How do you manage a second child?

[Laytwir024]

Nc here!

I'd love to know how on earth you all do it. Dh and I would love a second and are lucky that we can afford one and have the space amongst other things, but how on earth do you cope? We are relatively patient people but we do wonder if a second would throw us over the edge. Our child is 18 months and here is our typical day:

5:30 DH gets up with child, sorts breakfast, changes them and plays.
7:00 I get up, take over and have a few mins together in kitchen before Dh gets ready for work (WFH).
I'm mostly a SAHM so with DC all day, cleaning and playing as I go. The post lunch nap is up and down. I don't always get long and when I do it's preparing evening meal and cleaning up the madness of the day so far. Three times a week my parents take DC whilst I work (I have to dedicate this time to work and nothing else). I then do evening meal, bath and bedtime routine which takes oages and a lot of rocking and boob feeding.

8pm DC is finally asleep. I come downstairs pretty exhausted. Dh finishes work around 6pm and has been eating and cleaning up downstairs ever since. He's knackered and goes to bed pretty soon after. I have a few mins to myself and follow him up.

DC wakes maybe 3 times a night (sometimes more) and needs boob back to sleep. He ends the night in our room. We're ok with that.

Then starts again.

It's ok and just manageable but how on earth do you manage when you have a new baby along? I really don't get it.

A lot of this works because my dh is WFH and does his fair share of cleaning up so I know I'm very lucky! Wfh will end at one point which is scary.

Well the first thing that will help is your son will be 9m+ older than he is now which is a world away from his current age.

It's hard but you honestly do just cope. It doesn't last for long. I had 3 close together, it was a blur but now youngest baby just started school and suddenly it's easy. The main thing you need is your son to hopefully be sleeping through the night but he will be in 9 months time I expect.

I guess you’d hope by the time the next one arrives your DS1 is sleeping better so it’s just one kid up all night 🤣!!

I had the same thought. DS is 14 months and has a determined little mind to say the least. Hes very mobile and an absolute handful. We were just discussing buying houses and weather we need a room for another potential child but I just cant even picture it.

I had 18 months between my first two. I worked on getting the oldest to sleep through and went from there. It is hard, but it’s like being a tunnel for a while then you emerge and things are easier. I do think having them closer is better overall as it gets in over and done with. (If you’re not a fan of the younger years).

It’s hard but you just muddle through somehow! Your 18 month old will be totally different by then too. And like others have said you’d aim for him to be sleeping through the night by then

That’s a lot of cleaning. We managed because we have 3 years difference - we don’t have any family help. DD1 went to school nursery every week day morning (term time), we did have a cleaner pre covid now we have a robot hoover, drop your standards, make double the food and eat the same thing two nights running, frozen veg, occasionally have beans on toast for dinner, pasta and jar sauce with pine nuts and chopped up pepper on the side - like I said lower your standard in everything. Having to home school and look after a baby/toddler was a fucking killer. I’m not going to lie about that.

Now ours are 4.5 yrs (reception) and 20 months. Our days looks like
7.00 get up, I take the girls down stairs nap change, sort out school snack and start breakfast while DH showers and then we swap over. 8.30 O take back over and do the school run, park or beach or the park again (you know how it is at the moment). 11.30 lunch and then little one nap or doesn’t. I run around doing the house work. Little one is up from nap, play, school run, snacks, play. Put the Tv on for the girls while I make dinner, mostly while holding the toddler. 5 - dinner, 6.25 DH does bath time while I run around cleaning. DH put DD1 to bed and I put DD2 to bed. DH finished kitchen jobs. 9 - we sit on the sofa exhausted and soon go to bed. Repeat. Oh DD2 still sleeps in one of our arms, she has just started to feed less in the night now.

You really do need to get the sleep issue sorted. Your 18 month old is sleeping 8pm to 5.30am and up 3 times in the night and ending up in your bed. That's not the norm, honestly, he or she can be helped to sleep way better than that.

It's hard having a baby and toddler at the same time but millions of us managed it somehow. It's a question of lowering your standards and muddling through ! Oh, and having the older one at playgroup or nursery for some part of the week really helps. For this reason quite a few people delay having a second until after the first turns 3, so then they get some free nursery hours.

I couldn’t even entertain the idea of a second baby until dc1 was coming up to 2 as I was so shellshocked! I won’t lie the early days with 2 weren’t easy but also not as bad as 8 had envisioned (dc2 was an easier baby and I overthought things a lot less ) and time went by so much faster than the first time around. Things got easier once dc2 was sleeping through and again past the year mark I found. I have also felt better and adjusted a lot quicker with the second one than I did after the first. I think going from 1-2 was easier than going from 0-1 and having that huge culture shock maybe because you’re already doing it.

You lower your standards and get on with it. Besides, if you're knackered already you can't get that much more knackered.

Kids are way more adaptable than you think, we tend to have a ridiculously energy-intensive style of parenting. With a second one you realise that leaving them to their own devices a lot of the time is ok.

Also sleep training.

Oh forgot to mention my first was a bad sleeper and would only sleep in our bed meaning we didn’t get the best sleep. At 2.4 something clicked and like clockwork dc1 slept in own bed and wanted to be there; it was amazing. I think some dc just aren’t ready; they really are all different. Dc2 loves own bed and has done since birth; they have been brought up exactly the same.

More negligent parenting with second and third children!

Which sounds flippant, but actually I think I made too much of a fuss with DC1. With subsequent children, I found they didn't really need so very much attention - a lot, yes, but not as much as DC1 had had. This meant I could manage to do ordinary household tasks with the children around and had a nice network of friends to see with kids as well. I found parenting more tiring when it's boring! This might be a particular issue with covid lockdown times.

