Talk to me about having a second kid
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Anonymous
OP here. Thank you very much for saying this. I really appreciate the acknowledgement!  It is genuinely helpful to hear.
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Anonymous
PP here - I do have someone who helps clean every other week and we have lawn maintenance in the summer. I don't have any night nurse or anything. Usually the baby is home with me for the first 3 months while the older kids go to daycare (thanks to COVID everyone was home with baby #3 and that sucked). Thankfully all my kids are pretty good and reliable sleepers by 3-4 months. My schedule loosely looks like this: Morning - everybody is up by 7:30ish and have breakfast, get changed, get bags ready. I drop off kid 1 to the bus, kid 2 to in home daycare and kid 3 to preschool/daycare. Home by 9 to work for the day. Evenings - leave home by 5:15 and pick up kid 1 from in home daycare and kids 2 and 3 from the same preschool/afterschool care. We are home by 5:45ish for dinner. When they were little I would feed everybody and then get the baby bathed and into bed first (usually by 6pm). Then the older kids and I would go out for a walk or play on the playground out back. Then back inside by 7:30ish for bath, books and bed. When baby 2 was little and oldest was only 19 months I would feed the baby on the couch and then run upstairs and put her to bed while the oldest sat and watched TV for 5 minutes. Thankfully she didn't get into any trouble even back then. |
Anonymous
Yes they play together, but not for like a year or more. OP has to first suffer through that year of having 2 under 2 with no help from her husband. |
Anonymous
It helps that you seem to have naturally good sleepers or ones that are very amenable to sleep training. I have 3 kids and none of them - none! - could be put down for naps easily or put in their crib easily at night. I know all the tips and tried everything. So, OP, maybe you’ll have babies like this where you can “run upstairs for 5 minutes and put them down.” Or maybe you’ll have babies like mine where they’re sleeping on you while you try to deal with a toddler, or “putting them down” is more like a 40 minute trial-and-error process except you can’t leave a toddler unattended that long. |
Anonymous
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No one is saying it, but I will.
It's also okay to decide you are really happy with just one child. Your life now sounds pretty great. You are both in fulfilling careers. You have a child you love and are entering a good chapter with sleep and independence. Now you can go build on that with your one child - lean into the career you like, savor time with your one beloved child, plan for future family adventures like travel. I too thought I'd have a second until I had my first at the beginning of the pandemic. For a long time, I felt like I'd failed that I didn't have it in me to have a second after a really. hard first year of parenting. Like it was in some way letting the pandemic defeat my future goals and plans. But when I really looked at my life, I said I want to make decisions that will make me happier, not more burnt out. Sometimes catastrophic events (pandemic, rough pregnancy, NICU, etc.) change things. It's okay to adapt to what life has dealt to you. If in this moment, you are not ready for a second child, then pivot to a very happy life with one. |
Anonymous
PP here - YES I know I am beyond lucky that my kids are good sleepers. It is pure luck since I didn't have to sleep train at all. |
Anonymous
Where did I say they worked out well for me? |
Anonymous
| ^^pp from above, what I was responding to is the poster who said it would bury you. It did. That's my warning to OP. |
Anonymous
Lmao. No wonder your kids didn’t sleep. |
Anonymous
They do sleep. My first baby slept 12 hrs at 4 months. (My second was another story…) But yes, I am a failure at transferring them to their crib, and I’m a failure at drowsy but awake. I don’t know what to say, they just didn’t work for me. I remember reading the baby whisperer book and she said you had to do shush pat for 20 mins or else you’d be in and out all night. So, I don’t think I’m the only person who can’t just leave the toddler “for 5 minutes” and put the baby to sleep. And yes I know all about wake windows etc etc etc. Like I said, the sleep isn’t the issue - the issue is getting them in the crib. I don’t really care though bc I like babies sleeping on me. |
Anonymous
Seriously. If you've never had a baby who doesn't "go by the book" and you want to just pat yourself on the back instead of thanking your lucky stars -- then I don't know what to say. |
Anonymous
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When my husband and I were having this conversation many years ago (kids are 7 and 10 now) we wound up in a conversation with a friend who is an only child who was at that time dealing with parents who were aging and one wound up dying shortly thereafter. She had to deal with it all by herself and shared how hard it was being the only child not just to carry on those memories but also to deal with the logistics of the whole situation.
