Number 2...moms of 2+ please come in!
Nope, not pregnant or TTC.
But...the baby bug is starting to bite. I don't want to TTC until later this year at the earliest, but I have so many fears and reservations about number two. I would like to know from your experience, is it as hard as I think it will be?
I prepared myself for Amelia to be so much harder than she was as a newborn...now I just wish I had prepared myself for how hard she'd be as a toddler. I think it's because it's gotten harder rather than easier and I think that's why I am having reservations about having another...at least right now. My heart is ready for another, but my brain is telling me to hold my horses.
How did you prepare yourself for number two? Did you have reservations/fears about having another? I guess I just fear that I won't enjoy my pregnancy as much as I did with Amelia, that I won't have enough energy for both of them, that I won't balance my time and attention well enough, etc....I just want to give my kiddos my all and fear I won't be able to.
Ok, sorry for rambling, I'd love to hear from all moms of 2+ kiddos and any other moms who are thining of having another.
Thanks!
Re: Number 2...moms of 2+ please come in!
I will admit that this has been harder then I thought it would be. I thought I had prepared myself but not quite. I had prepared myself for Reagan to act out which she didn't. I did not prepare myself for the newborn phase again which was hard. Abby has also been a more difficult baby then Reagan was and had the wright and jaundice complications. It's getting easier now.
Abby was not planned so we didn't have that choice of making the jump but I wouldn't have it any other way now. You WILL have enough love, attention, time, etc. I can't explain it but you just will. Plus watching Amelia with the baby will just make you love her even more. It's amazing.
Crazy Christmas Kids!
Aside from your own ability to handle stress, one thing that will affect how hard it is, is not only the age of the first child, but their temperament as well.
For me personally, Sam was such an easy baby, and a pretty easy toddler, so I was hopeful that it wouldn't be as hard as I thought it might be. But then at 20 months, about a month before Hannah was born, he started becoming more and more difficult to handle. I'm sure there were a lot of factors involved--I was exhausted at the end of my pregnancy, he knew there were changes, and well, he hit the terrible 2 stage.
The hardest thing for me wasn't caring for 2 kids in itself, because Hannah was an easy baby too; it was caring for Hannah while having to learn how to deal with the stage Sam was going through. Plus I never left the house, because I had a fear of Sam running off and me having to leave Hannah in a high chair or something to go run after him. And it happened a couple of times too!
As for energy and balance--well, with multiple kids, there will always be times throughout the years that for one reason or another, you can't be there for them. Suzie has a ballet recital on the same night as Tommy's choir concert, and you can only go to one. Suzie is having problems with her friends and needs to talk NOW, but you can't because you have to take Tommy to the doctor. You just have to accept that those things will happen, and to compensate for them.
But as they get older, it does get easier. I am finally at a point where I don't feel like pulling my hair out every day, now that Sam is practically completely self-sufficient. And I LOVE that they have each other. They giggle and chase each other, and hit each other and make each other cry, and hug and kiss--I love it, and going through the hard phases is totally worth it.
I had a million and one reservations and fears about having a second child. Could I love him as much as I love Alex? Would I give them both enough attention? Would Alex be miserable? Would one feel left out? The list goes on and on.
But I also REALLY, REALLY wanted more kids.
I had to just jump in and do it.
I will say, it has been 100 times easier than I anticipated. And I would do it again in a heartbeat!
ditto on these points exactly. granted, i am not even quite a month in but i also think that the 1st few weeks are going to be the hardest. even now, we are getting in the swing of things and it's better every day. i was so worried about how truitt was going to react but he's been a doll. but i didn't remind myself what the newborn pahse is actually like. so, i am having to remind myself as ai go- that he cries for everything, that he is not a 2 year old and that i can't expect the same level of communication. he will cry for a wet diaper, b/c he needs me to burp him, b/c he is too hot or too cold. these things aren't bad. i just forgot to tell myself that this is ok.
and the love. forget it. it's not an issue. in fact, your capacity to love increases exponentially and you will find that not only do you love your new one, you may even love your older child more- even though i know that doesn't seem possible.
I would have waited until about now to get pregnant if it was solely up to me. ?But DH was really pressuring me to go ahead and have that second baby. We always said we'd only have two and he wanted to get it over with. ?(I realize that sounds bad but it's really not). ?Obviously I caved.
?I guess I'm the opposite of everyone here in that Orion was not an easy baby and has not been an easy toddler. ?He is, and always has been, a high maintenance child. ?He's not bad, he just requires a lot more work. ?Pregnancy, and trying to chase after him, was just exhausting. ?I swore while I was pregnant that I would never get pregnant again while having a toddler. ?Granted, we don't want any more kids so it was an easy proclamation for me to make. ?
?We also have not had the easy transition that everyone else seems to have had. ?Orion has acted out, big time. ?He's regressed back to hitting and biting and yelling no. ?That kid has been in time out more the past few weeks than his entire life. ? There was one horrible Saturday morning that he was in time out 5 times. ?And that's not counting all the time we should be punishing him but aren't. ?We're trying really hard to be patient and understanding of how difficult this is for him.
?Luckily C is a much, much more mellow baby. ?I've found that caring for her is infinitely easier. ?I keep telling DH that if we'd had her first I might have contemplated have more than just two. ?
