Any advice for mum of 1yr 4 month old who is about to give birth to number 2 baby?

[DreamyParentoid]

Hello :)

Do you have any advice about what to get prepared before a second child comes along so as to ease the transition for the first and DH and I? My due date is feb 18th.

I notice I feel a little grief about loosing the ability to give DD1 all my attention. I have loved hanging out with her. She does go to nursery for 2 pms a week and I'm in the process of helping her get used to falling asleep without me lying there next to her... but I notice I'm quite gutted that I have to!

Any recommendations or tips on this, or practical things generally would be very gratefully received x

p.s. I started this thread in Larger Families, but no responses there. Maybe 2 isn't a very large family by comparison!

I have a 13 month old and am due on the 12th of Feb so going to keep an eye on this post :) I'm hoping it's not going to be as bad as being with DS pregnant cause I feel like it's worse being incapacitated by this huge belly than a baby in the room.... I hope. xx

Hay Woolfey, that's really helpful. I've been looking at double buggy's but wondering if I really needed to get one straight away for exactly the reasons you describe. I have found a swing seat in a car book which looks fabulous and I've been on the look out for a sling which I used religiously for DD1 but lost (?!). But I hadn't thought of a baby bath seat, that is clever.

Talking of double buggy's, the one I'd looked at was this tandem one where u can put them in from birth www.amazon.co.uk/Graco-Stadium-Tandem-Pushchair-Black/dp/B006UAQ5BW/ref=sr_1_2?s=baby&ie=UTF8&qid=1357402335&sr=1-2. The other option is one where they ride next to each other. Which buggy do you use/recommend?

Plus the bath seat, which one of those did you use?

Also, did you use cots with both of yours? I had DD1 in bed with us, then moved her into a hammock for a bit, then into her own futon bed but ended up sleeping with her quite a bit. I am thinking that I can't do that this with the next baby quite so easily and maybe a straight forward cot with a jolly mobile would also be worth the investment.

Flowerydems - nice to hear from you. How are you doing? Have you tried to explain to your DS that you are having a baby? What are you doing about sleep arrangements?

Lovely to hear from you both :)

Hey,

Woolfey - so glad to read your responses, it's helped with some of the things I've been worrying about.

We're doing ok, just on the final countdown now and cannot wait to be able to take big steps and not waddling about everywhere. :) how are you getting on with the final stretch?

DS is totally oblivious to the fact anyone's going to be joining the family so I'm a bit anxious but seeing as he's only going to be 14 months he'll soon forget he was an only child... hopefully anyway, going to get him a couple of wee things to help with the transition.

See I was looking at the graco aswell but my pal was getting rid of an icandy so we bought that and just got the adaptors which worked out fairly cheap in the end, also meant we could get rid of our single buggy as it'll go into a single after DS starts walking and that.

We've just bought a cot bed for DS as he's always been a good sleeper so we're going to move him into next week and the cot will go in our room for the baby and that means the moses basket can stay downstairs most of the time unless the baby falls asleep and it's small enough that we can just pop it in the cot upstairs.

It's so much to think about now though xx

I do love this option of being able to post and lovely ladies get back to you.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback especially on the buggy.

Sleepwize: We were doing really well with DD1 sleeping in her own bed, weened, but just waking once or twice and needing resettling. Quite often I fell asleep next to her whilst resettling, I'll be honest! But after two weeks of first her, then me having a really horrid cough that seems to come on in the night, I've ended up using boob to settle her just so she can get back to sleep even though I'm coughing my guts up. Its been quite challenging, sleep depriving, and ultra annoying to actually go backwards. Especially since the week before we came down with said virus she'd slept through in her own room for the first time and it all happened quite naturally.

Sods law I suppose.

So asap I need to start the gently moving towards settling her and leaving plan I have. Except its also probably necessary to wait until after this cough finishes because each time she's settling I cough and wake her...

DH has never done bedtime and now boob has got involved again, can't really. He is up for taking over bedtime for DD1 but is quite old fashioned about what DD ought to be able to do. I.e. have a story read to her, then kissed goodnight and left. This isn't really what I've been doing! Its all been quite protracted. Hence my desire to set her up for the hand over by getting her used to my leaving before the next one arrives.

I was impressed to read that Woolfey managed bed time with both of them by using the rocking seat. I can imagine that after the first couple of weeks I might need to be able to manage by myself sometimes so that's helpful.

Re: final stretch. I feel pretty ok except for the sleeplessness from this horrid cough. I don't know what it would be like if I wasn't exhausted from that, maybe I'd notice other things, but I feel like all would be well if I could just get rid of that. Maybe I'd be a little breathless and tired anyway? I think my bump isn't too big, though that maybe all to come. To be honest we've had such a full on christmas of visitors I'm only just settling down to acknowledge that the main thing next is me having a baby!

Best wishes to you all, x