My point being, the baby/toddler years are short in comparison to their whole lives. My two boys are very close (made closer by spending so much time together the past 2 years) and I'm so grateful that they have each other. |
Anonymous
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I agree about hiring a nanny. When you're working full time, it's hard to get the kids fed, dressed, and out of the house. And it's hard to find enough hours to work before you have to pick them up. A nanny frees up that time, and the more the nanny can do (laundry, food prep etc.), the less for you. It's frankly huge. And with two littles, the cost of a nanny vs. full time day care isn't usually terribly significant.
I have two, and they're five years apart. Partially because I desperately needed to catch on sleep and partially because I got older and it took longer to get pregnant. But they're now almost 4 and almost 9 and it's pretty perfect. My almost 9 year old is responsible enough to hang out with his brother in the yard or watch him in the basement while I take a shower. And he likes playing with his little brother. At almost 9 and almost 4, they're just now starting to quarrel. But thankfully, big brother is mature enough to remove himself from little brother's antics. I'm hopeful they'll be BFFs. By spacing them out, I never had two in diapers. And when I needed to tend to the little guy, I didn't have to worry about my older child's safety. There are downsides, like that they'll never be in the same school. But I can send them to the same summer camps, and the community swim lessons are at the same time. And big brother can walk to and from school, so I'm not doing two drop offs and pick ups. We would've been satisfied and thrilled with just our one. He's a lovely person and I feel fortunate every day to be his mom. Little brother has turned our lives upside down. Other than with potty training (took one week at 26 months), he has been faaaaar more challenging than our first. He's contrary and stubborn by nature, and other cares about himself. But he's creative, and goofy, and so much fun. And it's exciting to watch him tackle a jigsaw puzzle. So I wouldn't have it any other way. But our lives would be a whole heck of a lot easier with just our relatively easy oldest. |
Anonymous
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So many great & encouraging perspectives so far on this post! I've thought about my own response for a day or so and really wanted to capture since I think I was in a similar boat - just both my husband and I have demanding careers (we enjoy), no law firm money but we have enough to do what's needed for comfortable survival.
Our kids are about 18 months apart - I'm going on month 11 of two in diapers. We weighed either having one child, or having two close together, I had an easy pregnancy and delivery but awful PPD so was hesitant to open this up again. The first few months were kind of a challenge, just being so tired (which will happen at any spacing of kids) but having gone through newborn already and so recently everything we needed for knowledge and "supplies" was already on-hand, making it significantly easier just having those resources alone. We also had other resources at the ready - we knew we weren't going to cook, so had meals lined up, we weren't cleaning so had our cleaners booked, etc. we never needed to re-buy things like car seats, toys, clothes... it was still in the closet or being used. What also makes/made it easier was my first adjusted without issue, he was so young he quickly forgot about life before his sibling came along. We kept him in daycare, and made sure to give him a lot of praise for being helpful, but otherwise it was a very smooth transition. This said, toddlers, no matter if they have a sibling, are going to be tough. Babies are easy in comparison. I will say, if I already (first is now 2 1/2) didn't have our second, and I survive potty training, I wouldn't ever want to go back to the start with another. I wouldn't want to be pregnant again, go through diapers again, potty training again. I wouldn't have regretted my decision to only have one kid, I just wouldn't have wanted the second at that point in time. My second though, is the joy of our family - I'm tearing up just thinking about life without her, she's a true gift and everyone's favorite member of the family (I took a vote, unanimously won) She's not easier or less work, but she makes us complete. It's expensive, we pay a lot for sanity, but I don't miss the money or energy one bit. I think if you're inkling for a second, just go for it, you're old enough it won't get easier (trust me there) by waiting. |
Anonymous
Can we stop with the “ people who don’t vaccinate are Trump supporters”? Trump himself is vaccinated and has urged other to get vaccinated. I know several Trump supporters who got vaccinated, and several Democrats who didn’t. Most anti-vaxxers ( against all vaccines) are hippie liberals. |