Newborn and an 18mo old - Please come and reassure me it wont be too bad!

[laurawantsababy]

Im 4 weeks pg and dd is 1yo in 2 weeks.

We thought it would take us a long time to conceive as dd was 18 months but this was instant!

Any tips? DD is a good baby which I hope will continue

Is it awful? It is great fun? Thanks

15mo between my DDs and it was great, messy stage out of the way quickly, you are still in 'baby mode' so it isn't too much of a shock when the new LO turns up. Generally not much jealousy as the elder child is too young.

Only down side is, bloody hell I was tired for a year after DD2 turned up

Tiring but I enjoyed it.

I had a newborn when dc2 was 16m and then 15m later dc4 turned up

Try not to worry too much about it. As bratnav said jealousy isn't an issue in the older child at this age so that makes some things easier.

Congratulations

Been there!

It was fine, honest. My DD didn't really pay much attention to her new brother,other than to steal his cuddly toys but he didn't care about that!

It's great having them this close as they get older as well - they like the same things, you can take them the same places, they are the best of friends.

I can't reassure you. I found it several shades of shit (there was 21 months between mine). Not trying to depress you - I just think that forewarned is forearmed. Imo you should expect it to be very hard work and try to be proactive and arrange some support...you will need the odd hour off. The relentless demands of an irrational toddler and baby can be very ennervating.

Mine are now 5 and 6 and its great.

20 months between mine - it has been so much easier than I was expecting.

I have discovered that being pregnant and looking after a toddler is much much worse than looking after a newborn and a toddler.

A newborn seems so so easy after looking after a toddler.

14 months between dd2 and ds.

I echo what the others have said about the hard work in the early times - you get used to being able to feed the baby whilst playing/reading to the toddler.

The best advice I was ever given was that when they are both crying and wanting attention, ignore the baby - presuming he/she is safe in a cot or moses basket. The baby won't know any different and will not be scarred for life by being left to cry for a little while, but the toddler may well have ishooes with being ignored in favour of a new baby.

The others are right, there is no jealousy with this kind of age gap, which makes things a lot easier than people with slightly bigger gaps have.

Mine are 4 and 3 now and play together beautifully (most of the time) and it's SO much easier with these two than it was with dd1 and dd2 where there is a much bigger gap.

Congratulations

I think it must depend upon the personalities of the children involved.

Easy baby, easy toddler = easy
Average baby, average toddler = ok
Difficult baby and or difficult toddler = several shades of shit.

Mine were 15mths apart and now it's great, they are 3 and 22mths.

The first 6 mths was a real killer but once they are weaned, sitting etc it gets so much easier.

Best tip, get out of the house everyday, rain or shine and I second getting some support for the sake of your mental health

18 months between my first two can't have been that bad as I went on to have DD3.

First year was hard but now they are 4 and 3 they play brilliantly together and are the best of friends.

18 month gap here too. Bloody hard work at times, and we did have jealousy issues after about 3 months. Lovely and very funny times though too. I've struggled with very little support and if you can get some help take all that you can! Wouldn't change it for a minute though

Thanks everyone, some great advice there. I am expecting it to be tough but my family are great and close by

I have 15m between DD & DS1, and then another 16m between DS1 & DS2.

It was alternately relentlessly dreadful and upliftingly fab.

I've never been so tired in my entire life, and the babies used up every bit of me, physically and emotionally.

But... they are all really really close and can't remember any sort of life without each other. I think I avoided a lot of the sibling rivalry my friends encountered when introducing a new baby to a 2 or 3 year old. And we never got out of the 'baby phase' so it wasn't too much of a shock on either occasion to go back to night feeds and tiny nappies.

My three are 3, 4 & 5 and all of a sudden it's got a lot easier, and anything we want to do now, e.g. holidays, days out, cuddling up with a film, meals in restaurants, they all want to do the same thing, which makes life so much easier.

I thought I was going crackers for 2 years, but if I had my time over again I wouldn't change anything.