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The Transition from Zero to One Child Versus One Child to Two
The biggest differences I’ve noticed three weeks postpartum with my second child
In the weeks leading up to the birth of my second child, I had countless thoughts racing throughout my mind that would keep me up at night. However, these thoughts were drastically different from the ones I had leading up to the birth of my first child.
Instead of pondering hypothetical answers to questions like, “How will I know if I’m having contractions”, I had entirely new questions that sounded more like, “Who’s going to watch our older child if I go into labor in the middle of the night?” and “What if our older child doesn’t like her?”
All of the unknowns of going through an experience as a first timer were no longer a surprise or a mystery to me. Now, I knew exactly what contractions felt like and how little sleep I’d be getting in the early newborn days. I knew all too well the long and painful road to physical, mental, and emotional recovery that awaited me postpartum. I knew the discomfort I’d endure as I slugged my way through those the initial weeks after giving birth. These were no longer the things that worried me.
What worried me now was navigating how to parent two children instead of one — how to comfort two crying…
