Still traumatised by the no-sleep thing, but DP wants to try for the second. HELLPPP!!!!

[Mhairi76]

I've only just got over the 14 month old DS not sleeping (he now sleeps through MOST nights, but by no means all...) and still feel shaky and exhausted by the whole thing (parenting, that is...). I feel as if I'm only just getting to grips with being a mum, and that my relationship with DP is improving (it was shaky for a while - due to exhaustion, no doubt...!), but DP (who is older than me - in his early 40s) is keen to try for our second child some time soon...as it was always 'our plan' to have two children close together. However, I'm not keen....and don't feel ready - not at the moment. However, I think I may be hiding the fact that I'm not keen to have a second at all!! Also, I'm so tired and frazzled all the time, that when DP looks at me with the teensiest glint in his eye, I want to run screaming into the hills anyway! (I ask, is it possible to let him get on with it, and conceive, whilst actually sleeping..? If so, I'll maybe consider it...) Anyway, how/when did any of you find the courage to have a second, after all the trauma/hard work/sheer desperation of having a non-sleeping first child..?

I have a DD1 25 mths and DD2 11 weeks. DD2 was an "accident" - my suggestion would be to let nature make the decision for you so that you have little choice in the matter and just have to get on with it!!

DD2 is a much better sleeper than DD1 ever was when tiny, so I'm not feeling nearly as frazzled as I did first time around.

Thanks, Baltimore....not least for the snippet of info. that DD2 is a better sleeper! I think the main thing is that I'm terrified that it may happen again, and that this time, I just wouldn't be able to cope with two of them. Until he was 13 months old, DS slept in a pattern of one hour sleep, followed by three hours awake (and usually crying), over the course of every 24 hours. I was going slowly insane, and don't feel I've got over that yet - and I am also scared - judging by some of the threads on here - that it's perfectly possible that he will 'relapse' into being a terrible sleeper again. I will comfort myself with future dreams of a placid, dreamy, highly snoozy moppet who has to be woken up in the morning (my friend's 13 mo. baby girl sleeps soundly from 8pm onwards (and always has done) and she has to gently shake her awake to dress her for the childminder...!)