Naia Edwards - The Second Baby Survival Guide: How to Stay Calm and Enjoy Life with a New Baby and a Toddler

To my husband, Mark, and my children Harry, Rory, William and Johnny.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the parents who gave up their time to tell me either in writing or in conversation of their experience of life with two children, and to share their stories, wisdom, advice and tips. This book is a collaboration and could not have been written without them.

Introduction

Like many mothers, I prepared madly both before and after my first child was born. Books were bought and read from cover to cover, advice was sought (and given, even if not asked for), classes were attended, manuals referred to and well-thumbed. But when I became pregnant with my second child I did none of these things. It wasnt exactly that I thought it would be easy having a second child, but I reasoned Id done it once so I knew what to expect and I thought my second child would just slot in. Surely wed been through the most difficult transition of going from having no children to one child, from being independently dependant-less to becoming parents? We knew what it was like to have no sleep, to have only one topic of conversation and to prefer going to bed than going to a party. The transition from one child to two, in comparison, would surely be a walk in the park?

A stumble through the jungle probably more accurately describes it deeply impenetrable periods with unexpected clear patches of light and calm in between, which when reached gave me a lasting sense of achievement. There were two main things I hadnt bargained on: that my second baby would be so different from my first; and how challenging it would be to look after a new baby while I was also looking after a toddler, not to mention how difficult it can be to look after a toddler while looking after a baby. It is learning how to care for two children, with different needs and requirements, at the same time that is so different and so hard. I hadnt been prepared for the exhaustion, the frustrations, the challenges or the emotions for the even greater love I could feel for my two children. I needed more advice and help, not less, when I had my second baby.

Having a second child is not the same as having your first. For a start, you arent the same person you were first time around. You are definitely older this time (though maybe only a little bit), and wiser probably quite a lot. Other circumstances may be different too you may be financially better or worse off, live in a different house, have changed job or stopped working. Your friendships and relationships with your family will have changed too you probably know more people with babies and young children than you did before (which makes things a lot easier), and you may have become more or less reliant on close family. Your relationship with your partner will have changed too as you became parents. Most importantly of all, you already have that incredibly strong bond with your first child. All these things are different. So it is hardly surprising that having a second child should not be a repeat of the first.

My experience of coping with life with two children, eventually four, will not be the same as yours, as everyones circumstances are different. How easily you cope with having a second child will depend on such things as the gender of your children, the age gap between them, their health and yours and, most importantly, their personalities. To get as broad a picture as possible, I have spoken to as many parents as I could to find out what it was like for them to have a second child, what tips they could share, what advice they could give and what they wish theyd known before they set out on the journey of becoming parents to two children. Every familys story is different; every mothers experience of life with two children unique. Funny, sad, touching, wonderful I have been truly amazed and inspired by listening to how mothers and families have coped in sometimes very difficult circumstances, which they have related with humour, strength and a calm that I could only ever aspire to. But, while each person has a different story to tell, there are common threads to pick up on too; common concerns in pregnancy about loving their second child as much as their first, common worries about jealousy in their firstborn, similar problems faced when feeding a newborn and trying to entertain a toddler at the same time, typical feelings of guilt about how much less time you have to spend with your second baby compared to your first. I have tried to look at these situations, problems and concerns and offer ways of dealing with them that will be helpful to you as you embark on the second baby journey yourself.

A few days ago, just as I was nearing the end of writing this book, my ten-year-old son, William, came in to see how I was doing. Why is your book called a survival guide? he asked me. Hed just been watching Ray Mears doing impossibly clever things with a few sticks in the middle of nowhere and he didnt quite see what this had to do with bringing up children. Hmmm, good question. Did it sound a bit negative? Well, I thought, there are some times with a new baby and a toddler when just surviving and getting through the day can seem like a huge achievement. So then I looked up survival on the internet where I learned from the experts that the key to survival is preparation. The more prepared you are the easier it is to survive. So thats the answer. The aim of this book is to help you prepare for your second baby with practical advice, tips and the collected wisdom and experience of many parents who have survived, so that you too can not only survive having your second baby, but enjoy life with your baby and toddler too.

Congratulations! Youre pregnant again

I can vividly remember discovering I was pregnant with my second child. We were driving back from staying with my mother-in-law in Norfolk with our twenty-month-old son, Harry, in the back of the car when I had an overwhelming and urgent desire to go to sleep. Admittedly the previous few days of trying to stop our son from accidentally breaking anything of precious value in his grandmothers non-child proof house, and the bracing sea air walks designed to tire Harry out so hed sleep at something approximating his usual bedtime in an unfamiliar bedroom, had taken their toll on me, but this was not a normal tiredness. It was more like the sort of tiredness I imagined you might feel after climbing Mount Everest only Norfolk is very flat so I definitely hadnt climbed any mountains; or after drinking too much wine late into the night but Id been off wine too, hadnt felt like it. Ah! Bells began to ring I was pregnant again. And then I fell instantly and deeply asleep.

For me, buying the pregnancy kit and doing the test was a formality so that when the blue line finally confirmed what I already knew, I had had a bit of time to analyse how I felt. It was a mixture of things. Excited yes, definitely. Wed wanted a second child a brother or sister for Harry. Elated and joyous that too. There is something so miraculous about conceiving a child and knowing that a new life is beginning to form inside you. Relieved it could happen again, was happening. We didnt have to wait for months of trying, only to be disappointed each month like some of my friends. This was it; we were going to have another baby. We were going to be a real family.

But these wonderfully powerful, positive emotions were mixed with other feelings too. The strongest of these was anxiety. What if? What if I couldnt cope with two, with the night-time feeds and lack of sleep all over again? After all, sometimes I felt as if I wasnt coping well with one. What if Harry hated having a brother or sister and they hated each other? What if I suffered from postnatal depression this time around, even though I hadnt with my first? What if we couldnt really afford it after all? What if it ruined my relationship with my husband? And, the worst fear of all what if I didnt bond with this baby, and couldnt love it as much as my first child?