I have 2. I felt much as you do when ds was 18 months. Now that we have dd, I can't imagine life without her. We waited a while to have a second child, ds was 4.5 when dd was born. We had planned on having children closer together but life got in the way, I had some fertility issues. Now I am realy glad that they were spaced that far apart. Ds got to be a baby as long as he needed to be. I know tandem nursing is possible, and many parents do a wonderful job with children spaced close together but a newborn does take time away from an loder child. Ds was very high needs and I'm not sure how well we would have done with a newborn when he was 2. By 4 though he has self weaned and was much more independant. He was also better able to understand that the baby is little and realy needs mommy just like he did when he was little. Now they are 2 and 6 and they play together much better than I thought they would considering the age diferance. They like to chase each other, or ds will build towers of blocks for dd to knock down.
I think I would have been very happy with just ds. I don't see anything wrong with having an only child. However I'm so glad we have dd. She is herself, neither more nore less than her brother.
There are somethings that came way eaisier with a second child simply because I had some idea what to expect. Nursing for example. I already had the skill of getting latched on well so I was better able to help her learn. I was calmer though the inevatable fussy times. With ds, I felt that if I couldn't get him to stop crying I was a failiure. By the time dd came though i understood that sometimes they are going to cry no matter what you do. I was able to just hold her though the crying spell and know that, even if she was still crying, my being there was helping her. I didn't take the crying as personally.
It's also really interesting to watch her grow because in so many ways she is very diferant than her brother. The variety of human personalities is amazing to me. Same parents, same gean pool, same parenting style, two very diferant kids!
I think I would have been very happy with just ds. I don't see anything wrong with having an only child. However I'm so glad we have dd. She is herself, neither more nore less than her brother.
There are somethings that came way eaisier with a second child simply because I had some idea what to expect. Nursing for example. I already had the skill of getting latched on well so I was better able to help her learn. I was calmer though the inevatable fussy times. With ds, I felt that if I couldn't get him to stop crying I was a failiure. By the time dd came though i understood that sometimes they are going to cry no matter what you do. I was able to just hold her though the crying spell and know that, even if she was still crying, my being there was helping her. I didn't take the crying as personally.
It's also really interesting to watch her grow because in so many ways she is very diferant than her brother. The variety of human personalities is amazing to me. Same parents, same gean pool, same parenting style, two very diferant kids!