Prepping for Baby #2 Mentally was Silently Consuming Me

Prepping for baby #2 felt very different then baby #1. It was the first week of my maternity leave and only 3 weeks away from my doctor’s due date. Expecting that my second child would come early a panic that had been building over the last 9 months started to set in for me. I had his room set up already because our newest addition was taking his brothers room but my almost 2-year-old was making me so nervous. Our whole world was him right now and within a month that was drastically going to change. I felt this sadness overwhelm me about not being in the same frame of mind as I was with my first. I wanted to be excited about meeting our new little person but I just didn’t have enough time in my day to really get there. I was so concerned about how our toddler and our family as a unit was going to adjust to a newborn. I had so many questions that didn’t have answers that my anxiety was keeping me up when I should have been resting. I would google everything reading article after article to find ways to calm my mind. The ongoing research just never seemed to satisfy the loop of questions that kept circling my brain. Here are just a few that were consuming me, how would I be able to watch a newborn and a 24-month-old boy together on my own? What would I do with my toddler while I was breastfeeding? How am I going to manage giving enough love to my family? Will I be an emotional wreck? Will I get postpartum depression? Will the lack of sleep and stress of having two very young kids tear my marriage apart? I literally could go on and on.
I’m a planner and the unknown of what our new baby boy was going to do to our family was terrifying me. I kept thinking that we had such a good thing going right now. I had stopped breastfeeding when Oliver was 13 months so I had experienced some personal freedom, I had returned to work, we had found literally the best nanny to care for Oliver while we were at work, and our routine with Oliver was solid. My whole routine was about to change and it did but I was surprised at what the outcome ended up being. With that said I wanted to share with you some of the things I learned from getting ready for baby #2.

The 10 things that had the biggest return on investment when prepping for baby #2.

1) Early on we would read books to Oliver about baby’s, having a sibling, having a brother, and about momma’s tummy.

2) We moved Oliver’s room a month and ½ before Theo arrived. I was so concerned if we did it after his brother’s arrival that he would get upset so we wanted him to be excited about his new digs way beforehand. (FYI…We had to move his room just based on what the flow of our family needs were after Theo arrived).

3) We took professional pictures. I highly recommend a maternity photo shoot. I didn’t do this with my first because I felt big and just not very photogenic but I regretted it. I did my research before I booked someone and specifically looked at how they photographed women. I wanted someone very experienced with photographing pregnant women and knew all the right angles to show off the right assets.

4) My husband and I went to a family counselor. As I mentioned earlier we had a good thing going and I was terrified on what the stress of having a just turned 2-year-old and a newborn would do to our home life. It was great to talk through our concerns with the counselor. She gave us support and tools to use to manage through stressful times. She also is a parenting expert so her advice on what emotionally our toddler could experience with a new baby was very helpful as well.

5) I talked to my OBGYN ahead of time about my concerns with PPD since I had gone through it with my first child.

6) We lined up support ahead of time for after Theo’s arrival. Since we had no family at the time that lived close to us my mom was flying in for the birth and would stay with Oliver while we were at the hospital. My sisters both came out to help in the first 8 weeks for a week each. My husband had saved up enough vacation time to take a month off from work which he had requested approval from his job after we found out we were pregnant with our second. We had already discussed with our nanny that we would have her work three days a week while I was on maternity leave after my husband returned to work.

7) We did some fun activities with Oliver that we wouldn’t be able to do for a little while after Theo arrived.

8) We stocked our cabinets and fridge with food.

9) I bought a gift from Theo to Oliver that we could give Oliver when he met his brother in the hospital.

10) I did some self-care for me which included alone time, pedicures, walks, and spending time with friends.