What support did you arrange for the birth of your second child?

[Suzisushka]

I'm currently living in London and expecting my second child. During my first delivery, my husband accompanied me to the hospital, and it went fine. However, this time I'm concerned about who will take care of our 3-year-old son while I'm in the hospital. We don't have close friends nearby, and our relatives are in another country. I'm considering a few options:

1. Hiring a doula or independent midwife so that my husband can stay with our son.
2. Hiring a nanny to stay with our son so my husband can join me at the hospital.
3. Going to the hospital alone.

If you've faced a similar situation, could you please share your experience and any advice? Thank you!

It might be quite difficult to hire a nanny that can be on call for 2+ weeks if you’re expecting a spontaneous birth. However, if you expect to be induced or have a c section then that might be a viable option. I’d go for a doula in your position.

Whatever you do, don’t do what I did and rely on a relative who lives 2 hours from London coming to babysit. Second labours are notoriously quick - we had to take DD with us and DH spent most of his time in the corridor outside the delivery room with DD in her pushchair while I gave birth to DS in the delivery room. I learned my lesson with DC3 and had a WhatsApp group full of people I could call on when I went into labour (we lived outside London by then and had a much better support network)!

I'd go to the hospital alone. I found my husband pretty useless during the whole process to be honest. I didn't really need support from him (or anybody else other than medical staff)

In your circumstances the best use of his time would have been looking after the 3 year old.

We had FIL ready to make the 2 hour journey when we called. We would have left DC1 with a friend for an hour if we had to in between leaving for hospital and FIL arriving.
As it happened, we had family visiting that day anyway.

Even friends you don't know well would surely mind your DC for an hour or two while family arrived?

Who provides general care for your child -
could you get the nanny / CM / key worker to do take annual leave but work for you for that period?

Thank you so much for all the answers (and apologies for not having figured out how to respond to each reply individually)! Our son goes to nursery, and we don’t currently have a nanny - I like the idea of annual leave though. Unfortunately, since we have no relatives in the UK, the only potential option would be to ask a relative to come live with us for a while before the due date—perhaps a week earlier. Also, I wish I knew how to join (or create) a WhatsApp group with people who can help :)

Do you have any advice on how to find a good doula? So far, I’ve found doula.org.uk mentioned on Mumsnet. I’m wondering if this is the best way to proceed.

We've had family visit. When I was pregnant with DS we had planned an induction date so BIL stayed with us and was a godsend when DS was admitted to the NICU for a week.

This pregnancy my parents are flying out and staying with us for 2 weeks when I'm 39 weeks. I'll book an induction for the tail end of their trip if she's not born before then.

If she's born earlier than that then I have a neighbour who will either have the children or drive me to hospital depending on the time of day/night. If it's a weekday daytime I could get their preschool to keep them for the afternoon (they normally go in the morning).

You just go on settings --> create new group to create a WhatsApp group. I guess the idea is you add a few local friends who could support you in some way and then if you go into labour you message the group and whoever can help, does.

I had a friend who lived by the hospital organised to take our older child and we also had lovely neighbours who also had a young family that offered to have her if needed. In the end, he came early on a weekend my DM happened to visiting us. My friend was actually one I made through work, do you have any work colleagues that you are friendly with outside of work?

I went to the hospital alone

However, you say your son goes to nursery - could asking one of his key workers at nursery be an option?

I know when I worked in a private nursery we did this for the parents; obviously was paid by them; but at least your son would know them

We didn't have family nearby for our 2nd so I had a home birth. As it happened my husband stayed with my 3yo until his grandmother came from 2 hours away and helped with the 3yo. My midwife said they had a few homebirths where there was no childcare for older kids. (My parents were meant to come visit but I had the baby at 39w so they never made it.)

Thank you! I believe the nursery contract explicitly states that we cannot ask their employees to work for us outside of their nursery duties. However, perhaps I could still ask for some advice...

Yes, after giving it some thought, I have a couple of colleagues and neighbors who might be willing to help. However, the colleagues have only met DS a few times, so I doubt he would remember them...

I had my second child alone. We have no family support and my oldest had never spent a night away from us so felt that at 2.5 it was a big ask for friends (as they all had toddlers too). We had an elective c section booked while she was at nursery but unfortunately I went into labour early so had my second overnight while my husband was at home with my eldest.

It worked well. He went to do bedtime and by the time he'd come down he had a text saying the baby was born!

Thank you! If you don't mind me asking, do I understand correctly that it was c section even though the labour started earlier?

@Suzisushka yes- went into labour early so had an emergency c section (but not a rushed one).

DH was opposite end of the country and couldn't get a flight when I went into labour so had a 7 hour drive and arrived just as they decided I was off for emergency theatre delivery so he literally changed into scrubs and came in.

Timing was perfect as I went into unexpected labour at 10.30pm so son was asleep - rang parents and ambulance due to massive bleed.
DF stayed at my house, DM travelled with me.
By the time DS woke up to know I wasn't there his brother had safely arrived which was perfect as he had been so worried on the lead up knowing i would go to hospital.

We had a good friend have my 2.75 year old, but she was a nightmare. I had the 2nd at 4pm, but it was several hours of stiching so she couldn't come home. Dd1 was a nightmare overnight and I am still so embarrassed about it. I was really stuck for options.

@espresso14 Thanks for sharing! I had an experience a tiny bit similar to what you described - I had to go to the hospital 9 months ago while still breastfeeding, and DH stayed alone with DS for the first time overnight. That was quite surreal. DS was running around a table at 2 a.m. for almost an hour, crying and waiting for me...

I had a section. We dropped my son off at breakfast club and went to hospital. He was dropped off by his friend's mum at 5pm, visited and went home with his dad.

My MIL was all set to look after our DC when I had my second. She called in sick the day before. She's always flaky. My DM didn't in the end.

We waited 2 hours for grandparents to arrive to take care of DC1 meanwhile I was at hospital the birth was very quick and serious complications meant I went in for crash section. Husband wasn’t even there. Tbh he just would have panicked so I was quite happy being on my Own with all the medical staff I could need

We were in this situation earlier this year for the birth of our 2nd child. We only had 1 person we trusted to look after our 1st child and she and her family were due to start their holiday in another country when I was 38+5. My induction was booked for 38+2. Despite me being ready to have my waters broken at 38+3, the hospital was too busy and too understaffed, so I had to wait until the night of 38+5. I birthed 'alone' but I never felt like I was alone. I had the most amazing, experienced midwife who I instantly clicked with. I also had several doctors and other staff present throughout the labour due to some complications. It was such a relaxed, calm experience for the majority of the time. I even got a few naps in (thanks epidural!). I think I was more relaxed because I knew my 1st child was with his dad. And when I told my husband about the complications, he said he was glad he wasn't there as he would've been too worried. It all worked out in the end and it wasn't the end of the world that he wasn't there!