Practicalities of newborn and 2yo with no family support - experiences please!

[BlackcurrantTea]

I have a 15 month old and am currently in the middle of a pregnancy scare. If I'm pregnant, my DD would be 24 months when baby is born. I'm really overwhelmed at the idea of what day-to-day life would be like with a newborn and a two-year-old. My DH works very long hours and we have no local family, very few friends, no car and very little money. My DD was a terrible sleeper as a newborn (still not great) and is currently very strong willed, and I'm only just starting to feel vaguely competent as a parent after over a year of feeling bewildered and overwhelmed.

Can anyone offer me any experiences of daily life with kids these ages? I have so many questions! How do you deal with your toddler waking in the night if your baby needs you too? How do you get them both dressed? When they're both upstairs and you want to bring them downstairs, how do you do it?! Any anything else you can think of.

Advice gratefully received! TIA!

Good luck @ShadowPuppets!! Hope everything goes smoothly for you!

Thanks for the link and the ideas, @zochan! Don't think we're eligible - it's a bit complicated as DH is self employed and I was self employed in a completely separate field before DD was born, and couldn't get childcare to fit around my unusual hours so had to stop working. Will read into it in more detail as I wouldn't be surprised if we were now low income enough to be eligible!

Not quite the same as did have family who could be there in a couple of hours if need be but my two main things are having stair gates on the main living room and the toddler's room, that way you can shut them in a safe space for a brief period if you need to (going up and down stairs with baby for e.g.). Shut toddler in bedroom, baby down to safe sleeping place, ignore any momentary upset while you go back up and fetch toddler. Spare clothes and nappies for both downstairs ready to use. And a sling. Barely used it with first but on all the time with second.

Honestly as others have said newborns are generally so much easier than toddlers. My second had reflux initially which was a bit if a challenge but luckily she sleeps brilliantly at night (less so in the day), her sister wakes up as much as she does. They do both cry at the same time sometimes but with the toddler it's usually something easily fixed so the baby gets put in a safe sleeping space and I sort toddler.

Oh the other thing is I bath the baby first and wrap her up in sleeping bag then toddler goes in and plays. I feed baby while doing story with toddler then usually baby falls asleep around when toddler does so we disappear off downstairs til my bedtime.

I've just potty trained the eldest while looking after a four month old, I never would have thought that possible but you really do just make it work.

Don't ask me about housework 😂 but everyone is clean and fed so we are ok. Dad is around and helpful but works long hours with a commute. You will be fine!