Reply to What do you wish you knew when expecting your first?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That many of the people trying to convince me my life would be a certain way going forward were full of it.

1.  We sleep trained and my kid is an excellent sleeper

2.  Weekly babysitter means I still have fun with my husband

3.  I lost all of the baby weight.  My body is actually better.

4.  My house isn’t full of kids stuff [/quote]

Genuine question, do you only have one kid? I was exactly like this with one kid and REALLY full of myself. My second kid was a huge dose of humility. I'm an exhausted frumpy loser mom now.

I mean this sincerely, if you value all of these things about yourself I highly recommend stopping after one kid. I thought that since one kid came so easily to me and H that the second would also be easy but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I love her but man she turned my whole world upside down. [/quote]

I wasn’t saying that any of this came easy to me.  You missed the point.

1.  I will sleep train a second kid just like the first.

2.  There’s no reason we can’t still hire babysitters.

3.  If I lost all the baby weight with child one I assume it’s possible for child two or I can at least lose most of it.

4.  I still won’t allow my living room to be a playpen and no reason a second kid means it has to be.  We have a playroom.

[/quote]

Ok. Like I said, it was a dose of humility. Good luck. [/quote]

See that’s the exact attitude I encountered before my first kid. The whole “good luck...you think you can manage but you won’t be able to.”

There just isn’t any reason why I will be unable to hire a babysitter or lose the baby weight.  Neither are impossible tasks.

Women had me really scared prekids about everything from returning to work to not being able to lose the weight.  While some things were harder than others, nothing has been insurmountable.

[/quote]

Alright look. Maybe you'll be fine. I read your post and I saw a very vivid view of what I was like before I had my second kid.

You keep harping on the babysitter issue and you're right, we definitely still get a babysitter with two.

My first kid regressed majorly. Sleep issues, potty training issues, behavior issues. She went insane. She was SO well adjusted before that, honestly one of the most easy going, mature kids I knew and she went insane. So 'sleep training' is irrelevant when you have a 2 year old sobbing at 10 pm that "skeletons" are in her room trying to eat her. Meanwhile our second baby completely resisted sleep training. I did it with my first so I am not a stranger to it and have no issues listening to crying, but she escalated more and more as the night went on. My toddler started to wake up as a result. So we had both kids in total sleep meltdowns and I was running on 1-2 hour stretches per night. When you get to a point like that, things like getting a sitter or losing baby weight don't seem so important.

I don't know how old your kid is but keeping messes contained was very easy for me until my first turned 4 or so, then she got a serious mind of her own and it became a part time job chasing her down to keep her toys contained and her stupid art projects out of the living room.

My husband and I had a great division of labor and we gave each other tons of breaks. I could go to work network events, go play tennis, go see movies, do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. As long as we cleared it with each other it was all on the table. That flew out the window the year my second was born. It was constant divide and conquer, very rare breaks.

About 9 months after my second was born I'm starting to see my life stabilize a little bit and I'm starting to feel interested in things like my job or losing the baby weight again. But it was a breathless, difficult year that literally landed me in therapy because I was so shocked that I wasn't handling it like a piece of cake. In therapy I've done a lot of work to realize how much of my identity had been wrapped up in this idea that I was such a good, laid back mom who balanced my awesome kid with my awesome job. It all unraveled this year and I was left picking up the pieces of what felt like was actually left of my identity.

I don't even want to go on because it seems kind of pointless and I'm sure you'll have an answer for everything. Like I said though, good luck. Maybe it will go fine for you, what do I know. Obviously not much, I learned the hard way this year. [/quote]

I appreciate you sharing.  Sorry you experienced this.  [/quote]

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