I read a ton of posts on here when I was fencesitting myself, so I figured I’d share the experience of going from solidly one and done, to debating a second, to having a second.

My oldest is 4.5 years old. He was colicky from the start, and even as a toddler was very clingy and fussy. I also had really bad PPA that was probably made worse by me constantly googling to try and figure out why my baby was so damn angry all the time. Up till 3 years old I was 100% one and done. I even got rid of all our baby stuff(whoops). But at 3 and a half, my husband asked if I would think about having a second. My first thought was no way. Thinking about the newborn days filled me with fear. But I wanted to be fair to my husband and give his idea a chance. So I just started imagining what it would be like to have a second, the good and the bad. And it made me realize that we were very different people than we had been when we first began our parenting journey. We had learned to communicate our needs better and work together to tackle the hard days. I had also learned to recognize the anxious thought patterns I’d had with my first, and was much better at handling my anxiety. So even if my second was just as difficult I thought we would handle it a lot better. Once I let go of all the fear I realized I did want another baby. I didn’t want to be totally done with the baby/toddler stage just yet.

So now I have a 4.5 year old and a 9 month old. And I won’t lie it has had its difficulties. My baby didn’t sleep more than two hours at a time once for the first 7 weeks. But I’m actually enjoying my time with him so much, rather than constantly being worried. The sweet baby cuddles hit differently when you have a four year old and you‘ve seen how fast they grow and change. It also helps that parenting is kind of second nature at this point. I’m not googling why he’s having blowouts or how to give him a bath because I remember from the first time. And I know this isn’t guaranteed for all the fence sitters out there but my second is such an easy baby, other than not sleeping for long stretches. He’s one of those who can actually be put down drowsy but awake and just go to sleep. And he’s almost never fussy.

I also was worried that I wouldn’t be able to give my oldest enough attention after having a baby. And while it has been a balancing act, I think that it‘s going really well. We have a routine of quick things I‘ll do with him to connect, like playing Legos, reading a book, or watching a movie together. I also think it’s helped him to mature in some ways. Before this kid was like a ping pong ball, constantly bumping into us, knocking things over etc. He‘s diagnosed adhd so that’s not a surprise. What has been surprising has been how much self control he’s developed around the baby. He moves at top speed 24/7, but hasn’t had an issue walking carefully around the baby or moving to a different area of the room to get his gymnastics moves out.

I spent many years working retail so I’d describe the difficulty levels like this- two parents one kids is like your average day working retail. Some difficulty, some slow moments of downtime. Two parents two kids, is like working a weekend. Busy, but doable if you work together. One parent two kids is like working black friday. Sometimes a little chaotic, sometimes a lot, and you have to plan really well if everyone’s going to get their lunch break. The chaos can be kind of fun though.

I wasn't sure about having a second originally, so I used to stalk this subreddit. I wanted to give an update, since I always wanted to see them.

TLDR: I was one and done, very concerned about having another. Now I do, and am very happy.

I'll try to keep this concise, but it will be long. Having my first child tested me. I had multiple near-breakdowns, and really struggled with the challenges. As far as babies/toddlers go, I know I didn't have the most challenging child, but I felt very challenged because of my stress tolerance, anxiety, and trouble handling big emotions. In particular, at the toddler age (2 especially), he seemed to be much more challenging than others his age because none of the parenting books and many parents online didn't seem to experience the long, intense, unstoppable tantrums I did.

For a while, my spouse and I were very one and done. It wasn't just the challenges our kid gave us. It seemed like there were a million reasons. Saving money. Ease of doing all the things we enjoyed: getting out of the house, eating out, traveling, etc. Not having to go through pregnancy and the looong recovery again. Not having to go through the newborn stage again. Not having to go back to monitoring their every movement now that we have some independence. And so on.

And yet, we did think about having another from time to time. But we would always come to the same conclusion: no way, never again. One day, I talked to my grandma, and got a different perspective. She's in her 90s, and talking to family on the phone was her whole life, now that she can't get around well anymore. I realized I was looking at the short-term perspective rather than long-term. In the long-term, I would like a bigger family. But the short-term is still daunting.

