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I grew up with 1 sister 7 years younger (I was supposed to be an only child haha). Never felt lonely! Love having my sister and I think as we got older and especially thinking about our parents getting older, I think it's paramount to have siblings to lean on during hard family times.

I have 2 girls now also 2 years apart. For many reasons I think we're done also. I know we'd never regret having another one, but like you, I feel like we keep saying we look forward to taking the girls on trips, and having more time to ourselves, etc, and having a 3rd will keep pushing that back.

I'm not 100% 2 and done, but probably more-so than the other posters that are struggling more.

ETA: I also grew up without any cousins close in age and still never found it lonely. My SIL has 2 kids close in ages so I know them and my girls will be close. We don't see them super often but mostly b/c my DD2 is a baby still but I foresee way more play dates and maybe even vacations toegther

My husband is basically one of two siblings with a five year gap (he has three half sisters about 15 years older). He's very close to his brother and has never expressed a desire for more siblings. He had two cousins close to his age who lived in the same neighborhood, so that aspect probably helped.

DH and I will very likely only have two. Extra expenses, needing more space in house/cars, and travel logistics makes three sound really stressful to me. I also think we'll be able to devote more time/energy to only two.

I grew up as 1 of 3, but I have 2 and will be stopping. I look at my older brother who has 3, and their life seems really frazzled. They're 9, 7, and 4. They're coming out of the stages of having to constantly watch them, but they're in every activity under the sun, and managing that family calendar seems stressful.

I enjoyed growing up with 2 bothers, but my younger brother was 4 years younger than me, and was a brat. It wasn't until he was older that we started getting along as is with most families. We're lucky in that the 3 of us live within 20 minutes of each other, and my kiddos get to grow up with their cousins. My younger brother just had his second a few days ago and I know they're done too.

Part of the reason we're staying at 2 is because I've been pregnant 6 times and had 2 live births. I'm 37, and I don't want to go through more miscarriages. I'm happy for the 2 that I have, and I can't imagine starting over now that they're 5 and 2. I watch the two of them together and I know our family is complete...especially because they have 3 close first cousins from my older brother, and 2 close first cousins from my younger brother. So family gatherings will always be huge for us!

I grew up in an area where having more than two kids was very unusual, and the same is true where I live now. I don't think I knew hardly anybody with more than one sibling, except for that like one Irish Catholic family. So it feels 100% normal to me to stop at two. Around where I live now, if someone were to say they were pregnant with a third kid, I think people would be really surprised (I am pondering this because I don't actually know anyone in real life who has done this).

I'm one of two and never felt lonely, but most families were also two-kid households so it didn't seem out of the norm. Plus my sister and I were default playmates! Nowadays, I am surrounded by a mix - lots of two kid families, some three kid families, and a few with more.

I was on the fence about a third for over a year, but the more I thought about it, it just didn't make sense for our situation, and I didn't want to make a decision based purely on emotion. Now we are happily two and through. For awhile I wasn't sure if our family was complete, but now it really does feel complete and it took time to get there.

I see big families and understand the appeal of big family gatherings, but I think a lot of people idealize it and fail to see the flip side that big families also come with more drama, more compromise, etc. People also like the phrase "you'll never regret having another", but I just don't think that's true. People might be reluctant to admit regret, so we don't hear about it often, but I'm sure it happens. Most of the time I think building a larger family is a very emotionally-driven decision. People can only hope and work towards building that ideal, big, close-knit family... but half the time, I don't see it play out in real life the way it does in the movies.

We never know what life is going to throw at us - divorce, financial struggle/bankruptcy, death, illnesses like cancer, etc. It would be nice if we can all grow old with our spouse and live long lives seeing our children grow up and raise families of their own (being married to people and families we like!). But there is no guarantee that things will play out like we imagine. We all have to decide for ourselves based on our individual situations whether the potential benefits of having another outweigh the sacrifices and risks.

I am one of three but my brother is 14 years older than me and my sister is 6 years older than me. My sister and I become closer once I was in HS and my brother and I speak semi regularly. I feel like I mostly grew up as an only child because my siblings were out of the house and lived very separate lives.

My husband is also one of three. He’s the middle child. His older brother is 2 years older than him and his younger brother is 6 years younger than him. Growing up him and his older brother were not close and didn’t really get along whereas he was really close with his younger brother. It wasn’t until both his older brother and him were both in college that they grew closer. Holidays are so fun when everyone is together and I really love the closeness they share as adults.

