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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, two kids is not 2x the work. More like 4x. You will need to step up your game :).

> two kids is not 2x the work. More like 4x

Different families seem to have pretty different experiences here. In my case having two kids has felt like maybe 1.5x the work, decreasing as they get older. At this point (4y and 6y), I think one child would likely be more work than two, because they spend so much time playing with each other.

Probably depends a lot on what kids you happen to have, how they get along, your parenting style, and what resources you have.

> Probably depends a lot on what kids you happen to have

I agree. If my son had been born first, I'd think I was the greatest parent in the history of parenting. But my daughter came along first, and taught me otherwise.

I have one kid and two cats. Two cats is less work than one cat.

We had twins for our second round, so we hopped straight from one to three. Infant twins are about the most exhausting thing I have ever experienced. But now that they're bigger (4, 2, and 2) they're pretty easy to deal with.

I can see how having two might be a lot of work since you could feasibly try to maintain the same level of hands-on as with one. With three, that level of commitment is just impossible, so you learn to strategically ignore your kids and let them figure things out for themselves.

It's pretty great though. Couldn't imagine a world without them at this point.

My twins didn’t get easier till 4 or 5. 2-3 was actually even harder than infancy.

I maintain that there is a vast conspiracy amongst parents not to tell new parents about the threes. Sure, we will chuckle about the terrible twos, but there is this implication that it will get better after that. Ha! The threes are just like the terrible twos, except now they have intent. If we told people what the threes were like, they might never have kids :).

I'm only kinda kidding...

In my experience 2 was the cutest age, 3 wasn't as bad as I'd been led to believe, but 4 was pretty rough.

Yeah it definitely varies by kid. My daughter was a sweetheart when she was 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc, but a terror at 2.5, 3.5, 4.5. Something about those half-year points, I don't know. My son, on the other hand, who is now 7, has been the easiest kid ever. Though that seems to be evolving a bit as he starts feeling a bit more independent, he's still overall a breeze compared to my daughter. I love her dearly, the precocious little girl she is, but she gives me gray hairs.

It seems a bit strange that the half-year points would matter... I wonder if it has to do with the season? For example, does your daughter like going outside and it's easier for you to go outside at the .0 than at the .5 because of the weather where you are?

I've got 5 kids between 1 and 7 years old (twin girls in the middle) and we've been pleasantly surprised with how easy they've been at each age (compared to what we'd prepared mentally for). We're "worst-case" preparers though.

Definitely depends significantly in the nature of the children, but also a significant part on the parents too.

The main thing I've learned from parenting and being around other parents is that each kid is different in their own way.

Kids have a lot of nature built up in them.

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