Home » Guidance » “What do I do now?” A text that can help you better understand (without losing your good mood) how to deal with the arrival of the second child

“What do I do now?” A text that can help you better understand (without losing your good mood) how to deal with the arrival of the second child

My name is Asya Yavits and I have a Telegram channel called “Day by Day of a Doubtful Mother”. After the arrival of our first child, we went through the classic perrengues: sleepless nights, 24-hour crying, colic, fights with the grandmothers for different reasons and so on. So we decided that we would try to do better the second time around.

So when our second child was born, I started thinking about the following things: Why did I take maternity leave the first time? It’s so much time with the child! And why didn’t I even have time to shower? Why didn’t I go out with my friends?

There were a lot of doubts, so now I’m going to try to organize what was going through my head. And you, next to incredible.clubyou can read the post and then draw your own conclusions.

Experience, uhm…

Having the second child is as if you had to transfer the material taught in the first classes to another notebook, brand new. It’s like going back to school at 30: it’s a piece of cake! Okay, maybe you won’t be able to accomplish all the necessary tasks at first. But you’ve already multiplied 3 by 4 countless times; knows how to sit at the desk, listen to the teacher and doesn’t care about other 7-year-olds’ jokes anymore. That’s already a lot.

And the duties? Hey, search! Now you know how to use Google correctly. Or don’t, and NOTHING BAD WILL HAPPEN! You know the child will be fine, even if they’ve been hiccuping for more than a minute. Yes, even if the crying is too loud. And dad knows, and so does grandma (well, almost). You already understand, very well, that it is important to put the child to sleep on time, to feed him, to dress him and, if possible, to make him smile. And this will be so automatic that there will still be free time.

Well, there would be, if it weren’t for the eldest son. He still has a lot of new experience to spend with him, even though he is already 40 years old. You also need to prepare for his first midlife crisis.

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I even have conviction

I remember the night I became a mother. All mothers have one—and I’m not talking about the night of childbirth. When my first baby was a month old, my husband had to travel for three long days on work. On the first night alone, my son cried from 3 am to 6 am. In those three hours, I sang, walked, rocked, decided to put a catheter on him to treat the colic, and then I went into despair that maybe I had caused my newborn some harm. I cried, hugged him, screamed, begged him to stop crying, sang again…

When my second child was two weeks old, and my husband once again had to travel, my “new” baby also wanted to scream angrily at 3am and would not settle down. Cramps, longing for his father, pure desire to scream, how will I know?! My eldest son slept next door. In the other room, my parents slept, who had to work the next day. But remember the subtitle? I have conviction. I didn’t want to go through that despair again, so I put in the colic catheter without fear, but it didn’t help. So I covered my son in a blanket, put on my slippers, a little jacket and went out for a walk in the street. Well, at 3:00 in the morning. My baby was asleep in a minute, and I walked around the block for about five minutes before returning home satisfied and sleeping next to him until morning.

After spending the first month of my first child’s life on the verge of insanity, then two more months of total insanity, then two more years of not socializing with friends, I finally realized I was forgetting something. From myself.

I decided that I would never again spend more than 15 minutes putting my son to sleep and that I would wash his hair whenever I wanted. This is me now, renewed! And if the crying starts while I’m still removing the conditioner, then my baby will wait an extra minute until I’m done. The world will not collapse. I will no longer keep away from my friends (spare the child? Not taking her to a birthday because it might be uncomfortable? No, I don’t know what that is anymore). I go to restaurants, talk to my friends, take the subway, take a taxi, attend conferences and work presentations. The solution is obvious: I put my son in sling or in the cart and it doesn’t bother anyone. I can guarantee it, by the power of the pacifier!

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If I had known about all these issues before the arrival of my first child, I might have already had ten. So I’m even glad I didn’t know anything before!

The hardest transition

The most difficult transition is from “without children” to “with children”. All the other cases—the second, third, eighth child—are much easier. Well, that’s what my husband thinks. Apparently, he’s going to give birth to our third child. And the eighth too.

In fact, I have to agree that there are certain peculiarities with the arrival of each new member in the family (with three children, for example, the car will no longer be big enough; with five, it will be cramped in the elevator; with eight, I will be begging for help from my mother). But there is indeed a more difficult transition: from a world where you are only responsible for yourself to a magical world of diapers and musical toys.

Therefore, the arrival of the second child (the third or the tenth) will not demand a complete change of habits as with the first. That, perhaps, was my biggest fear, even more than the thought of going back to fractional sleep.

And something important: the other family members also need time to get used to their new status in the family—the father, the grandmother, the grandfather. As my grandmother used to tell me (now she is a great-grandmother): “And then you wake up one day and discover that your daughter is already a grandmother. I will need time to get used to this idea.”

Like oxytocin

The first time I had an emergency C-section under general anesthesia, and for some reason the oxytocin didn’t get to my brain. In the first two months, I felt very bad physically (and psychologically), so much so that I couldn’t understand how people were “drooling” over babies. What’s so special about them? They’re just little screaming monsters that came to this world to make your life more troubled. Well, at least part of it. From then on, your day is segmented into periods of 2 or 3 hours, in which you repeat the same activities: feed, dress, put to sleep, feed, dress, put to sleep, lament your tiredness…

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Already the second time, the cesarean section was planned. This time, I actually saw them give me the oxytocin thing. And it seems to be in my system to this day: my youngest son is four months old, and his smile is sooooooo beautiful! And the smell, so yummy! In a little while, you’ll start crawling, walking, going through life’s crises, getting married… and that’s it! So what if he’s hungry now and then? It ain’t no work for me!

If making this little one happy is that easy, why not? Especially if, this time, he doesn’t demand my whole life, my wallet, my youth, my happiness, my health in return. In fact, he wouldn’t even have anything to ask for because my first son got all of that before.

Do you have kids? How many? What is the most valuable parenting advice you would give to all parents based on your experience? Tell us!

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