What was the harder transition - going from 0-1 children or 1-2 children?

[WhyTheHeckMe]

I'm 26 weeks pregnant with dc2. Ds1 will be 2 + 3 months when the baby is due.
Just wondering if you found it harder going from no kids to 1 or if you found going from 1-2 worse? !

Neither really. 0-1 was fab I loved it
1-2 was fine too but I suppose a bit more tricky to organise things?

So maybe 1-2

0-1 was obviously a big change in my life but I found it fine

1-2 was hard, dd2 has erm...quite the personality and always has so may be that!

2-3 I've loved. I think 2-3 seems like going from 2 kids to loads though for some reason, likely coz me and dh are outnumbered. Found it easier than 1-2 though.

I think when you have your second you realise how easy you actually had it with just the one, I did anyway

I totally underestimated 1-2, I think it's probably fine as long as you remember that you no longer outnumber the small people and therefore the inherent advantage you had first time round is now gone!

0-1 definitely.

0-1 was harder by far

0-1 really really hard
1-2 really really easy
2-3 absolute breeze!

I think it hugely depends on the babies you get.

0-1 was a far harder adjustment for me. I went from being an independent 'work hard play hard' to the parent of a colicky velcro baby whilst recovering from a CS and really struggling to BF. A total culture shock and felt like my life had been ripped up into tiny pieces. I didn't have any close friends with babies/children and we don't have family help, so we really had to feel our way through with little help or advice. My expectations were way out: I had no idea babies could be like that, I thought they spent their days looking cute and sleeping. Ha!

I find having 2 much more tiring overall, and the first 12m of 2 DCs were tough, but the adjustment was much easier. DD2 slotted into our life easily, and was a much 'easier' baby (she occasionally slept on her own mattress for a start!) even if she's now a very full-on toddler. As mentioned up thread, I've found having two is about learning crowd control. Splitting your attention in two directions solidly for 12hrs a day is exhausting, although I can see from 3yo DD1 that this will be much easier once DD2 is a similar age and can be better trusted a little more or perhaps not, DD2 is nuts. I felt much more prepared for DD2 and had braced for a repeat of DD1's baby days, so was pleasantly surprised. Expectations were much much lower, which I think really helped!

0-1. Totally overwhelmed and unbelievably anxious!

0-1 was the hardest. DS1 had reflux and did not sleep, day or night. I was completely shell-shocked and had a difficult birth to recover from too.
1-2 is easier, but there is nearly a 4 year age gap. DS2 doesn’t sleep much either but I know it will pass and am now used to being permanently knackered.

Loving reading all of this! Thanks for all being so honest too, I did really struggle with 0-1 so kind of assumed 1-2 would be a breeze but now I'm thinking I definitely need to lower my expectations.
Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed I guess!

0-1 definitely.

1-2, first 6 weeks were a breeze but now at ten months DS2 moves & is trying to pull himself up & wants so much attention which makes DS1 kick off.

I can no longer do housework, DS2 doesn’t sleep for any tooth that cuts whereas only canines bothered DS1.

DS2 stopped sleeping for more than a hour at a time for 2 months, can’t rest when there’s a toddler to wear out.

It’s starting to get a bit easier but I get 3-5 hours of sleep a night, have to cook dinner at 8am & I haven’t had a bath since before DS2 was born. Just want a long soak without getting a boob out.

But their bond is amazing & I wouldn’t change anything except maybe sleep.

Definitely 1-2 I have a 1 year old and his brother is 3, it feels like Groundhog Day and some days all I look forward to is 7pm when they go to bed

0-1 was so much harder for me. But looks like everyone is different. I remember being pregnant with DC2 and mentally preparing myself for the sleepless nights. Those sleepless nights never arrived she was a dream. An absolute dream. I'm currently pregnant with DC3 and just know I won't be that lucky again.

It's interesting how different it is fir everyone. It must depend so much on the babies' personalities. I remember one of my NCT group found it so easy the first time round. Her baby slept almost all the time, but she found DC2 a big shock. Both mine had reflux but it was easier to cope with the second time. With DC2, I also discovered co-sleeping, which I could not have survived without! I was too nervous to do it first time round, but actually ended up getting more sleep by co-sleeping with DC2.

0 to 1 for me. Yes expect it to be hard with 2 and hopefully won't be too bad. I was prepared for it to be bad but so far not too bad but number 2 is only 2 weeks so could get worse.
The first few days / weeks with my first were such a shock and I found it hard.

0-1 was a bit of a shock, very tiring but lovely

1-2 has been horrendous

DH has had the snip because having a 3rd would push me over the edge

I found both hard in different ways and I think it depends so much on the baby
DS1 never, ever slept and I spent the first 6 months in exhausted delirium reading every parenting book I could get my hands on hoping for some miracle answer (note - there isn't one). I also put pressure on myself to get to certain classes so I found myself stressing out every day about getting out the house at a certain time and panicking if he decided to nap at the 'wrong' time.
DD1 in comparison was a great sleeper from day one and hardly every cried. She was just such an easy baby and I enjoyed her so much. I didn't put pressure on myself to do too much, we went out when it was convenient and I was much less exhausted which helped.
However dealing with the needs of a toddler as well as a newborn is just so hard. My toddler actually stayed in nursery for half the week which was probably the main reason I didn't find the transition from 1-2 too difficult. If I'd had both of them every day I think that would have been much harder than 0-1.

I think it very much depends on the child. DC1 was high needs, so I found adjusting to parenthood very difficult and wanted to run away a lot. DC2 was the easiest child and just fit into our family and was a joy. I'd say life almost got easier going from 1-2. It's all about the child and circumstances.

Both children are now equally brilliant and tyrannical, but definitely in the baby days 0-1 was so so hard. Nobody could have prepared me for what I experienced.

0-1 I was in major shock.
The second one Just slips easily onto family life.

0-1 was easy for me, DS1 slept like a dream, easy baby etc etc.

1-2 was harder as DS1 had morphed into a nightmare toddler and was 2 1/2 when DS2 arrived. Also easy baby but nursed a lot at night so that coupled with non- sleeping toddler was much harder...

Tbh I've found them both hard but in different ways!
Ds1 I was always worrying about not knowing what I was doing, breast feeding was really hard at the start, big life adjustment etc.
Ds2 (I'm only 6 weeks in!) I thought I would be much more relaxed as have done it all before, but am just worrying about different things, like how to manage with 2, feeling guilty about not spending time with ds1, ds2 is quite sicky and fussy and won't be put down so is hard work!
Luckily ds1 has been ok with ds2 so far!
As others have said I think it all depends what type of baby you have and how you other reacts to them.

I found 1-2 harder but I think that I’d because I had PND but wasn’t diagonosed til quite late.

0 to 1 - Dh and i were in our mid thirties so had had 35+ years of just dealing with ourselves. We read all the boots did what they said and tied ourselves in knots. We would change ds1 after every feed even if the nappy was clean and relatively dry because the book said so (even if ds1 was sleeping like a baby) Ds1 to 2 was hard especially as we had a 4.5 year age gap and had got used to some degree of order and sleep. That said we had ditched a lot of the books and were much more relalistic about what needed to be done. never got as far as finding out what 2-3 was like.