Anyone had a three year age gap and can answer some practical questions?

[Yebbie]

Second pregnancy gone terrifyingly quick, being distracted by a toddler I almost forgot I was pregnant for weeks at a time!

I'm now of course panicking that I'm unprepared.

My not quite 3 year old (will be 3 the week baby is due.. because of course) is relatively good at walking, fully capable, somewhat lazy and does still use a buggy sometimes and a trike for dog walks if we want to do any considerable distance. Dh saying definitely don't double buggy, but I'll be the one dealing with the reality of it.. so, double buggy? Did you/didn't you?

Nappies.. after an initial phase of him basically potty training himself, started taking his nappy off when he needed a pee or poo, was using potty most of the time at home and at nursery he has completely stopped for 4 months now. Just started refusing. Is fully back in nappies and won't even humour sitting on the potty. Do I start trying to encourage more? I really would like him out of nappies by the time baby comes but I don't want to pile on the pressure and scare him off!

Bottles. Also trying to wean him off a night time bottle? Again I feel mean but he really should of stopped at 2 according to what I read online. I worry about him not brushing his teeth after it, we brush them in the morning and before bottle (I know not good, but if we brush his teeth after he wakes up and it takes hours to settle him again, or another bottle..) is this a bit mean?

Also school, he will be starting school so soon after baby's arrival and I'm worried about too much change too quickly, guessing others with 3 year gap have had this? Any tips to help the transition?

Just anything to help prepare him, and me I guess! I'm panicking!

We are just going to use a buggy board when DD2 arrives. Think that's a lot easier and less space than a double buggy that will rarely be used as such (plus DD wouldn't go in a buggy now anyway).

2.5 year age diff here so a tiny bit different

1. Buggy - I thought I wouldn't need one then dc1 kept tantrumming when we were out and I had dc2 in sling, couldn't pick up dc1 to put her in the single buggy and kept having to hand dc2 to random strangers to hold while I hoiked dc1 into buggy (after trying gentle persuasion etc!) I got a secondhand Phil and Ted's which can also be used as a single by taking off second seat. Was about £100 and sold for almost as much after about a year.
2. Potty - personally I followed oh crap method where you remove nappies and they never come back, apart from at night and for naps. But close to a sibling arriving is a bad time to mess with potty training so I'd hold off for now
3. Bottle - yeah knock this on the head, in a couple of days he'll forget he ever had it
4. School - this is out of your control, you'll deal with it, probably it'll be fine! Dc1 just started school and I only know of a handful of kids who've had trouble settling.

Ps one definite advantage of double buggy over buggy board - sometimes both DC go to sleep at the same time and you get to dance a joyous dance/have a nap

Older DC often stop napping when a baby comes as they get fomo so those double naps are golden

We have a 3 year minus 2 day gap :)

A friend gave us a double buggy... waste of space. Have only used it about twice and 100% didn't need to. I'm now faffing around trying to get rid of it because it feels like our house is an explosion in a toy shop and clothing factory, and I want the space back. A buggy board is not a bad idea, but second hand in case it doesn't get used. DS2 jumps on the back of the buggy and holds on but it's not good for it. Although we are done so I suppose it doesn't matter overly if the travel system breaks as we won't use it again.

We haven't bothered much about potty training. Still going slow. It was actually quite good in terms of them taking turns to get nappies changed. We live abroad and there is no time pressure here.

He has a bike but we don't use that for getting places, only for fun walks. He's generally fine just walking next to the buggy for nursery pick up etc. I do have an emergency sling with me (Boba Air - this is brilliant) so if he was completely kicking off I could sling the baby and buggy him but I haven't needed to use it.

DS2 was still breastfeeding at night, I did night wean, partly because I was worried about them both waking up, partly aversion to the sensation being pregnant. It helped and he stopped waking up, but he started waking again after DS3 was born with nightmares. So DH dealt with him. It lasted around 4/5 months and now he sleeps through most of the time but still wakes up about once a week.

Not UK so can't answer school question.

Good luck. Absolutely love this age gap. They're very cute together. I made DS2 a book about what would happen when I went into labour with crappy stick figure drawings and he really loved that. It helped because he'd never been away from us overnight before and TBH never been anywhere except nursery without us before. We also told him (and DS1) the baby's name before anyone else so he started to bond before they were born.