2nd Child Pregnancies - Page 2 « Back to Group Discussions

[Knitting Mama]

Would a sidecarred crib be an option for you? We're really playing up how awesome "Cece's bed" is to her lately. She at least starts the night in the sidecar, even if she ends up in the bed sometime during the night.

[angireid]

I am goign to start thinking about the sidecar thing, maybe that could work...

[Knitting Mama]

My plan is to eventually go with my daughter to pick out some sheets for the crib, and maybe a new pillowcase or something, so she can get even more excited about "Cece's bed."

[ithappened]

Im having a lot of similar fears as others here.. I was really shocked when I found out I was pregnant with #2-- but then when I found out it was twins..  Im still recovering

[Ninetales]

I just don't know what I want to do about bedtime.  Elsa falls asleep fine without nursing, she doesn't seem to need it at all until somewhere between 2 and 5 am.  But I wonder if maybe there's no milk because she's still asleep but gets very vigorous and it wakes me up.  Which leads to me realizing how bad I have to pee and not being able to fall back asleep.

And then there's trying to add the baby.  Right now J is on the outside, Elsa is in the middle, and I'm against the wall.  I usually end up right squished against it, and that's just not going to work when the baby comes.  I guess I can only hope that we'll make it work when the time comes.

I don't really want to nightwean her because I feel like that would be basically weaning her since she nurses so little during the day.  For some reason I'm just not ready.

[pandd06]

Ours will be 19m apart. What I am clueless on is how to do AP with two kids. For us, AP is very much about reading the child's cues and DS has thrived with us doing that rather thangoing  by the clock. DS is 13m and we still do that for meals, nursing, EC, naps, and bedtime because his nature just seems right on. I have no clue how/if I can respond to two kids like that at once. Then again, #2's nature may be very different and maybe he/she will thrive on structure. Anyone else pondering these things?

[ithappened]

Perhaps this is off topic but what are you all planning to do with your DS/DD if you are having a hospital birth and no family/friends nearby? Esp if you go into labor in the middle of the night?

My DS will be 2yr8mo at the birth of the twins.. . I am just wondering if we have the twins at a hospital- should I bring him? Is he too young to understand what is going on? 

If we don't bring him, I basically have to go to the hospital alone because DH will need to stay home with DS.. if we do bring him I realize it could be really stressful as he is very active/into everything and could just cause a lot of distraction for everyone in the room.. 

[MsZelda]

we are in the same boat and I haven't figured it out yet because we don't actually know where we'll be living at the time of the birth. Do you have a babysitter you trust? Sometimes just paying for help is the easiest solution. 

[ithappened]

We do have a babysitter but she will be gone for July and August which is when I will give birth (I'm due August 6 or something so even if I'm late, they will come before she comes back from vacation).

We had 2 other great babysitters but they just moved away.. far away :( so its back to square one.

[rebecca10]

It's times like these when I'm particulary thankful to live in the same city as my parents, so we'll be able to just drop my daughter off on the way to the hospital. My parents are only about 5 minutes from the hospital, and about 15 from us.

The whole sleeping arrangements issue is still causing me a fair amount of stress. 4 in our bed I just don't think is going to work for us, and knowing how light/poor a sleeper my daughter is even having her in the same room with us and the baby seems like it could be a disaster. Yet, I'm reluctant to try to move her to her own room, and I do love co-sleeping. Right now she starts out the night in her crib, so I'm thinking we may try letting my husband sleep in there for a while and see if she will be okay sleeping in her crib all night with him there. Or maybe it's time for a big girl bed? Ugg, I just don't know. And at this point, we are all too tired to even think about doing much experimenting.

[texasfarmom]

ithappened-My best suggestion in your situation would be to hire a doula to be with you for labor support and free up your DH to take over child care. I think there may also me some doulas referred to as "sibling doulas" that sort of act like a babysitter. I don't know the temperament of members of your family, but for us having DD in the room at the hospital just wouldn't work. I'm a little worried about her being present at our homebirth...but that's another subject.

I'm glad to hear that so many of you are worried about the family sleeping situation just like I am. We've tried a few different arrangements in the past few months to get DD to sleep without me and without nursing more. Nothing is working. How do you who have your DC start or be in a crib sidecarred or not do that? Do you nurse them to sleep or not at all? DD still HAS to nurse to sleep. She won't let her Daddy put her down despite how many ways he tries. *sigh*

Unlike a good friend of mine, I don't worry about having two very much during the day. I figure it just somehow works out and all will be well. I plan to babywear a lot. I wore DD a lot and this time it may be an absolute necessity. I refused to leave DD in her car seat sleeping or use a swing to apease her. I didn't want those things to replace one-on-one time with me. I'm undecided whether or not I might "allow" a swing this time.

[Ninetales]

Elsa hasn't really nursed to sleep in a long time.  If she's super tired she may start out nursing but pops off after she falls asleep.  Most nights she just uses a binky and it's usually out after an hour or two.  The last two nights she actually didn't nurse at all during the night.  I kept my chest covered by my blankets and slept lower than her, with my head closer to her stomach.  It was like once she didn't have it right there it wasn't a big deal.  So hopefully we can gradually work into being able to turn my back to nurse the bub.