Ultimately, that realization motivated us to try again and get pregnant. But even making the choice didn't make us confident about it. We both felt waves of intense anxiety about it, and thinking, "what did we do?" My spouse was particularly concerned about losing the ability to be able to do the things he enjoyed: his sports teams and getting out with friends.

I won't lie, pregnancy sucked. I had a difficult pregnancy, and even if you don't, it's so much harder being pregnant with a toddler vs being pregnant with no kids and being able to relax whenever you want. But pregnancy is only temporary (despite seeming endless), and eventually we had our baby.

Our baby is 3 months now, and our older child is nearly 4. It took some adjusting (funny how you forget a lot of the baby stuff even just a few years later), but we're in a pretty good rhythm now.

One thing I was concerned about was the temperament of our new baby. It's such a gamble, and you have zero control over it. They could be an easy kid, they could be super colicy, or anywhere in between, and you won't know until they're here. I was hoping we'd have an easier child, because our first was challenging, and I'd heard that kids tend to be opposite (not always, but anecdotally, I'd heard several stories of easy first kid, challenging 2nd, or vice versa).

We lucked out! Obviously we won't completely know until our baby's older, but so far, her temperament's been great. She is more of a fusser than a crier, and I'll take fussing any day over crying (crying really triggers me). She is very smiley and sweet. She's not a super easy baby (for a while she had long witching hours every evening), but she's easier than our first, so I really appreciate that.

My husband and I both noticed how much easier things feel the second time around, and more confident we feel as parents. There was such a sharp learning curve the first time around, and so much researching needed, and figuring out the best ways to do things. This time, we already know that stuff, so the mindset was more "no big deal" than "omg, what do we do?" Also, the stereotypes are so true of wanting to do everything perfectly the first time, and the second time around having more of a "they'll be fine" mindset.

I did start an antidepressant during pregnancy thus time (never used one before) for my anxiety and have stayed on it postpartum, so that may be helping me be more relaxed in my parenting. But my husband, who's also pretty anxious, isn't on anything and he's more relaxed too. I remember with my first, I was so focused on wake windows, and having naps be perfect, etc, and now I wonder why I put myself through that. But at the time, I guess I felt like this was the only way that would help.

Some things that have made this experience easier than it could be: being more financially secure, having 2 sets of parents neatby willing to help, having parents watch our oldest for a week when the baby was born so we could adjust, starting formula feeding sooner so we could share feeding responsibilities & get out easier, and, most significantly, having longer parental leave times than the first time around (12 weeks vs 2 for my husband and 5 months vs 2.5 for me). It's been so much better having the longer time to adjust, and being able to do it together this time around.

Another major thing that has made this easier is the age gap between our kids. They are about 3.5 years apart, and it's perfect. Everything I heard about smaller age gaps sounded miserable. And if we went through this when our first was 2 and having those horrible meltdowns all the time...I shudder at the thought. My oldest is at an age where he's fairly independent, loves helping, and is old enough to not see his sister as competition or be jealous of her. He loves her! He's old enough to know to be gentle with her.

We can still give him tons of attention because she's a baby and can just be "along for the ride." Our oldest is mostly potty trained and sleeps through the night, so we're only balancing one baby at a time, not 2. And we're lucky enough to be able to afford him staying in daycare while we're on parentsl leave, so we can have one:one time with our baby. Don't get me wrong, we still are dealing with his threenager stage and he's testing us constantly, but I'd rather deal with that than his out of control violent meltdowns, plus when he's not testing us, he's super sweet and generally happier than when he was 2.

A few things that have made this harder: the main one is having pets, and also getting sick all the time with a kid in daycare. As for the pets, we have 3, and if I could go back in time (we got all of them pre-kids), I would have stopped myself from having so many. They are all now 10 years+, and all struggling with senior animal issues (mostly incontinence, among other ailments). Taking care of 3 senior pets, with all their issues and meds, in addition to 2 kids is just too much. I love them, but it's hard, and I worry about how hard it will be when the baby can crawl.

Nothing is perfect, but all in all, we're happy we had a second (but 100% sure no more kids). I hope this eases some people's concerns.

Not this video making me want to have another 🥹 https://youtube.com/shorts/26UjJOH1UuM?si=oiCQI1S8s8FqBwrg

I have an almost-2 and a 4 year old who are perfect, I never planned to have more than 2 kids, and I'm 40. Should I do it anyway?