Second babies

[Eulalia]

I wondered if anyone else is experiencing this. At the moment I am feeling anxious about my first child's reaction to our new baby. The birth is still 4 months off but I find I am dwelling on it and I feel guilty about my feelings for the 2nd baby. With the first I obviously spent time stroking my bump and really looking forward to meeting him. This time I seem to be looking at it negatively and worrying about potential problems. I feel I should have the same feelings for the 2nd baby (it is not his/her fault that he/she is 2nd in line!). I worry about leaving no 1 for the first time overnight and .. well all the usual things really.

My son is a bit possessive with me and I envisage all sorts of difficulites with the new baby and worry that it will spoil the bonding process, and also spoil my relationship with No 1. Maybe it is just the time of year (I do tend to feel a bit down with the the dark days) and I may feel better when the Spring comes.

From those who have 'been there' any tips on strategies that I should be putting into place before the birth to prepare my son would be useful. My son will be 2 3/4 by then.

Eulalia, I can't offer much help on strategies and so on but from my experience, you are right to be concerned. I had always thought of our 2yr 4 month old son as very secure, happy and confident and wasn't prepared for his reaction to the arrival of his little sister. For the first week, he seemed really traumatised by it. He would scream and scream and continually ask for me and bedtimes were absolute hell. I found it incredibly distressing.

We had been reading him lots of stories involving new family additions and he seemed to understand what was happening (and continually kissed my big belly!). We had a nice present for him from the baby and did our utmost to ignore her to focus on him instead (not difficult as she is so easy).

Anyway, after 10 days or so he started to come around and now is showing signs of affection for her and is much more settled in the evenings. We are still very careful however not to draw his attention to her unless he initiates it and we have also made sure that visitors make a fuss of him rather than her. We have also done our utmost to let him touch her and so on without saying "no" and "be careful" etc.

It is agreat relief that he is now clearly getting over it but his reaction was a real shock.

I'd like to give you the other side of the experience... DS was very interested in his baby sister and gave her lots of cuddles (DS was 20 months old). We did get DH to put him to bed every night before the baby was born so that he would not see a dramatic change in his evening routine. I am more concerned of his reaction when DD will be 6 months old and start wanting toys (so DS might get upset).
I do understand your concern as I had the same - DH kept saying I needed to have more confidence in DS... and he seems to have been right. DS was a lot more clingy at the end of my pregnancy but I have to admit that except for a very noisy first week (I think he believed he had to make a lot of noise... or maybe we were over sensitive to noise for the baby's sake), he has been very very nice to her. He kisses her daily, wants to hold her (usually for 10 seconds then he is "all done"!!!!).
I agree with Bells2 3rd paragraph.... and whilst I read the book 1 sock, 2 hairbrushes (or what ever the title is - author was on Mumsnet Q&As session not long ago), I found it very negative and I don't really relate to it (personal opinion).
Good luck...
There are no guarantees but it could go well...

Eulalia, my experience is very positive too, and not unlike Pupuce's. Pupuce I too have a boy and a girl, born 20 months apart.
Eulalia if I read you correctly you have two main worries.
First it seems you are concerned you will not feel as strongly for the new baby as you do for your son.All I can say to this is don't worry, this will not be the case! It may take a little while to feel love for the baby ( as it did with my dd who is now at age one the apple of my eye!)or it may be love at first sight but either way that will be fine. I understand you enjoy breastfeeding so that is massively in your favour.
Your other, main worry is how your son will react. Please stop worrying if you possibly can ( easy to say, I know) as you have no way of knowing. My son seemed to like his new baby sister but soon into the hospital visit he pulled on his coat and said "home!" to my parents who were looking after him! In general it has been fine, and they do have their scraps now that she is older and able to throw a punch in defence!
As for statying apart from you when you have the baby, this is what surprised me most. Our ds spent his first night away from us when dd was born and he was not even slightly concerned. He seemd to really enjoy staying with my parents and he was no trouble, apparenty. So much so they offerd to keep him for a few days - he stayed a week! ( I would never have believed I would have been happy with this but it worked out really well)
Finally, my sister passed onto me a fantastic book called "Zaza's baby brother" ( can't remember the author)all about a mummy having a new baby . It is really lovely, a big thin paperback so should not be too expensive. I would send you mine but it is falling apart from having been read a hundred times! Your son is probably an even better age than mine was to appreciate it.
Good luck!

