Is the third child more work or less work?

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My wife and I originally wanted three children. However, having recently had our second child and seeing how much more work two children is, I'm starting to worry about the work load posed by a third child.

However, I've heard from a few parents who say that, while the second child adds a lot of work, the third child doesn't, and may actually decrease the work load. One characterized the situation as two of the children cancelling each other out. Another talked about learning to switch to a zone defense.

So, how much of an additional work load is the third child? Answers from aspie parents with 3 or more children especially appreciated.

Ha, I love the zone defense analogy. It's very true.

In my experience, three is about the same as two or maybe easier. EXCEPT for the first six to eight months, which are pure hell. (And also, at any age, their carseats should never, ever, EVER be touching or you will not get a moment's peace in the car.) Expect your getting-ready time to lengthen by a bit, also (but not as much as you'd think, if you are organized and lay things out ahead of time).

The only real additional workload is that you're going to be making extra food, cleaning extra dishes, and changing extra bottoms. As far as your emotional-energy expenditure, they will entertain each other for most of their waking hours, so it's no more of a drain on your mental resources than two. The new kid will want attention as well, but once the first several hellish months are over, the social demands from your kids will even out to about the amount you had before. Once the baby is walking, the kids will play together rather than with you quite a lot of the time. The toy mess is only a little bit worse, because there's a lot of overlap and handing-down. The noise when all three are yelling will probably be about 50 percent worse than when both of your current kids are yelling, unless you get a super-loud third child like mine (and if they have a screaming contest, I highly recommend just leaving the room rather than trying to shush them, because you will be outnumbered and they WILL laugh in your face. Or at least they laugh in mine.)

But yeah, it's easier than going from one kid to two, and a bajillion times easier than going from zero to one.

Thanks - that was very helpful.

Any chance you could expand on what makes the first 6-8 months hellish, and how that compares to the first 6-8 months of the second kid? Our adjustment to the first kid was very smooth, as we dropped a time consuming hobby that was less interesting than she was, but dealing with two is very stressful for my wife.

I read something interesting in a parenting magazine, which talked about multiple-children families. It said something like this: one child is just one person, two children are one person plus one person, but three children are a group of people. In other words, with three children, they already form a "family within a family" of sorts, with their own beliefs, secrets, and traditions. Since they outnumber the parents, they often have collective bargaining power when it comes to making family decisions, something that one or two children don't have. More times than not, they have less need in their parents playing with them (unless there is a large age gap), since they usually have at least one sibling to play with. In a way, the kids raise each other, such helping each other deal with emotional issues, teaching each other the concept of trust and integrity through daily interactions, and even playing a limited role in enforcing family rules. The parents' role ends up being more focused on providing material things for the family, making sure the household runs smoothly, and resolving conflicts between siblings, rather than providing direct emotional support to individual children, because the children often play that role for each other, excluding serious situations, such as a friend moving away or losing a pet. Then as adults, they still provide support for each other long after the parents are gone, and petty childhood conflicts are forgotten like they never existed or turned into humorous memories.

Mostly just the physical workload and sleep deprivation combined with dealing with jealous siblings. It may not be that bad if your kids are spaced farther apart, but my three were all born within four years of each other, and it was hard to be emotionally present for jealous toddler/preschool age kids with the physical demands of a new baby (constant feeding, changing and soothing). While I was taking care of the new baby, his siblings took the opportunity to either fight or team up for amazing amounts of destructive mischief. This would happen particularly if I was feeding the baby and they were in the next room. My eldest was a little mischievous during my middle child's infancy, but nothing quite like they were when the youngest was tiny. Once he was down to three feedings a day and could crawl around on the floor and interact with them, though, it wasn't so bad. And the mischief-making sibs taking advantage of divided attention may just be my personal experience.

Thanks, Hethera - that makes perfect sense. Given the current dynamics between our new infant and our toddler, I can see it happening to us the same way, especially since we'll likely end up with similar spacing. The bit about it ending with motility is also useful, since our toddler kind of skipped the crawling stage. Knowing the difficult period doesn't last forever will help a lot!

I don't know, I think it really depends on the child and where you are in life more than the actual number. My AS daughter was my second child, and I personally thought she was a lot easier as a baby and toddler than my first-- I think I'd just chalk that more up to having more experience in knowing what to do than anything else