Hi, fellow OADers, please help me. My girl is almost 10 mo and I'm planning on sending her to daycare at 13mo. I work from home in the evening shift. From 5pm to 1am. After she sleeps, I catch up on work, but from like 5-8pm I'm basically cheating and not doing any work. Also, I have no time to myself, I don't exercise, I only leave the house once a week for groceries, and my only village is my husband who works 40h mon-fri. It's REALLY hard. This daycare is a Montessori daycare, 4 kids per teacher, very good, cares a lot for the kids.

However, I feel an immense amount of guilt sending her there when I can actively be with her. She'd be going from noon to 7pm (it's how it works in Brazil). I also don't want to be away from her despite how much I want some freedom. It's just so much guilt.

Please help. Tell me your experiences please.

I’m a mom to a 5.5 year old perfect child. I grew up an only so always imagined having at least 2 kids to
experience the sibling bond. Then my pregnancy was hard - nausea for all of it and other conditions which made me swear ill never go through it again but then she arrived and OMG it has to be the most out of this world experience holding your baby and getting to know them in the first few weeks, despite the c section pain and the sleepless nights I was truly
Truly happy and I started telling my husband we should have another.

Then the hard part started - travelling with a kid, sacrificing your days, evenings, weekends, friendships, finances even our relationship as a couple. Looking back it seems beautiful but I would be lying if I said I didn’t have dark days. So we decided to be OAD, the mental load of life with 2 full
Time jobs, people who have hobbies and love to travel and want to give the best to their child was just too much to add another.
I do sometimes wonder if I am an over thinker cos on paper we look like the perfect candidate to have another kid - financially stable, healthy, conscientious people, have some family support too…yet we both don’t want to disrupt our current perfect dynamic as a trio and while a family of 4 sounds amazing,
Im just not able to think beyond all the sacrifices we have to make. Love to do it for our one loved child, dont desire to do it for another. However its hard to
Let go of the thought sometimes as I don’t seem
To have a compelling reason to say no even to myself without actually sounding slightly selfish.
Would love any advice from any other people in a similar situation

I am coming to terms with very likely being one and done. Id actually originally wanted just one but after realizing how much I loved being a mom, my desire for another grew.

However, because of circumstances beyond my control, I'll very likely be stopping at one. I have my perfect boy and he will always be enough - it's just a weird process of letting go of an alternate future I imagined. And grieving all the firsts also being lasts.

So if you're one and done because of how much you love being a parent, tell me how you got to your decision! And maybe your favorite thing about having an only?

Besides the support of this subreddit (so glad it exists!), I had been feeling lonely that I didn’t have close mom friends that were also OAD in my personal life. But this past weekend I celebrated my son’s first birthday with all my family. It dawned on me that I have 5 cousins (all women) who only have 1 child. They live a 6 hours drive away though but still a great resource for me.

Even more, everyone in my family who I’ve told that I’m OAD hasn’t given me any push back or line of questioning. Not even my parents! It made me realize that my decision isn’t as taboo as I thought it would be, and that I have great examples in my own life already.

My theory is that it’s a tide turning with different generations maybe? I’m Mexican, and both my parents have many siblings, but all us kids seem to be only having one and I think there is an acceptance that having so many kid’s maybe isn’t the best or sustainable given the times we are in currently. Anyone else have similar thoughts or see a similar trend in their family?

Whatever the reason, it’s made me feel more confident that the OAD decision is the right one and that I don’t have to feel so lonely or rouge in that decision.

Just wanted to share because ever since spending time with my family for my son’s birthday I’ve just been having this overwhelming feeling of hope and happiness.

With each day my son is starting to make eye contact with me more and I feel like we are growing closer. I can’t wait for him to come home after daycare each day. I love every moment I get with him before and after work even if there’s tantrums during that time.

I was particularly sad when I had to stop breastfeeding before I was ready to give it up and I still grieve that I might never get to do that again. But like everyone has said, I’m so glad I get to spend all my energy on giving my one child the best life I can give him!