie
- 7 perks of having four or more kids
Parents were well-versed in the financial pressure that came with kids, by the time child number three was born. It was deemed the “least financially painful transition” by survey respondents – possibly because they were used to the agony of living on a tight budget at this point!
The downsides?
Logistical challenges were top-of-mind for parents adding a third child. Sixty percent said a third baby caused the biggest organisational headaches, with 72 percent explaining they needed to buy a new car, and 41 percent saying they had to move house to make room for their growing brood.
Warming to the challenge of larger families, some levelled up with even more kids! An impressive 44 percent of parents with four kids said the shift from three children to four was the easiest, perhaps because they were obviously really used to being outnumbered this point – or had simply surrendered to the chaos!
