The Second Pregnancy

The second pregnancy is a big step in your life as a parent as well as in the life of your first born. On one hand you are embarking on a familiar journey and have a sense of what you can expect, while on the other hand you have a new set of responsibilities to juggle as you make the transition and become a larger family.

Am I Missing Out on the Pregnancy?

It takes a lot of resources – both financial and time – to raise a child. With all those demands constantly pressing on your time you may feel like you’re “missing out” on the new pregnancy. Many second-time parents fear that they will not bond as strongly with the new baby because so much of their time is taken up.

Will I Love One Child More Than The Other?

Many parents fear they will not love the new baby as much as their older child, or that the older child will feel replaced or unwanted. The older child is starting to become more independent and needs less hands-on time, but will they feel completely shut out when there is a new infant taking all of tired mom’s energies?

Safe Transitions

The best way to proceed will of course depend on the temperament and age of your oldest child. You can explain to a five year old what is going on and involve them in planning and decorating for the new baby, but a two-year-old won’t have the same level of comprehension – they can tell “something” is changing, but need to be carefully handled so they don’t wake up one morning and lose their room, lose horseback-mommy, and have to learn all new routines.

Much like the first pregnancy, they key to a comfortable transition is beginning early. No one gets a right to complain – mother nature gives us nine months to get our things in order and prepare for the change in our lives. Second-time (and third-time and fourth-time) parents have an ace up their sleeve in that they already know what to expect when bringing home an infant.

Stop. Breathe in. Breathe out. Now go and enjoy this amazing time!

Fathers Can Handle the Stress of Providing

When you become a father, your life is profoundly changed. It isn’t an earth-shattering force that hits you like a train; it is a slowly evolving experience that takes years to fully comprehend. Until you are a father yourself, it is hard to fully appreciate the powerful pride you feel when your child recognizes you for the first time, perks up and laughs when you walk into the room, or mimics your motions to teach himself how to crawl.

The dad experience has a heavy cost associated with it, as well. Although many families are headed by two working parents, very often the woman finds herself in the mommy trap – bumped from the corporate ladder due to family commitments or a reduction in working hours. Some mothers feel strongly about staying home to raise their child and don’t return to work. For those families, the father finds himself becoming the primary or even sole provider.

Especially in rough economic times, the pressure to bring home enough money to feed, clothe and shelter an entire family can seem like a heavy burden to bear. As a father, how do you handle the stress and keep an optimistic front?

You’re In This Together
The first thing to remember is that you are not alone, even if you feel isolated by your responsibility. Mothers experience similar issues: imagine being alone with a newborn all day. Not only is she responsible to care for this little life, but at every moment she has to guess what the baby needs, wants, or is hurt by since the baby cannot tell her what is wrong. She has to learn when the baby is crying for food or crying in pain. If she is home all day while you are at work, she has to learn to fend for herself and get used to her radically different, more isolated life – you get to remain surrounded by the same people as before during the day and only have adjust to a new home life.

We Always Get Better
As time goes on you will become more comfortable in your role as a father and provider. You will make more money. If you hit a rough spot and lose your job, you will find another. Humans, by their very nature, find ways of improving things as life goes on.

You Are Needed
You are not required to be invincible or a mountain of strength, but you are a pillar in your family. Even more than what you can provide, your family needs and wants you in their lives. You don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to have a place in your heart for them.

Avoiding Parental Tunnel Vision

Remember that kid back in grade school whose parents made them bring their little sister every time they came out to play?  The big kids would have to accommodate the sister who wasn’t able to ride her bike as quickly or play the same sports.  What happened to that kid?  Eventually we stopped playing with them.  Yes, looking back we can see how cruel it was, but when you are in the thick of it you don’t want to carry around someone else’s baggage.

The so call “parental tunnel vision” is the grown up equivalent of the tag-along sibling.  As parents there is a tendency to focus our entire world onto our children, so when we talk to other people all we can think to discuss is our child’s recent dinner table disaster, their successes and failures in the walking arena, and their babbling sounds.  For our grown-up friends, especially those without children, child’s developmental milestones are not as much of a paradigm shift as they are for us.  If we dominate most of the conversation talking about baby stuff, our friends will end up bored, guaranteed.  If they start to see us as nothing more but an extension of our children (which we are, in a lot of ways) we will start to find ourselves excluded from “grown-up” activities – whether our kids come along or not!

So how do you function as a social adult when your world has been taken over by your children?  First, put yourself in your friends’ shoes.  If you were in their position would you want to be hearing about children all the time?  I don’t mean status updates and major milestones – would you want to spent hours talking about teething developments?  Or would you be thinking “Ok, your kid is normal.  Why are we talking about this?”

Naturally all bets are off when you’re talking to other parents, especially ones whose children are roughly the same age as yours.  Be careful! All those stories and comparisons can turn into a competition, so always be supportive and keep the conversation affirming and friendly.