With that said, we are definitely done with 2 kids even though both of us are from families of 3 kids. We are certain that financially, emotionally, mentally and physically 2 kids are all we can handle. Our two boys are 2 1/2 years apart so time will tell if they are close or not. I sure hope so!

I only had 1 brother and we had a blast as kids. It never felt lonely.

We have 2 boys and we are done! No plans or dreams for more. I’m very happy with what I have. Maybe it’s because my husband and I are from families of 2 kids. It is chaotic enough, I have no desire for more.

DH and I are both from two-kid families and neither of us had a close relationship with our sibling growing up, but it wasn't because there were only two. There were specific circumstances that lead to that (age difference, rough family life in general...) Anyway, DH wasn't even lonely, he was always at the heart of his group of friends I had it a bit harder because I'm an introvert, but it also let me feel less bothered by how alone I was.

So I don't think you need three kids for them to not be lonely. And there are plenty of reasons to stop at two. Like, when my LOs were babies I had zero me time and stress through the roof, and we were very limited in what we could do to recharge our batteries. Even now, I'm really upset because there are things I should be doing with my life right now, that won't happen until the kids are teenagers, if I'm lucky. Adding one more to the family would push that clock back another 3 or 4 precious years.

@Becky: we have two kids and it feels like the perfect amount for us. we have intially thought about 3 but honestly we now have one of each gender and we are happy with how our family feels now.

I am one of two and it never felt lonely. For most of our childhood we lived in neighborhoods where kids roamed around the neighborhood, so there was always someone to play with. My brother and I are only 2 years apart and we played together quite a lot too. We had very separate lives by high school though, as we each had our own friend groups and different school activities. We did end up at the same university though, my brother came in as a freshman when I was a junior and he got the sibling discount. We became a bit closer then. As adults, we rarely see each other since I’ve lived abroad for most of my adult life, but we still get along well and have similar ways of thinking.

Now, we are done at 2 LOs who are 3 years apart. They are very complicit and get along and play together the vast majority of the time. We definitely don’t want anymore and it works well with the lifestyle we want of moving (countries) every few years and traveling. It seems to me that it’s easier to travel as a family of 4 than a family of 5+. Also, I’ve been dealing with intermittent anxiety for the past few years and I definitely could not handle a 3rd!

I grew up with just one sister 2.5 years younger than me and it definitely never felt lonely. There was plenty of constant competition & fighting between the two of us, I couldn't even imagine there being a third.... haha.

We have two boys 3 years apart and I definitely feel like we're GOOD. I can't believe how BUSY we are already with activities for my 5 year old, just thinking about when my 2yo starts activities we're going to be busy all the time.... Plus, we're a very 'active' family, we're always traveling. Having a third would make all of that a lot more challenging I think.

I grew up with one sibling and have 2 kids now. It feels like the perfect family size to me. My mom had 5 sisters and they are always fighting (this has gotten even worse now that my grandmother has passed away). I can't say that I'm particularly close with my brother, but that's more due to our personalities than family size. Same goes for DH and his siblings. Honestly, based on our families' histories, sometimes I feel like more siblings = more problems! I think if you live near family and have large family gatherings, that will make up for having a larger immediate family. My family is tiny (just the 4 of us, and only my dad and my brother ever since my mom died), but with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, we regularly have parties with 50+ people who are just family members. So I feel like I get to have a "big family" for holidays and a small family for the day to day, which is perfect for me.

We are done having bio kids at 2. We're older and pregnancy did a number on my health that I'm still not over (and my youngest will be 2.5 soon!). I'm one of 6 kids, and there are certain things I like about being from a big family, but I'm only close to 3 of my 5 siblings (the two oldest are 15 and 12 years older than me and we are diametrically opposed on basically any topic in life, so we don't really communicate outside larger gatherings and we really only have a cursory avoid-religion-and-politics-and-stick-to-small-talk type of relationship.) As most modern families these days, we are flung across the US, from LA to NYC so we rarely even are all together in that "big family" way so many people imagine.

Anyway, there are so many factors to consider. We live far from our families, and we live in an expensive area. We could make 3 work, but we don't really want to. I'll be honest, I think my children are a joy for the most part and if I could clone them as they are, I would want more.

But I can't do pregnancy again. And I don't want to do the newborn days again. So two it is. I'm open to one day fostering or adopting through the foster system though.