I'm just wondering how you meet the expense in terms of larger families?
Especially if you live in a capital city (like Sydney)?

IS it possible to have 3 kids and live in Sydney without wearing sackcloth?? We lived in Sydney until January, but now live in Canberra. I suppose it all depends on your wages.

Childcare costs alone must be prohibitive? Only one of my kids have ever been to childcare and that was my oldest daughter. I felt that she needed it and she loved it. The rest have been home with me until preschool. Or Kindy in one case.

How do you afford fresh fruit and vegies, when white bread and sausages are so cheap?? Junk food is more expensive that healthy food, I find. We eat heaps of fruit and have a pretty much preservative free diet. You just need bigger pots and pans, lol. We don't eat white bread at all. I must say though we didn't have bananas for a while though when they were $500 a kg or whatever. I also never buy things like ready made or prepared foods because of the preservative content.

Do you find you get less family and friends support if you have lots of kids? Anyone that matters to me supports me. If they didn't they wouldn't matter so much, lol.

What sort of car do you use and why - as in what do you like about it? We have a 98 Toyota Landcruiser Prado because it has 8 seats, but we still can't fit in it. We have toget another seatbelt put in and they can't do it so we're still mulling that one over.

what would you do differently (not in terms of numbers of kids just coping/life strategies)? eg. live somewhere different, have a different career, space them closer together etc. I wouldn't do anything differently except I would have looked into things like immunisation and preservatives and things with my older kids. Its only been brought to my attention now and I would rather have not learnt the hard way.

How do you do things like go to the beach/pool and keep an eye on them all? How do you try and not make it an expedition or is that not possible? This is a funny one for us. We haven't been to the beach since Zain was born, but we used to go all the time. DH and I would get in the water and the kids have to stay between us and the sand. We'd have a baby or 2 each and the other kids would swim. When it was time to go, DH would get them out and packed up, while I swim by myself and then while I was goigng to the car he'd duck in. We used to always go to Tallebudgera on the Gold Coast and there are no waves there because its just behind a kind of estuary.

And lastly can you leave them alone with say the baby, or is this not an issue for you? I'm sure my 4 yr old is going to squish the baby's (8months) head. Not a newborn, but now that Zains a bit older and can interact more they all want to play with him when he's in his bouncer thingy. Thats okay, because he's right near me here. Rayanne who's 10 is allowed to pick him up now, but thats only in the last 2 months now that his neck is stronger.

Do your kids mind sharing rooms (I'm assuming you're not all rich! lol) when other kids don't have to? or sharing things all the time?
Mine don't mind. It takes them forever to go to sleep though, lol.

HTH hun. Good luck!