Anyone tried for a baby very soon after giving birth? Am I nuts?

[Merrydoula]

Call me crazy...I don't know what's wrong with me but I've found myself looking at OPK strips to order so I can track ovulation and get busy to get pregnant again...I've just given birth 3 weeks ago!

What is wrong with me?! It's a very overwhelming feeling that I want another quickly...Please share experiences if any, I need to have an idea of what I could be getting myself into

Enjoy the baby you have at the moment! You've barely touched on parenting !

All I can say is you must be mad 😅 not being harsh but wait until parenting kicks in and then you'll be put off! Enjoy your first child before having another!

I felt an overwhelming urge to have another straight after too. But there was no way I could physically try as was quite unwell. It passed after a while... thank goodness! I feel pregnant when baby was ten months and that's been hard enough!

Horomones. Your emotions will still be everywhere at the moment.

Looking after a baby while heavily pregnant and then with a newborn will be really, really hard. Enjoy a few months being a parent, then start thinking about number two.

There was advice recently published about waiting a full year to allow your body to recover.

If it helps, I know the feeling a bit. My baby is 4 weeks old and I go from thinking "pregnancy and birth were amazing and I want another baby now!" to just enjoying my little girl. Realistically we won't start trying for a year or so.

What does your partner think? Xx

Your hormones will be all over the shop at the moment as you have just recently given birth.

Don't make any decisions bigger than what to have for breakfast at the moment! Seriously, everything will look very different in six months

It’s the hormones. Honestly.
I have a 19 month gap and even with that, it took a huge toll on my body. You need time to recover.
Plus wait until your baby leaves the sleepy newborn stage and you’re so tired you can barely function (that may just have been me!)

I felt like this after each pregnancy, it was my hormones and soon calmed down.

What does your partner think?

I agree with others, it’s probably hormones. I’m not suggesting you do, but I had PND and once I had my baby realised I had liked being pregnant better than actually having the baby. Even if you wait a couple of months you’ll still have a small age gap if that’s what you really want :)

When my first was tiny I really wanted another one quickly. Then he became a toddler and I realised I find the baby stage easy and the toddler stage really really hard. I was so glad we’d waited.

Less than 14 months between ds's. Ttc at 6 weeks pp but ebf and it didn't happen straight away!!
Ime having them close suited me . Doesn't work for everyone!!
Discuss with your dh!!

I felt the same actually! Then got over it once things got interesting

I had another massive urge when DD1 was about 6 months but managed to wait until she was 18 months in the end. Thank god I did really!

Oh gosh! You guys are putting me off 🤣

It's my first baby so I'm yet to see the joys of what's to come yet as they get older etc!

It must be hormones because I didn't really enjoy pregnant, then at the end got pre eclampsia and has to be induced, was in hospital from start to finish for a whole week before I could leave with my baby. Baby was fine, I was kept in for 3 days after birth due to monitoring for signs of pre E reoccurring postpartum.

Maybe not nuts but.... If you look at the price of a slot in the baby room at nursery and then double it, you might have second thoughts!

Hormones. I was extremely broody soon after having all of mine. It was a symptom of just how obsessed I was with them I thing.

Let your body recover. Maybe a full year isn’t necessary, but a few months would be best. Not least of all to build up your iron stores and have 3 months of folic acid supplements...

I know two people who were deliberately pregnant by their 6 week check. Both massively struggled with 2 babies under a year old. Please don't.

We always planned to have two really close together. DD1 will be one, just before Christmas and DD2 is expected to arrive mid March.

I have to admit, that it's been way more difficult this time around than it ever was with DD1. Caring for a baby whilst pregnant is bloody tough and the bigger I get the harder it's gets.

I'll be definitely going on contraception after DD2, and we will not be having anymore after this one! Lol!

Mine are 10 1/2 months apart. They should be just over a year apart but my pregnancies don't go full term.

I love how close they are in age now they're school age - they really are incredibly close as a duo and I'm not stuck dragging a younger sibling around a load of older sibling oriented things and vice versa - but the second pregnancy really took its toll on my body and I've got a lot of problems from PGP that didn't go away as a result.

The practical two-under-one things weren't that bad really - was just two lots of shit instead of one - but PND really hammered me with the second one as well and that took a lot to get back from. Double-trouble potty training is grimmer than grim though!

It's not the end of the world if it happens - you just cope, but think it through very carefully (we'd taken 6 years to have DD1 so just thought we'd see what happened with a second child). DH was at the doctors requesting a vasectomy when DD2 was about 2 weeks old with the "we are definitely done" attitude to it all (we only ever wanted two)!

My friend has two with a 11 month age gap and it is hard!!!

I have 14 months between mine and felt exactly the same as you by 5 weeks with my first. I had a tough birth and pnd (though didn't realise I did at the time) and honestly I'm sure that was in my subconscious somewhere that I'd been "robbed" of a nice birth.

14 months apart I'm finding really hard and really wish we had waited. Trying to stretch myself between 2 very demanding little ones is tougher than I thought, it's so hard to get out and about and to baby groups because you need eyes in the back of your head and need to time naps and bottles, and generally can't bring the buggies in where I am.
I don't think it helps though that my first is an extremely late walker..

Honestly if I had my time again I would definitely wait until my first was at least walking before even getting pregnant.

Oh also I was heavily pregnant throughout that hideous heatwave which was so not fun with a 1 year old too.

I'd give yourself a few months and then see how you feel. I have a 13 month age gap between mine and it's definitely hard, especially for the first year, although I do love the small age gap. Being pregnant when you have a small child is tough, I really didn't enjoy my second pregnancy. My eldest didn't walk until a few months after the baby arrived and that was hard, things got logistically easier once the eldest was walking. Saying all that, I do love having the small age gap, but with hindsight perhaps 18 months or so would have been a little easier.

Are you breast feeding? Do you hope to continue until till at least solid food is introduced? If so, you may want to bare in mind that more than lk production will usually have taken a big dip by about 20 weeks of pregnancy. Nothing on God's green earth would have convinced me to go again so soon after dd birth!

I agree with most pps. I think you need to wait for a few months when you’re in the swing of things with your baby and you might change your mind. I have a 7month old ds and he’s lovely but more demanding of attention now and I can’t imagine having to change teething pops whilst pregnant and morning sickness etc 🤮 awful! Also I think it’s important to enjoy the baby you have for a while before even thinking about another but that’s my personal opinion.

Congratulations for you lovely newborn too!

Teething poos even...

It will be tough.

We have 9mo twins and I reckon an age gap of 10-12 months would be harder. At least with twins they roughly do the same things at the same time, so same toys and activities, making two lots of puree etc. A scenario where one was just crawling teething etc and the other was a newborn feeding every 2 hours sounds nightmarish!