How did you decide about having a second baby?

[RedPandaMama]

Have a 13mo DD. She's amazing. Adore her. Best thing that ever happened to me, completely by accident!
But she's hard work - quite clingy, difficult with new people and won't be away from me and DP really. Doesn't like nursery (only been there 3 weeks so hopefully will get better!) Not a great sleeper.

I would have loads of kids if I knew they would sleep. I can deal with everything else, but the lack of sleep.

At the moment DD is up for anything up to 2.5 hours during the night from 1-3.30am. Really screws up my sleep cycle and I'm working 2 jobs plus starting an MA and moving house so I'm knackered.
Not planning another child til she's 3/4ish and I desperately want one, but the idea of another bad sleeper makes me feel physically sick. If I could see into the future and saw they'd be like her with the sleep, I probably wouldn't have a second, if I'm honest. Does this mean I shouldn't have a second? DP is fine either way.

The idea of having a preschooler or a child in reception and a baby that doesn't sleep scares the living daylights out of me. But everything else in the world makes me want another.

So how did you decide to have a second? Did you disregard all fear and just go for it?

When my DS was 6 months old ( and had obviously hit a wonderful period where we thought he was amazing ) my DH leaned over one night and whispered the romantic words... this baby thing is getting easy isnt it! Fancy trying for another? And so will all discussions over the trying began! Next day i changed my mind and suggested we wait a while until DS is older.... it was too late!! Best decision we ever made. You manage with what you have and you just get on with it. It was chaos at times but worth it.

Just read my reply and it sounds awful. Lol. I mean my DS was amazing by sleeping all the time etc. Obviously we think he is amazing ALL the time (apart from when hes not haha!)

I loved (still do!) DS as a baby and fortunately found that being a mum came really naturally to me but my God he was hard work! A true Velcro baby with colic, reflux, dairy intolerance etc thrown in!

So we thought, we want 2, this is amazing but a bit of a nightmare, how much worse could it be if we had a second one right now and got the whole baby stage out of the way quickly! And then DD was conceived, pretty much instantly before we'd had chance to change our minds! She was, and still is an absolute angel who's never caused even an ounce of trouble. They're 5 & 7 now and the best of friends, mostly. The in at the deep tbd approach definitely worked for us!

We were the same . DC1 is 6 and still not great but I can deal with it now where even if they aren’t sleeping they know to stay in their room, play with toys read etc. DC2 is 8 weeks nearly and so far seems better then DC1 dud as a little one, but I do think I can just cope better . It massively helps having the older one at school all day so I can nap . I think If that is the only thing stopping you then planning another when she is at nursery / school and maybe when you’ve done your MA could work ? We debated whether or not to have DC2 for a good 2/3 years beforehand and the sleep was a major factor . But I’m much less emotional and more matter of fact about it this time, i know I will sleep
Again at some point even if it doesn’t feel like it!!! DC2 is just scrummy and I love having two no way am I bloody having anymore though MIL Good luck

Complete opposite to Tokyo but incidentally I think that way sounds good too 😂 we had financial constraints as to why we waited so long as well it wasn’t just the sleep (50/50 !!!) ours are lovely together but obviously it’s a very diff relationship / family set up to two with a smaller gap who will play together more .

DS slept through a couple of nights in a row and we got some kind of sleep high where we thought we didn’t want an age gap of much more than 2 years so we should go for it. DS has started waking again before I even got the positive test result! Seemed like a good idea at the time, now 7 months pregnant with a toddler who still rarely sleep through it seems like a much worse idea...

DS1 and DD are exactly 2 years apart. I got DH drunk on a christmas night out and then we had DD 😂 Dont do it, we've just had A levels and GCSEs in the same year!

Well....ds didn’t sleep through the night until he turned 3. We were vv excited!! Dd was born 9 months later ...

Thank goodness dd slept through like properly from a few weeks and never needed help to settle or anything . —I was convinced there was something wrong with her because was used to non sleeping—

However the thing that convinced me was I didn’t want ds to be an only child if I could help it. I was having issues with elderly parents being unwell and I was glad I had my siblings to talk with. Also I was a lot younger than my siblings growing up so always wanted ds to have someone closer in age. That’s it really.