It’s not easy having a large family. You are almost never alone. There are mountains of laundry, and always someone who needs to be driven somewhere.

Fiona and Nicholas Dill have six children, as do Susan and Joseph Simmons — and neither couple would have it any other way.

“Mad” is how Fiona Dill describes her household.

“It is crazy,” the 51-year-old laughed. “I create order and very quickly it is deconstructed, but there is always something going on. You could never be bored in our house.”

She and her husband, Nicholas, the Bishop of the Anglican Church of Bermuda, did not intend to have six children when they married 25 years ago. They got to three and were not sure whether to stop or continue.

“We talked about it and three just sounded so final,” Mrs Dill said. “With the first three we just looked at each other and were pregnant, but it wasn’t so easy with the next pregnancy.”

Her fourth pregnancy was ectopic. The baby started to develop in the Fallopian tube.

“I started bleeding and needed emergency surgery,” she said. “I remember the doctor leaning over me and saying, ‘Do you have any other children?’ I said, ‘Yes, three’ and he said, ‘Oh, it’s all right then’. As though if you already had children the loss of one didn’t matter.”

It did matter. The Dills struggled for two years to have another child after their loss.

“I was desperate to have another,” Mrs Dill said. “People having their first or second baby didn’t bother me but for some reason, people having a fourth baby would send me into floods of tears. It sounds ridiculous now.”

The couple finally had a fourth child, a son, in 2003. A daughter followed a year later, then another daughter.

The Dill family now includes Hannah, 23; Sam, 21; Phoebe, 18; Ben, 12; Miriam, 11; and Rachael, 8.

Her eldest two have left home. Hannah works as a teacher in Oxford, England, while Sam is just finishing up a university degree. Phoebe is in her first year at the University of Durham. The house feels a lot quieter with just three children at home, Mrs Dill said.

“I guess my family size is normal now — at least when the older three are away. At first when they left, I cooked enormous meals and always had tonnes of leftovers,” she added.

“We miss the older ones a lot but I am just so proud of the people they have become. They have transitioned to independence very easily.”

It likely helped that they had to learn self-sufficiency with three younger siblings, she said.

“My younger three are probably also more self-sufficient. When we leave home in the morning, if they’ve left something, we’re not going back. That’s it. They have to deal with the consequences. At home, I don’t make multiple meals. If they don’t like what we’ve cooked, better luck next time.”

She said that in a big family, siblings learnt to compromise: “One night it might be one person’s turn to watch television, the next night it’s someone else’s.”

Christmas is a time when the family is whole again. Mrs Dill said: “We have such fun as a unit. I am not saying it is always a bowl of cherries, but we do have a great time together.”

Mrs Dill trained as a doula after her first three children were born.

She helps mothers through labour and delivery and feels that having a large family has given her a certain advantage.

“In terms of birth, you name it, I’ve done it,” she said. “I had two home births in England. I’ve given birth with pain medication and without.

“I’ve had an ectopic pregnancy. I’ve experienced fertility issues. It does give me a certain empathy for what other women are going through.”

You snooze, you lose: that is the name of the game in the Simmons household.

Joseph and Susan Simmons have six children: Laird, 20; Beckett, 19; Lillyanna, 17; Serena, 16; Gloria, 14; and Machum 12.

“My younger sisters love to borrow my clothes,” laughed Lillyanna. “If I leave one of my blouses in the closet unworn for too long I’ll see it on one of my sisters.”

The Simmons children are regulars at Bermuda’s thrift shops and they love a bargain.

They do not have a television because there is no space for one. The children are split between two bedrooms and, until recently, only one bathroom.

Between them they care for five guinea pigs and a labrador expecting 11 puppies.

“They play outside,” said Mrs Simmons, 56. “They read. They do a lot of sports.”

Mr Simmons is an IT administrator at Schroders (Bermuda) Limited. Mrs Simmons home-schools the children.

“Home schooling them has given them more time to work on projects that interest them,” she said.

Gloria is knitting 11 collars for the coming puppies.

“The one with the red, yellow and green collar is going to be called Bob Marley,” she said.

Beckett is in Canada and in his first year of university. Laird just graduated from the business programme at Bermuda College and is hoping to go abroad to school. Lillyanna and Serena also take courses there.

Growing up in a big family seems to have given the Simmons children certain skills.

Two years ago, Lillyanna spent seven weeks in Sweden helping family friends who had just had their seventh child. She thought nothing of it.

“The trick is just to keep the children happy and busy,” she said. “You also have to head off fights before they start.”

She is thinking of becoming a teacher. Until she went away she had always handled the cooking, but Serena slipped in in her absence.

“It was like a competition between them,” Mrs Simmons laughed.

Serena wants to be a professional chef and hopes to transfer into Bermuda College’s culinary arts programme next year.

She often helps with the feeding programme at First Baptist Church in Devonshire, cooking 50 or more meals. Machum helps with the cleanup.

“When you have younger siblings there is always someone to press into service,” Mrs Simmons said.

From living in a large family, Machum has developed a certain resourcefulness. He loves finding old electronics or machines beside the road or at the dump, taking them apart and fixing them up.

Mrs Simmons said she does not see six children as a large family.

“I grew up in a farming community in New Brunswick, Canada,” she said. “I was the oldest of six children. Down the road were families of eight and 13 children. Six just seems normal to me.”

She is always a bit surprised by people with one child.

“In a big family, no one thinks they are the centre of attention,” she said.

“You might have a pressing need, you might even have a diaper that needs to be changed, but chances are there is someone else who has a greater need.

“You learn to wait. I notice that single children seem to need so much attention from their parents.

“My first two were 14 months apart. They just went outside and played together.”

She said her family enjoys just hanging out together.

“We used to have an old church pew that the little ones sat on to eat their dinner,” Mrs Simmons said. “Once they finished eating they’d go and collect their guinea pigs.

“Then they’d sit there playing with their guinea pigs and just talking and laughing. When we go somewhere, it is an instantaneous party.”

Bermuda’s birth rate hit a record low in 2014, with only 574 births recorded.

Mrs Simmons said the Bermuda Government should start thinking of ways to encourage larger family sizes.

“If not,” she said, “who is going to be the next generation of doctors, lawyers and teachers?

“We need to maintain the population to keep going. People often say to us they only have one child because they can’t afford a large family.

“We always trusted in the Lord. Whenever we’ve been in need he has always stepped in to provide.”