By and large, how much faster is a 2nd labour?

[minouminou]

with DS it was 31 hours from 1st contraction, although established labour was 18 hours
soooooooooo....straw poll from you guys, what were your labour lengths in 2nd (and subsequent) births?
I know it's variable, but i just wanna get a picture of a ball park figure of a rule of thumb of an inkling
as it were!
Many thanks, look forward to hearing your stories and figures.

Blimey - am at how much quicker most of your second labours were. Am expecting dc2 in 7 weeks and had assumed that I'd have several hours to sort out childcare arrangements for dd, and get dh back from abroad if necessary, but am now thinking maybe not! (1st labour just less than 12 hours).

first - 32 hours established
second - 16 hours established
third - 8 hours established

all OP

third labours are weird - first and second labours were identical and only differed in their length. 3rd was stop-start-stop-start ARGHHHHH (but well worth it )

My second was faster too but I really think it depends what you do.

If you're up and about, walking, moving, managing things, not panicking etc, then things could well move a lot faster.

There are a lot of factors involved.

I personally believe that 2nd time mums are mostly more, well, relaxed is the wrong word, but feel less in danger, IYSWIM, and more assertive as to what they feel comfortable with and so thing can progress faster.

But I don't think it's a given that deliveries get faster the more babies you have.

DS1 24 hours
DS2 90 minutes.

Freaked me out a bit, frankly. I yelled "I need to push" and thought the midwife was going to say "don't be so bloody stupid". Instead she said "I can see the head!"