The Greysie Way: The truth about having a third child!

I’ve been told that for most people the decision to have a third child is a long, drawn-out process of carefully weighing up finances, logistics and family dynamics. You’ll wonder if it’s a good idea to upset the apple cart. You’ll wonder about what you may be unleashing on your family unit which works just fine as it is and you’ll wonder if you can afford an extra mouth, extra clothes, extra holiday places and if or how you’re going to find an extra bedroom.

Not so for us!

For reasons we can no longer remember, Chrissy and I decided to become a family with three children long before we had any idea about what having one child was like. In fact, we decided we were going to be a family of five before we were married and before we’d even bought our first home together. Crazy, eh?

For a fleeting five minutes in October 2010, shortly after giving birth to my second son, I said, “I’m never doing that again” but true to the old adage, you soon forget the incomparable pain of getting ripped apart from the inside out (i.e. childbirth) and I was heard to say five seconds later, “oh, I’m being silly, of course we’ll have another one!”

We just knew this would be our family and that it would be perfect. We can’t imagine life without our third child and, for us, three is better than two. Life would be much more peaceful and far easier without our number three, but it wouldn’t be half as fun!

Me and Number Three on her first birthday!

The degrees of difficulty having three children close together in age (two and a half years between each child) doesn’t lie on an equal gradient. It multiplies drastically and disproportionately. Three children is not 50% more difficult than two children … it’s 200% more difficult! When we had two children I too figured it would be a very simple case of adding just one more seat at the dining table, one more set of clothes into a wardrobe and changing the guest room into a fourth bedroom. But, how wrong can you be? Having three children comes with more complications than the average 2.4 children family could ever imagine.

So if you’re considering jumping from two children to three, I’m going to try my best to spell out some of the things I’ve found that will likely happen to you. Take them on board! Add them to your list of pros/cons! Or just bear them in mind if, like me, you ‘just know’ you’ll one day be a family of five!

As soon as you bring your third tiny bundle home from the hospital, you’ll hear a howl before a full moon and your newly created ‘middle’ child will instantly spring from his room with horns and a pitchfork in his hand. It will be immediate and there’s no quick fix. My middle child noticed immediately that there was somebody taking up his space on mummy’s knee and I spent the early days breastfeeding my third with my middle sat on my other knee, wrapping his arms around my neck. This is common with firstborns too when the second arrives, but when you create a middle you bring forth a different entity all together. My middle already knew he wasn’t the firstborn with whom we shared all the special ‘firsts’ and with whom we could enjoy adult-ish conversations and cool activities. His place was as the coddled baby of the family, but now he’d lost his position. He wasn’t the golden firstborn and he was no longer the cute baby who grown-ups coo over. We had a long journey helping him find his place and recognising all the ‘special’ things that were fabulous about being ‘mummy and daddy’s littlest boy’.

Henry (aged 2) the week he became 'The Middle Child'.

You’ll probably need a new car. We already had a Renault Scenic which wasn’t small and easily accommodated double prams, but when Gran (who lives in York) came up to stay we were faced with the choice of either putting her in the boot or taking two cars out on trips. We’re pleased to say we took two cars, but as soon as we were in a position to upgrade we bought a Renault Espace. This means we can easy fit gran in PLUS we can separate all the children so there’s no pulling hair, sly nips or general irritating of each other anymore! Yay! I’m not a car person, but I do love my Espace. We drove down to London in the summer and could take suitcases, toys and two prams away with us too!

You’ll never have any money. Ever! Even if you do have some in your purse it will be gone by mid-morning. Aside from clothes, food, Christmas and birthdays, there will be dinner money, non-uniform days, school craft and book fairs, arts/crafts money and cookery money. Then you have to buy costumes. World book day requires a new get-up every year. School trips to Beamish Museum mean investing in Victorian attire. Onesie day for Comic Relief cost me £40 to buy onesies I didn’t previously have. School will consider you a cash-cow.

National Book Day (top) and Beamish Museum school trip (bottom)

You’ll never have any time. When my oldest was in reception, my middle was the baby, and there was time every night to teach him his phonics, make-up fun stories and games and read at least three books. I even used to manage something cool for him to bring to ‘show and tell’ – EVERY Friday! Not so any more. Now we do his spellings on the walk to school. Reading his book takes all week and is done in short bursts of time when the little ones are finishing their tea. Middle child will be learning to read next year and I can’t spend anywhere near the amount of time I did with his brother. The youngest child has no chance!

Hotels won’t think you exist. Go on, I dare you … try to book a room for less than £5000 per night that accommodates five people! L

Many novelties will wear off. Baby books for one. The oldest’s book is all lovingly filled in. Photographs have been printed, cut down to perfect size and glued in. It will be treasured forever! The middle child’s book is half written in, but I haven’t got around to printing the photographs yet. The youngest’s book is sitting on a shelf somewhere untouched. I will have to lie about when she got her new teeth as I didn’t make a note of it. I’ll have to make up most of the details. She won’t know and I won’t tell her so it’ll be ok.

You’ll learn that ‘bad’ food isn’t all that bad and new mums will frown in disgust at you. It’s a #firstworldproblem to obsess so much about processed food when ¾ of the planet is starving. The oldest’s first meals were organic, steamed, blended (with a necessary and expensive) Annabel Karmel hand blender and frozen in little cube trays. He didn’t go to McDonalds until he was two and a half and he had chocolate after he was one. The middle’s first food was organic Ella’s Kitchen pouches. He went to McDonalds with his brother, but he had his own food. By 18 months his Happy Meals consisted of fish fingers, milk and a fruit bag. The youngest’s first food was whatever was on offer in the shops and whatever the boys had left over. Her first finger foods at ten months were McDonalds chips and chocolate buttons were pushed in her mouth by her brothers before she had her first mashed banana.

French McDonald's! Twice as posh because you get a pudding! :)

You’ll no longer be terrified over bumps and scrapes. I remember taking my eldest to the doctors because he had a cough. I remember telephoning my ex-nurse mother-in-law in hysterics because my middle child had a cold when he was only a month old. My third child has no idea what a doctor is. I’m not even sure she’s had Calpol more than once. My eldest fell out of his highchair when he was little and I felt like the worst mother in the world. I cried and cried and begged Chris to take him to A&E. He didn’t even have a bump. When the middle child was pushed down the entire flight of stairs by his brother (aged three at the time) I was encouraged that he didn’t cry for long. With my third I’ve learned that toddlers bounce.

Crossing a car park is now the equivalent of an assault course in the Amazon jungle. I have two hands and three children. Mathematics isn’t on my side

Grocery shopping will cost twice as much as your mortgage. This is only going to get worse as time goes on and particularly as I have two boys in the mix. It isn’t as if I’m feeding them lobster and steak every night.

You can't have a meal out with the entire family - even at a Happy Hour Italian - and get change from £60.00. This is the cost when purchasing three children's meals. When they're 18, 16 and 14 they WILL still be eating children's meals or they don't come out! Simple as that.