?What I didn't anticipate is the effect it would have on our marriage. ?We talked at length while I was pregnant about how it might affect us but we just didn't know. ?I feel like DH and I have zero time together. ?We've taken a divide and conquer approach with the kids. ?DH is often corralling Orion while I'm feeding or tending to Calla. ?When Calla's not hungry we'll switch roles. ?This has left us with little time to nurture our relationship. ?Add on the sleep deprivation and we've been bickering a lot. ?I'm hoping things will get easier when Calla is no longer a newborn.
Yeah - this too. DH was amazing with Reagan as a newborn but not so much admittedly with Abby. We are much more snappy with each other and probably expect too much mind reading from each other. BUT, we know all of this and have talked about it and know it will get better.
Crazy Christmas Kids!
i am scared to death. We have always wanted 2 and we will have 2. but i'll probably be a nervous wreck my whole pregnancy. DS is super spoiled, all the attention wherever he goes, even from his "older" cousins. I am home MOST nights alone, so i'm super scared about both nightime routines. I'll admit i still rock/snuggle DS for about 15 minutes before i put him in his bed awake. that works for us but what about the nights where it wont? what about the nights where i'm home alone and i have two sick or fussy babies. ya know?
scared i tell ya... scared.
but then i tell myself many firefighters wives have done it- i can too.
DH and I did have some tense moments after Foster came home. I expected A LOT more out of him since he has been through this before and he is a hands on dad. But he was really hesitant and nervous with Foster at first, like he had never held a baby before. It made me REALLY mad. But itjust took a little while for him to get comfortable with a little one again.
we are taking the divide and conquer route as well. since DH pretty much has to sleep with truitt, he can't help me with the burden of a newborn at night by changing diapers or just shhhing him after he nurses. also, m won't take a paci so it's impossible for dh to sooth him and this frustrates both of us... luckily, we're not bickering. i just feel like we don't have any time together. the other night he was putting truitt to bed and fell asleep with him.finally it was time for me to go to bed and i hadn't said more than 3 words to ray since he got home from work. i cried for a good 30 minutes just thinking about how much i miss him and wondering when it was going to get better. HOWEVER- that doesn't mean we would change a thing b/c we know it will get better and things will get back to normal- whatever our new normal will be- and there is so much more love in the house for all the challenges we are facing.
i also want to add taht so many things are so much easier. i know how to handle issues as they come up. i know what to worry about and what to let slide. i can read mathis' cues better and sooner b/c i have been through it before. so there are issues that you deal with going from one to two kids, but a lot of the stresses from having a baby the 1st time are gone so it's not one on top of the other.
My experience going from one child to two was almost word-for-word identical to Savannah's.
I'll add that these factors really impacted my transition:
Being a SAHM. I felt like I had few if any breaks. The 2 days a week Sarah was in preschool, I was still dropping off and picking up with a newborn in tow. In contrast, my friend down the street continued to send her older daughter to daycare all day every day during her maternity leave. Her husband would drop off and pick up. My friend got to really enjoy her baby, sleep when the baby slept, et cetera, and only had to deal with her oldest at night when her husband got home.
Having ILs in town but not my own family.
Having a spouse who travels and has a very demanding job, time-wise.
Having a high-maintenance older child.
The 21-month age difference.
Exclusive pumping for six months.
I still think having a second child was a good decision and I don't regret it. If I had it to do over, I'd have spaced them further apart though.
Not that I'm glad you guys had difficulty, but I'm glad to read it because I was thinking I was the only one that had a hard time with it! I was starting to feel a little inept reading everyone else's responses.
We've thrown the idea around several times about no longer preventing - but there are a couple things holding me back right now: dh's company (if it continues in the same manner I will likely return to work soon), his current shift work schedule where I'm the solo parent for at minimum four days, sometimes seven days at a time and dh is also finishing a degree to change careers (with probably about a year and a half left). There has been so much going on in my family with divorce, strokes, heart issues, separations - I'm feeling very stressed and don't think that is the best way to start a pgcy.
If things were more stable we would be considering it more seriously though - I think it is a good space apart so I say go for it! You'll figure it out along the way :-) You're a great Mom and I know you can do it.
Our hardest part was my DH in the beginning of #2. He seemed to forget completely that #1 cried as a newborn, and resented #2 because of her crying. DROVE. ME. CRAZY. And he was excellent with #1 as a newborn so I did not anticipate that at all.
Luckily, Elena was pretty good with the transition, and being 28 months was more independent than others here on the board with their closer spacing. She had some trouble a few months into it -- like she suddenly realized Julia really was here to stay -- but overall pretty good.
6-yr-old Elena and 4-yr-old Julia.
My Blog! All about my girls and quilting
I'm processing #2 right now. We decided that #1 was a leap of faith, and that #2 would be the same. So, preparation emotionally was just realizing that we'd learn like we did before.
I think how much we stretched to accommodate #1 into our emotional and day-to-day life. I'm sure we'll stretch again.
The pregnancy is a little different. I do not have as much time to concentrate on me and the pregnancy. But, I chuck that up to the way things work.
We're attempting to prepare our son more than ourselves this time.
I'll let you know more after the actual event.
obviously i don't have any mom of two advice, but the best (and cheesiest) way I ever heard the loving more then one kid explained was by my mom. She said its like a candle flame, you can light many candles off the same main flame without it diminishing.
as soon as this case is over and we know where our lives stand will be trying, i'm excited and anxious at the same time. but like lilycat said, sometimes it's a leap of faith. sometimes it's almost better when things are a surprise because you don't put as much are we ready thoughts into it, it's just going to happen