2 under 2

[rosiemat]

Talk to me am I crazy?

Baby girl is 7 months old now and we are thinking of starting trying for baby #2 next month when she will be 8 months.

Not expecting to fall pregnant straight away as took 7/8 months to fall pregnant initially but if I was too fall straight away that will give us a 15/16 month age gap.... am I mad??? 🤣

Not sure if it's a consideration for you but I felt quite sure that I wanted two school years between mine. Not entirely sure why tbh. I had been planning the second even sooner but held off so that he wouldn't end up the youngest in his year. Glad I did cos I got pregnant on the first month so he'll be one of the oldest in his school year. His sister is right in the middle. Very happy with that too. Depends which bit of the country you are in I suppose.

How can you all afford double nursery fees? Or stay at home mums?

When I had mine I returned to work 2 days per week and practically all my wages went on fees. If I’d returned full time I wouldn’t have been much better off so I preferred the time with the children. Once they were both in primary school I increased to three days and when they were both at secondary I upped to 30 hours, M-F 9-3.

@WestBridgewater I am in London and have some help from grandparents, three days of nursery a week is almost a £1,000. So two kids would be nearly 2k a month. Just completely unaffordable

I don't live in London. I can imagine that's expensive. My partner is going to get a night shift job and I'll be back to work next month so will start saving

That’s horrendous. And obviously you have all the other outgoings too. We’d saved as much as possible whilst I was working until my maternity leave started but young families have it so much harder now as everything is so much more expensive.

Yeh, I earn good money and so does my husband but have had to consider this in our discussions around timing. To be honest (I started a separate thread) I had a bad first
pregnancy so have kind of been putting off TTC a second but before having kids I always thought I’d have two together very closely!

I had 20 months and for us that was fine , I was. Sahm for a couple years though so planned a small gap , then worked evenings until youngest started school
My eldest could speak quite well and understood about baby and no jealousy as i think he was too young, ds2 was a dream baby though so that helped a lot and both slept through at a few weeks so we were lucky
17/19 now and although they like to wind each other up at times are also quite close as well when they want to be

I went back to work 3 days and we have grandparent help so only need nursery 1 day a week thankfully. We're not high earners by any stretch, but manage to get by. We live in a cheaper bit of the country too so don't have a sky high mortgage to pay. DD now gets her free nursery hours so we're only paying one nursery session a week for DS.

I went back to work 2.5 days down from full time so I have them 2 days a week. They go to nursery 1.5 days a week and my mum has them 1 day a week.

@UnaVaca we have a year of double fees of £2.5k a month at the mo (minus tax free allowance)

We are using savings to cover part of the cost, but in the long run it will be better for us both to be in our jobs. Counting down til the funded hours start to kick in!

@Lockdownmummy my god that is eye watering. We genuinely can’t afford that on top of mortgage and bills. By the time I have a second my little girl will be at least 3.5 years old and financially easier.

Medically it's not advised to begin another pregnancy until closer to a year after your last one. It takes your body this long to properly recover and you risk a higher chance of complications with a second pregnancy this close together

I earn good money as does my husband. And it's a hit in the short term, won't be forever.