Hiya,
So I’ll try and drop everything here to it doesn’t come out in bits here and there, but forgive me if I do miss something.
My DD is 20 months old. I found out I was expecting DS just before she was 18 months. I’m about 15 weeks. I know it’s a boy as we had NIPT testing (all low risk thank god).
This baby was unplanned and took me and hubby completely by shock. I’ve always said I wanted a 3 year age gap, so DD would be ‘slightly’ more independent and of course 30 hrs free childcare, but because we’ve always wanted a second child we decided it was fate and that we wanted to continue with everything, god willing. But, I keep having moments of ‘oh my gosh’ can I do this? Is this a mistake? How will I/ we cope (financially, emotionally with everything). My hubby doesn’t quite get it, and I’m not close with my parents ( dad extremely unwell, mother was abusive) and ive not announced to friends and I know one of my friends is struggling to conceive her second so I don’t want to insensitive to her, so I thought I’d ask you lovely lot for a little bit of advice or soundboarding etc.
Parents and carers of children with a 2 year gap, what’s it like? How did you cope? I found the newborn stage with dd terrible (we had feeding issues and I developed severe pnd due to only getting 2 hrs sleep a day for months)
For context, My DD sleeps through the night, is a daddy’s girl, pretty independent and can play independently. Her understanding of speech is very good and her speech is ok, pretty average id say, so I’m hoping by the time baby gets here (she’ll be 26/7 months old) she’ll have a greater understanding of the world and being kind and gentle to baby etc.
Did you feel guilty? I’m feeling so guilty and feeling like a right dead beat towards my DD. I don’t want her to feel replaced. I was still bf’ing my DD when I fell pregnant and at about 12 weeks milk dried up so we stopped and I feel like I’m depriving her. This pregnancy hit my hard, waay harder than my first, I never had sickness with DD but this time the nausea was constant and the only way it went was if I was lying down. GP wouldn’t give anti sickness meds. I couldn’t be around food, so all meal times fell to DH and the few I was I ended up being sick In a bag at the table. So I just feel like I’ve neglected her in this time. My DH has fuelled this worry too at times, saying when we’ve been bickering that I’m phasing her out, that I’m making sickness up and not doing anything. So I just feel guilty, is this normal?
Financially, this is quite a big worry for me. I earn the average salary in the UK, hubby quite a bit above it. We both wfh and will for the long term now. I’m lucky that I work for a company with a great mat leave policy and will get 6 months full pay plus a bonus, I also get KIT days. But I am worrying about money. We have a mortgage and HTB which we are saving to pay off. DH needs a new car as our car will be too small for 2 kids and car seats, so some of our savings will go on that.
Nursery is quite pricey (as we all know) currently DD goes for 3 days a week. Not sure how we’ll manage that for my last 3 months unpaid, she loves nursery, so I don’t want to take her out of it. Also worried about childcare when I go back to work, DD is an early year baby so will be entitled to her 3 hrs from jan but it’s the interim period. We don’t have any reliable family around to help either. I’ve always been a worrier about money, am I being silly here? Please tell me if I am.
This is another biggie, what on Earth do I do for labour? We have no reliable family around. I don’t want to give birth alone, I had quite a poor experience first time around so would definitely need someone around to advocate for me. I’m at a loss for what to do.
I’ve posted about this before, and we reassured by MN, but this baby is a boy and I’d really wanted a girl. (Backstory, is my brother was very very violent from as early as I can remember long into adulthood, I took the brunt of it (encouraged by my mother) but when I left he became violent to my mother too. He also stole and generally was a bully. As adults we are not close as I can never forget his behaviour. History repeating scares me a little, although I do feel better about that now.
There are other things to that come up in my mind, which now I’m typing I can’t recall lol. But I’d love to know, is this normal? Did others feel the same way? And if anyone has any suggestions that maybe I’m not thinking of. 