10 Things to know before having a Second Child
Thinking to have a second child? 10 things you should know.
Going through a second pregnancy and having another baby is a completely new experience. Mothers often miss the hype of being a mother for the first time.
Having a second child brings out a lot of factors to be considered by the parents. It often becomes a turning point in the behaviour of older siblings, and like clockwork, they increase defiance, tantrums and frustration right at this time. Hence such a decision should be made carefully when each parent is ready and willing and after taking into account the following-
- Take into account the Current Family Dynamic
It is most likely that your first child turned your life upside down. The hang of parenthood It took a few years and gradually the family turns into a united unit of three. Most families become close in a way all of the best families are after ultimately figuring out each other’s quirks. To consider bringing a new born, i.e. an outsider into this close knit family is a very big decision.
2. Leaving the house will get tougher
As a mother, tasks never get over and these require you to step put pf your home. This will get tougher with a second child.
It’ll take you the entire morning to try and convince your first child and play all types of games to make him/her put on their shoes and you’ll also simultaneously spend a lot of your time packing the nappy bag for your second child. And there’s a good possibility of forgetting something 99% of the time.
And as you finally close the door of your house, obviously your newly ‘independent’ toddler will want to get into the car on his own.
Oh, no. You forgot to take your second baby out of the house. When you run back home to find your poor baby, you realise you’ve missed your appointment and now your babies are fussy and exhausted.
3. Think About the Timing and Mom’s Health
Even when everything goes as per plan, childbirth and pregnancy are naturally stressful for the mom. If you’re older than 35 and you had previous complications during pregnancy or childbirth, you may have further doubts about having another child. Many women in those cases go on to have healthy kids. It’s still a consideration and there are many mothers who don’t wish to have more children because of medical reasons or complications with earlier pregnancies. Sometimes its emotionally tolling, just trying to get pregnant
4. Remember Your Financial Situation
Finally, financial situation is one of the biggest considerations. You already know how expensive having kids are, as a parent. There are some expenses that are lessened with a second or additional child since you already have baby gear and the like, but others—especially day-care—are huge expenses that you’ll have to plan for at your deciding stage. At a time when you’re also trying to save for your retirement and possibly care for your own aging parents, it is another child to save for college for.
5. You won’t need a pregnancy test to know you’re pregnant
No, really. You don’t.
There are high chances that you are going to start looking pregnant the morning after conception.
Bet on yourself 10 bucks on a pregnancy test and listen to your body trying to tell you that it’s not the dozen of doughnuts you ate last night but that there is another human growing inside of you. Experience will play a huge role while understanding your body’s initial changes.
6. Your family and Friends will not remember you’re pregnant
“You’re pregnant? No way. I thought you were still shedding weight from your last pregnancy.” Is the most likely reaction you’ll receive from friends after breaking your exciting news. Don’t even think of making an announcement post on Facebook. Unless you’re emotionally prepared for the half amount of engagement and likes.
7. Visitors?
After you have your second baby, family and Friends will make up excuses of all sorts. After all, they’ve been there already and there are more pressing matters to attend to, like, watching the latest on television and movies.
Most women who are a first time mother at the time, breathe a sigh of relief after visiting hours finished. This is because their entire day is scheduled with visits from family and friends from the moment they pop open their eyes.
8. You might take this one a little easy
You’ll know your first baby’s exact head circumference, current weight and how many nanometres he’s grown in the past week, at any given moment.
With their first baby, that is how insanely obsessed mothers are with charting the growth.
You were probably adding more appointments on top of appointments and not a single appointment with your maternal child and health doctor was missed.
You can hardly even remember what you named him, let alone how much he’s grown, with your second child. Mothers think Look, he’s alive, alright? The child appears to be eating, pooping and blinking his eyelids, that is adequate growing.
You have missed and the vaccines he was due to have and you will have lost count of all the appointments. Despite being completely pro-vax, your doctor will probably start to think that you’ve joined the anti-vax movement on Facebook.
9. Baby? Wait. What baby?
The truth of the matter is that you’ll be so preoccupied with your toddler most waking times of the day, you’ll 100% forget the fact that you gave birth to a second child while trying to remember what you were doing in the first place. Is this life even real? Was it all a lucid dream? Were you even pregnant? Who knows. All mothers know is that having kids is comparable to coming down from a hectic trip or suffering a hangover that lasts for a decade, except – you can’t fix it because you don’t get sleep anyway. You’re always dehydrated, you have a pounding headache the second you wake up and your ears are always ringing from the shouting.
10. Exposing intimate body parts will be second nature
Breastfeeding your first baby would be an activity carried out with utter precaution.
Mothers spend precious time carefully ensuring that no amount of breast was visible from any given angle while attempting to be as discreet as possible,. Preparing yourself to nurse a baby without exposing yourself is like diffusing a bomb. Once your milk let-down is triggered and your other breast is erupting like an active volcano, all hell breaks loose. You frantically use your free hand to catch breastmilk and prevent it from spreading everywhere. When it is your second baby, you’ve grown so used to people seeing your breasts that you begin to wonder why you even wear clothes anymore. You probably haven’t worn a bra and shirt since you left the hospital, and there’s no requirement. You’re ready to latch a baby on anytime and anywhere because you are now the mother of all mothers.