anyone with 'challenging' dc's and gone on to have another one please come and talk to me

[lizandlulu]

i have decided to try for another baby in april of next year. i have one dd who is 2.8 at the moment. she is extremely challenging and i just wanted to know how others have delt with a newborn and older child.

i do have friends with 2 children, but none with any like mine!

she is never still, quiet and not very well behaved.

i have talked about her on here before. she is a live wire and a 'mover and shaker' apparently, but i am very nervous already about how i would cope.

dh says he will help with a new baby more than her did with our first, but i wont hold my breath.

how did you feel about having another and is it as bad as you thought it would be?

tia

am bumping for you really as there's a 7 yr gap between my two so i can't really comment, but i know that this (2-3) is really the hardest time with a little one re behaviour and by the time the baby comes she will be a LOT more mature and likely to handle having a baby around a lot better than it might seem now.

xx

My dd1 was a difficult little girl when she was younger - got expelled from swimming class because she would not listen to instructions, would not sit down on carpet at storytime in nursery, just basically did her own thing.

I had my second child just before she turned three. I am not going to say that it was easy, but I came out of the other end in one piece. I do not think that having a baby made my daughter more difficult to manage. She was quite hard already, but things did not get worse

My dh used to take dd1 out on special trips when dd2 was a baby. This really helped, made her feel special and gave her one on one time with her dad. My husband was not very good with the baby, but he made up for it by helping with the eldest.

Once dd1 started reception, she became a much easier child to manage. She sat quietly in class and got on well with her teachers. I do give her fish oil every day, because she can still get silly. She does not like it, but it is worth persisting with.

Both of my children are in school now, and I am really enjoying being a parent ...and dd1 has got her 400m swimming badge

i must admit, dd is getting better as she gets older. but am terrified that i wont be able to go out the house with 2. dd rund off in shops and wont go in pushchair anymore.
she has only just started going places with her dad. he made the mistake of not being at home much when she was tiny cause of work, so she wasnt used to him being around. but now realises that these are ment to be the best years and he is missing out on them.
about once a month he takes her out for the day to the banger racing and i have i baby free day. it is bliss.

i know that those days will be gone for another couple of years if i have another, but i think in the long run it will be worht it.