I have an older dd and younger ds, 2yrs and 4 months apart. There are times they love each other to bits and play well together, and other times when they fight like crazy (and drive US crazy!) I have to say though, that the best thing about having 2 kids is watching them grow up together and seeing their relationship strengthen - it's priceless.

Firstly, don’t make the mistake of telling a toddler you are having a baby to give them a friend – you are having a baby because you are building a family. A newborn baby cannot be a friend anyway – they are no fun for an older child at all! All they do is cry, sleep and feed – and seemingly take all of mum and dad’s time!

Think of it this way, siblings are probably the only ones in the household who didn’t choose to live together. No matter how carefully and sensitively you introduce the older child to the new baby, or how fair and equal you try to be as they grow up, you will never eliminate all sibling rivalry.

Before ds was born, we went thru dd's baby photos and talked about how she used to be very small and couldn't talk or walk or do any of the things she could do now, and needed lots of looking after. We made a big deal about being a Big Sister, tho not too much cos we didn't want her to feel stressed about some unknown big new responsibilies just yet!

She was pretty good when her new brother came home, overall. There was the usual attention-seeking behaviour esp durung feeding times when she knew I was unable to stop her easily. I think she was more curious than anything else, and someone told us not to be too overprotective of the new baby or she would resent him. So we held our tongues and clenched our jaws as she peered at him and prodded him a bit, and let her hold him across her lap (she was sitting on the floor) even though he screamed the whole time...! Another thing we took advice on was to give dd a gift from baby (which I wrapped up and hid in my hospital bag for her first visit), and she made him a card. And I had a few pressies tucked away for those times when baby got a gift in the mail or from a visitor but big sister missed out, plus she got to help open them.

This has gotten very long...woops! I had mild pnd after my first too. It's not easy, but I found I was so much more relaxed with my second baby, and he seemed to be a more relaxed baby too! You just don't let so many things get too you, less "paranoid" and more confident that you do know what you are doing! Go for it!

Thanks for the comments Bells 2, Pupuce & Jasper. It is funny I had a look at the baby's scan after I wrote my message and I really felt positive towards him/her already. I think I've just not had the time to think properly about the new baby this time round. And if I do it is always in the context of No 1, rather than as an individual.

Jasper - you are so right. It is silly to worry about something over which I really cannot predict. A bit like worrying about the birth. I can prepare him to some extent but otherwise I may as well deal with problems if/when they arise.

I think its because I am enjoying being with my boy so much just now and sort of have this feeling that it is all going to come to an end. Again this is silly - I am merely looking at all the negative aspects instead of the postive ones. Perhaps because of the age gap I know it will be awhile before they can play together. But of course it will happen.

He already enjoys being with my parents and he is going to a playgroup where I can leave him when he is 2 1/2 so he'll have a few months without me or any family. I am sure I am not giving him credit for being more 'grown up' than I realise.

In due course I plan to have the room reorganised with carrycot etc laid out, clothes and so on so everything is ready (minus the baby!). Will check out books too.

In the meantime I am just going to concentrate on enjoying Christmas with just the 3 of us.

Eulalia, I remember having funny feelings about this time. I almost felt jealous on behalf of my oldest, against the new baby! It is true though, that you can't predict how the older one will react. We told ours that there was going to be a new baby brother/sister, but didn't make a big thing of it. In the event, she was delighted, and hung over the carrycot cackling in the most intimidating way at her baby brother.
Another thing was that the second baby didn't disrupt our household as much as the first. Partly due to experience, partly because he was a less demanding baby. So the oldest didn't feel too neglected, I hope.
Hope you are feeling fine and everything is going well!

Eulalia, do try to get his dad to put him to bed every night about 1 month before your due date so that he gets use to it and won't be demanding you to do it when the baby arrives.
As others have said, if the second one is very easy (and usually they tend to be), then you can spend a lot of time with your oldest anyway. Also if you are going to breastfeed number 2, between each breast (presuming that baby feeds from both sides) you can read a book or play for 5 minutes with your son and the go on feeding.

Thanks again. Sml - yes thanks everything is going fine with bump. Funny how everyone says no 2 is always easier. I think they just don't get the same attention. I will have No 1 in nursery by the summer so that will help to concentrate my time with the baby.