[Knitting Mama]

Originally Posted by texasfarmom 

 How do you who have your DC start or be in a crib sidecarred or not do that? Do you nurse them to sleep or not at all? DD still HAS to nurse to sleep. She won't let her Daddy put her down despite how many ways he tries. *sigh*

Cecilia nurses with me on the couch in the living room (our "spot" since she was born). If I am lucky, she falls asleep and I transfer her to the sidecar. If I'm not lucky, she doesn't, and we go lay in the bed and do "enforced snuggles" (I lay with her with my leg over her so she doesn't stand up) and I sing to her and pet her until she falls asleep. Then I wait for a bit for her to be fully out and move her into the sidecar.

[rebecca10]

We are lucky that my daughter has always been able to fall asleep with my husband walking her. So most days I nurse her to sleep at bedtime and then transfer to the crib, but sometimes and more frequently lately, I'll nurse her for awhile and then my husband will walk her to sleep and do the transfer. And when I'm not home she does fine with just walking. We've-- well mostly my husband-- have experimented some with putting her in the crib not fully asleep, but that has only actually led to her falling asleep in there a few times. I'm hoping to move more and more to nursing her some but then having my husband put her to sleep, and she actually doesn't seen to mind at all-- in fact she's sometimes been demanding daddy after a while of nursing in the last month which I assume is because she gets frustrated as my milk is declining and she usually agrees when I say "daddy time?"

[Knitting Mama]

Yeah, in hindsight I do wish that Cecilia had learned from earlier on to go to sleep in more ways than just nursing. Given that I have to birth in the hospital, I am definitely worried about what will happen when it's time for me to go in. I guess I'm trying to look at it optimistically, like I have 6 months to get her to a place where she can go to sleep for someone else.

[ithappened]

Originally Posted by rebecca10 

The whole sleeping arrangements issue is still causing me a fair amount of stress. 4 in our bed I just don't think is going to work for us,

Yes, us too. We have a double bed and with DS its already borderline not working at all- he is SUCH an active sleeper, then you add 2 more and its just going to be a nightmare..I have no idea what to do either to solve this- we are working on transitioning DS into a nearby bed and it works, he tends to come back in sometime in the middle of the night and sleep a bit more with us
 

Originally Posted by texasfarmom 

ithappened-My best suggestion in your situation would be to hire a doula to be with you for labor support

I know this sounds insane but we dont have doulas here, I looked everywhere during my last birth and had no luck. DS is super active and I know having him in the room won't work so now its really just a question of what to do with him.. I guess I need to talk to DH a bit about our options once I know I have a green light for a normal birth.. if I end up needing a planned c-s  for some reason I will call my mom and ask her to get on a plane for 26 hours just to get here and help with DS and the dog.. .. Oh man.. we are insane.
 

Originally Posted by Cecilia's Mama  I guess I'm trying to look at it optimistically, like I have 6 months to get her to a place where she can go to sleep for someone else.

6 months is doable! With DS we were able to wean/stop nursing around 2 yrs of age pretty easily when I had to go for a few days for a conference then 2 weeks later to a wedding on the other side of the world and was not around for 2-4 nights.. I think it took about 4-5 weeks for him to adjust in total but we found offering him a bottle of warm tea often did the trick or even just water.. I am not sure if you want to totally wean her or just work on night nursing but I found having DH take over bedtime duties made the night BFing to sleep ritual100% easier to, for lack of a better word, change/stop.

[Knitting Mama]

We don't night nurse, the only nursing she does is when she is falling asleep before bed.

Actually, it may be easier than I was afraid of, and the reason why is because she's basically done napping (5 days in a row without now). The downside is no break during the day, which sucks when you're tired and pregnant. But the upside is that she goes to sleep more easily and stays out for 12 hours (which was unheard of here beforehand). So now I'm thinking that I will start nursing her earlier than bedtime and then take her into the bedroom and get her to sleep without it, hopefully in a shorter timeframe than we've dealt with to this point.

[ithappened]

But the upside is that she goes to sleep more easily and stays out for 12 hours (which was unheard of here beforehand)

yeap the 12 hour sleeping at night is a major major upside of losing the nap. I swear I got 5 years of my life back when that happened.

[Ninetales]

Yeah, I really miss naps sometimes.  Elsa cut her last one maybe six weeks ago.  Very occasionally, like when she wakes up early, she'll still take one, but I can't let her go down past 2pm or she's up allllll night.  I like having the full night's sleep but I don't get nearly as much done anymore now that she's up all day, since I have no motivation to do anything once the sun goes down.

I know it's me being weak, but I just don't want to move her onto her own mattress before the baby comes.  At least not right now.  I know it would be better to get her used to a different spot now rather than doing it once the baby's here, but I'd just miss her too much.  And our bed is big, I think we can squeeze in one more.

[Knitting Mama]

I think we can too, with the sidecarred crib. I've decided to stop stressing about that and focus on establishing an easy bedtime routine for Cecilia instead.