I had 18 months between mine. The second was a very happy surprise. My god it was rough at the start. A cluster feeding newborn and a toddler that still needs feeding/changing /playing/loving.
Basically you just find your own routine. Mine was all bout the night before, make sandwiches, cut up fruit etc, boiled eggs etc put them in fridge so you can throw them at toddler with one hand while clutching your breastfeeding newborn. Fill up a load of water bottles in strategic places around the house (breastfeed thirst + also for toddler). Get the place relatively tidy. Then, use the TV. My baby had nearly no screen time until 18 months but my god Hey Duggee was on repeat then. Lower your cleaning standards/get a cleaner.
All of that sounds hard but this morning they both (now 2.5 and 4) came out of their rooms at the same time and kind of squealed and ran to each other and had the longest hug. It's well worth it to have that cuteness in your life.

Not into sleep training so won't waste my time going over that but thanks anyway (from what I've seen it's quite normal for kids to be like this until they are a few years old and me and dh were the same as kids sadly!)

Thanks though, I agree maybe it's just lowering our standards. I try and do a lot with DC over the day and I do make proper full meals at night which is probably unnecessary. Good point with 9 months away being a different baby!

Like @Crowsaregreat says, you lower your standards with the second! You know what you are doing second time round so dealing with the baby is easier. I just fitted no 2 in around what I was doing with no1 to a great extent and when no2 was feeding, no1 got to watch CBeebies. You just find your way to make it work.

That sounds like a LOT of cleaning. Less of that I reckon

Not sure but you do... our house was hugely hugely messy for at least a year. Hardest bit was when I had both home full time with no break and both mobile but not old enough to be left for even a tiny while (going to the loo was an act of extreme faith or involved taking them both with me!).

Now they are at school and nursery it’s easier. I went back to work part time and although I am still exhausted it’s nothing compared with 2 under 2 exhausted. That was exhaustion to the point of (I’ve never done drugs so I’m imagining here!) feeling drugged or zoning out and I couldn’t remember how I got somewhere. I would not go back to those days! But I’m glad as they enabled my life with the kids now.

I have a 3.9 year age gap. That helps, usually by three children are sleeping better at night. Also you then have school or your 15/30 free nursery hours.

It also helps if one parent can do one bedtime each. My husband takes our now four year old, I take the baby. We usually have them both in bed by 7.15pm. If our lives go back to normal my husband will be away half the week and I’m dreading doing two bedtimes at once :(

I do all cleaning in the evenings and one morning a week when I’m alone while the baby is in nursery, eldest is at school and I’m not working. No regular help from family.

I have a 6 year age gap 😂

'If our lives go back to normal my husband will be away half the week and I’m dreading doing two bedtimes at once'

@Bringallthebiscuits

Not sure how old your dc are but i find it works to bring the youngest into the eldest's room. I will do story time in there for them both and kiss dc1 night night then carry dc2 to bed and put down.

I have 20mobths between my two. I think the answer is that sometimes work expands to fill the time, and your first takes so much time as you have the time.

DH worked away for most of those first years when mine were babies/toddlers. I was used to doing it all myself, so that was the time stuff took. The house was very messy at times (but we all were clean, fed and had clean clothes) and the house was hygienic clean, but not show home standard (hoovered, mopped floors, clean dishes etc, but cobwebs above the stairs for example).
Sleep... We coslept. Bed times were flexible. DD2 didn't have baby food and self fed.

And basically... It worked because it had too. Luckily they got on!

@Laytwir024 my first was 21 months when I got pregnant with my second and he was still breastfeeding. I stopped feeding between 11 and 5, told him the milk was asleep. I did make sure he had good protein dinner like chickpeas, beans, quinoa etc (he's allergic to dairy and eggs). He was able to speak and understand that milk was asleep. After 5am if he was awake before I went to work he was breastfed. He breastfed until I was 7 months pregnant and told me one morning that the milk was finished at age 2 years and 4 months.
We also got the gro clock and read him the story as and it worked most of the time.
I also read some of Dr Sears articles on sleeping and night feeding.

I'm now almost 30 weeks pregnant and the my are 8 and 5. I had to recover from the lack of sleep and enjoy them before I had a third. We also have to family around and both work.

As previous posters have said there is a huge difference between an 18 month old and a 2.5/3 year old. And yes do lower your standard a little bit. Best of luck.

@Popcornbetty thanks, I wondered about doing that but at the moment the baby (14 months old) goes to bed an hour earlier as she is very tired by around 6pm but eldest (4 years old) is not sleepy then. Also baby likes to pull at book pages so think she would interrupt bedtime stories. Would probably have to leave eldest alone watching TV while I put baby to bed first - but he gets grumpy and calls out for me if left alone. We’d get through it somehow of course, would just be more tiring!

@Laytwir024 yeah I believed that too, everything I read breastfeeding related just kept repeating the same old things like ‘responding to your child is good’ ‘you’re a responsive parent’ ‘provide them with the nourishment they need’ ‘they still need milk at night it’s natural’ blah..

But I was exhausted, as you so rightly sound too, and we thankfully became pregnant quite easily so DC will be 18m when DC 2 arrives in September. Anyway, that was the trigger, I nightweaned. Offered water and a dummy if he woke. There were a few extra cuddles the first few nights but no tears and he almost immediately slept better, I think we went from 8-10 wake ups to maybe one if that. My desperate posts are still on here 😂.