Does A Baby’s Birth Order Determine Their Personality

Put simply, not really, but it can have some impact. As a mum of three, I can say that each one of my children has a very different personality.

But is that because of where they were born in the family? Or is that genetics/environmental factors? I always wondered if being a firstborn meant that you got a lot more attention and it was a lot quieter. By the time you're the third, it's an extremely noisy environment to enter, reflecting in your personality. But is this true?

Before you have children, you have this idea of what you'll be as a parent. Although reality shows us that you had no idea what we are doing, and often still don't, even with multiple children, but that’s fine. We are all whinging it! What we do know is that the typical parenting style of a firstborn is extremely different than that of a thirdborn or even consecutive kids after that (though frankly, how people have more than three is beyond me!).

As a parent of a firstborn, you're more anxious, more focused on ‘getting it right’. You've read all the books, you feel you know exactly what you're doing, you're watching every move and single cry, you're on full alert, and your expectations are extremely high. You're watching every milestone, every academic achievement, and reading all those books to level their education. They also tend to receive undivided attention early on, even if they become a sibling of younger children. Generally, they have at least 18 months to 2 years as the sole child in the family.

This sometimes means that a firstborn can be a little bit calmer than subsequent siblings, having had less noise, fewer disruptions, and more dedicated attention. If they go on to be a sibling of one or more kids, they can often be very protective by nature.

For every child that comes after your first one, you tend to be a lot more relaxed. You have more of an idea of what to expect and have settled into what parenting feels like. Second children or subsequent children after that come into a lot more noise, a busier environment, and you have less time to dedicate to that child than you perhaps would've had for a first one. But this doesn't necessarily come as a negative. Often this can mean that children who are subsequent after the first have a lot more environmental impacts that can positively impact them. Interestingly, it depends on how many children there are in a family as to where their personality can sometimes sit. In my family, we have three, so one of my daughters is the classic ‘middle child’. Although I think the stigma of a middle child is very unfair, a lot can be done to ensure that they are not left out within the family model. If you are just a second child, sometimes you can be very mollycoddled as the last baby of the family, and that can therefore affect the way that you grow up. If quite quickly after being the second child, you then become the middle child, there is the obvious fight for attention, which can affect their personalities and their striving for perfection.

The Third Born. Speaking from experience, this one can often be the lastborn in a family. That's not a rule of thumb, and some people do go on to have further children. But if they are the third born in the family, their typical personality traits can be that of someone who's very fun, outgoing, and slightly crazy (if my sense is anything to go by).

By the time you're on your third child, you're obviously well into the swing of your parenting style, which in some ways can make you extremely relaxed. I'm talking from experience here - it can be good to remind yourself that even though they are a third child and they have everything that they need it can be important to remember to dedicate time to them in a similar way you would a firstborn, although this can prove very hard.

Saying all of this, research does seem to show that it has very minimal impact on how the child grows up personality-wise. A lot of it is down to the environment they're born into, the parenting style, and genetics. In my case, I had two children born during the Covid pandemic. Later research has shown that this can affect the children because they have less social interaction. This may have a more significant effect than where they were placed in the family, but will we ever really know?

What I have learned is that it's important to give each one of your children as much single, dedicated time as possible. I'm aware that that is not always practical, but when you get those little snippets of one-on-one time, you get to know more about what your child's needs are and perhaps where you're lacking, but hadn't realized. So, if you can try and put in those little moments to catch up with your children and understand them better, but know that you're doing your best, and where they were born in the family, it doesn't have to dictate the rest of their life.