10 Things Nobody Tells You About Baby #2
Towards the end of my second pregnancy, I did a lot of researching. Did I say researching? I meant re-searching. Searching and re-searching the same keywords on Google: ”second pregnancy earlier labor.” Unfortunately, no matter how hard I searched, Google would not promise me that my second baby would come on or before her due date. I can’t remember when somebody told me that second babies come earlier, but that’s one of those things like that one time your boss told you ”we’re thinking about making this a permanent job” or when your mom said ”maybe you can get a pony someday” that you want so badly to believe that you will ignore all evidence to the contrary.
That’s not the only thing that surprised me about second babies. Without further ado, a listicle: Ten Things Nobody Told Me (or maybe they did, and I just didn’t listen!) About Second Babies.
1. Delivery isn’t going to be earlier.
The thing is, delivery might be earlier. In the end, my second baby came just hours after her due date, whereas my first baby had to be induced at 41 weeks. But when you imagine second babies coming earlier, you imagine them coming, fully formed and with no NICU needed, right around the time the third trimester starts. Somehow, the thought of the second baby coming earlier morphs itself in your mind to thinking that you’re going to get to skip out on that end-of-third-trimester time-slows-to-a-crawl everything-is-awful get-out-of-me-baby-I-mean-it-right-this-second-I’M-NOT-KIDDING time. Because of this, believing that the second baby will come earlier actually makes that time worse. Even if your baby does come earlier, it’s still going to feel like it comes later.
2. Delivery is going to be way, way easier.
Here’s where we get to the good news. My first labor was terrible. Without going into too much detail, let me just say that I was shitting my pants on the regular for the next couple of years. I pushed for two-and-a-half hours with Baby #1, seven minutes with Baby #2. I assumed they would tell me that Baby #2 was a teensy five-pound thing, based on how easily she just slipped out of me, but no, she was almost nine pounds, just like her sister. I don’t want to think too much about what this means for my biology — that nine pounds of baby can just shoot right out –but whatever. I’ll take it.
3. You think two hands is enough, but it’s not.
”How many kids are you going to have?” people inappropriately ask, and the quick answer is, ”Two! One for each hand.” Well, that’s a crock of shit. Double-fisting kids doesn’t work like double-fisting drinks. You may not realize it when you only have one, but here’s a little secret: one kid takes up two hands.
Let’s imagine that the difficulty of taking care of one kid is represented by the variable X. Having passed high school algebra, you can feel fairly confident that two kids will then turn the difficulty into 2X. But you’ve got a baby genius on your hands (I mean, come on, who doesn’t?), one that prefers calculus. Your baby thinks in logarithms, and so the difficulty level is actually X squared. Have fun!
4. You might think about giving one kid, or both, up for adoption.
I’m one of those women who doesn’t feel”¦anything”¦when the baby comes out. As such, when Baby #1 came to visit us at the hospital, and her face crumbled with sadness when she realized that she was no longer my one and only, my instinct was to take it all back. I saw my sweet Baby #1 trying to hold in the tears, and felt like I had made a terrible mistake. I’ve had friends for whom it was the opposite they were so overwhelmed with love for Baby #2 that they temporarily lost interest in Baby #1.
Don’t worry, you won’t give either one up for adoption (probably) and you have room in your heart for both (certainly).
5. Grocery stores will never be the same.
You hear that? That was the sound of your jaw hitting the floor when you realized, suddenly and unexpectedly, that shopping carts only hold one kid.
There are workarounds. You might end up putting the infant car seat into the ”for groceries only” section of the grocery cart, which will make people snicker at you because ha ha you’re buying a baby, but more importantly, leaves you hardly any room for the actual groceries you actually need to buy your actual expanding family. You might wear the new baby in a sling, unless you have a jerk of a baby like mine who screams at the mere mention of baby-wearing. You might force Baby #1 to just learn to walk already. It’s not going to be elegant, whatever you decide, and yet you’re going to feel like a genius for mastering it.
6. You’re not an expert.
When I was pregnant with my first kid, I spent a lot of time on pregnancy forums, and people would ask for advice from ”BTDT moms” been there, done that. There were hardly any takers, because you know what? Been there done that moms don’t have time to screw around on pregnancy forums, what with all the pants wetting going on around them 24-7. Besides that, though, having BT and DT doesn’t actually mean shit for Baby number two.
There are times when it helps, like when you realize that it’s totally not worth worrying about what anybody else thinks about co-sleeping. But most of the time, having had one kid doesn’t mean you’re prepared for another. BTDT moms who are on their second child have BTDT once; with a child who was almost certainly different in thousands of ways from the first one. The secret is that nobody knows what they’re doing, we’re all just doing the best that we can and making the rest up as we go along.
7. When one or the other kid is asleep, it’s going to feel like a day at the beach.
Remember when you had one baby, and it was the hardest thing you’ve ever done, and you never had any time for anything other than making sure the baby survived? Remember the chaos?
Once Baby #2 comes, it’s only a matter of time before somebody takes one or the other off your hands for a bit, and let me tell you: your house has never been quieter or more relaxed-feeling than it does when you just have one kid. That ”one kid chaos” has turned into ”one kid respite.”
Explain that, laws of physics.
8. Milestones? What milestones?
The milestone chart which was burned into my retinas for Baby #1 hardly even registers in my once-again-now-with-feeling sleep-deprived mind. Every minute with Baby #1 was scrutinized does that count as a mini-pushup? Does she recognize my face and scent? whereas with baby number two, it’s like wait a second, did you just roll over? I thought I had three or four months left before I had to baby-proof!
It’s not that I don’t care about the milestones, even though some of them are seriously boring (I’m looking at you, ”movements become smoother”), it’s just that I no longer have any hands left with which to navigate the internet to get to the milestone charts, not to mention time to sit and marvel at every moment’s development in the new baby. Remember, we’re talking about difficulty squared.
9. Things that seemed so important like making sure to constantly wave black and white toys in front of the baby’s face are going to ”¦not get done.
I spent a lot of time making sure Baby #1 was stimulated in the right way. Dozens of toys with bright colors and images drawn with sharp lines, waved in front of her face because her arms didn’t work yet. First off, I’m already past the stage where the black and white images are useful for Baby #2 and I just now realized I forgot to think about that. Secondly, though, the actual world is full of images that the baby can look at that are just as stimulating. The corner where the wall meets the ceiling works just as well.
10. They grow up so fast.
Baby #1, your baby, your sweet tiny baby who is just a baby and is so sweet, is going to have to step it up. Cut the cord, Baby #1, Mama needs somebody to wave toys in front of Baby #2’s face.
It’s amazing literally, I am amazed at how much Baby #1 grows once there’s a new baby in town. Your life and heart and family is enriched by Baby #2, but Baby #1’s entire world has changed, and (for the most part) for the better. Congratulations! You’re having a baby! And at the same time, you’re losing a baby and gaining a kid.
We’re seven months into life with two kids, and I’m finally feeling like I have a handle on things, although ”having a handle on things” is probably a pipe dream. Baby #2 has wormed her way into my heart, and snuggled up against Baby #1 figuratively as well as literally. Family of four: we’re doing it! Time to level up!
Except not. Because I only have two hands.
(photo: Shutterstock)
