> If you are not dying to have kids then you shouldn't not have kids. There is a lot of toxic advice here about having children to "fix" things. Children should not be born as a way to fix yourself. It is 100% valid to not want children. I say this as a parent. Its a grueling and hard life compared to not having children, and if you have difficulty in life and don't even want kids, do not have them. They will not magically suddenly fulfill you or make your life easier. In fact, in many ways they will make things much harder for you in literally every avenue in your life. The world does not need more unwanted children or children used a marriage or personal emotional fixers.

So much this. I’m horrified at the number of replies here touting kids as some magical fix for all problems. I became a dad in December after being in the fence for a few years preceded by several years of “no way I’m going to have kids”.

It’s pretty darn tough. My quality of life has declined very substantially, we’re mostly at home and go for a walk in the morning and another afternoon in a very small radius and in constant fear the baby might get fussy. We don’t go to watch a movie, or restaurant or to a bar. I’ve stopped drinking alcohol (not that I was getting drunk before, just tipsy) as I have a baby to hold and move around the house. Even taking a shit requires some planning. I work remotely and switched to part time (4 hours per day) as I can’t fathom placing all the burden on the mother (on top of breastfeeding which only she can do and it’s also very tough) and hiring a nanny in covid times is not an option, but it’s still hard.

And the constant worry if the baby is ok, are those noises during sleep normal? Is she regurgitating too much? What are those twitches, is she having spasms? Is she developing well physically and neurologically?

And I think I’m blessed with a “good” baby that sleeps quite well at night, waking only 2-3 times for feeding and falling asleep again shortly after.

I recognize some of these issues are probably due to being a first time dad and/or my personality, and also that hopefully it gets easier over time. By the way none of this means I regret it, but still: OP is in no way in the right mindset to have kids right now.