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How do you share yourself?

5 replies

LifesTooShortYOLO · 21/08/2021 23:22

So we have one DS who is 4 and we've been on the fence about having another for a while now..
I'm swaying more toward we want another but my fear is:
My DS who is our absolute world not getting the love/attention/time he needs
And is it fair to make him have to share us?

OP posts:

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TheMagicDeckchair · 22/08/2021 07:58

I have 3. This time last year I just had DD then I got pregnant with twins.

From the perspective of having two babies, it seems really easy peasy to have an older child and a newborn! Yesterday I read to DD whilst one baby sat in my lap, but I had extra help to deal with the other baby.

If there’s two parents, one does bedtime for the older child whilst the other settles the baby.

Family and friends, neighbours etc can hold baby or play with older child.

It’s more tricky when you have to deal with them all alone. Definitely the worst part for me.

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TheMagicDeckchair · 22/08/2021 08:03

Also hard to answer about whether it’s fair to make DS share. DD was the only one of her generation, no cousins and she would have grown up alone. If she’d had cousins and regular play dates we may have been one and done.
Right now she doesn’t see the benefit of having siblings with two needy babies competing for attention but as they older I hope this will change.

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Robin233 · 22/08/2021 08:10

My parents had a sister fir me as my mum was an only child.
It worked we are close and support each other a lot.
I had my second child for me.
4 year gap.
Dd was somewhat jealous though she never missed out.
Sadly she's no longer close to her brother.

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RedLemon · 22/08/2021 08:10

I very much felt like that in the early days with DD2- that I’d taken myself from DD1. I felt plenty of guilt about it.

But… they are now 5 & 7 and although 50% of the time there’s squabbling, they also have magical times together playing make believe or building Lego villages or chasing after each other. And I still make time for “special” one on one time with each of them, as does DH, on the weekends (do get it midweek too but I try to make it a thing for the weekend).

So on balance although I am pulled both ways by them and neither has my complete and undivided attention I still feel they are both genuinely enriched by their sibling relationship and that the time we do spend one on one is all the more special.

It can be exhausting some days though, trying to give so much of yourself if they are both having a “needy” day. But that’s parenthood whether you have one or two!