Parental Advice

When you have your first kid everyone gives you tons and tons of advice from breast feeding to swaddling to sleeping... whether it is wanted or not, people will give it to you.  And as a expectant parent you try your best to take in all the information. You think you know you will be up all night and you will get little sleep. You think you understand that when you breastfeed, it requires a lot of time... but you don't realize that you will truly be exhausted, your body is no longer yours, you will be very concerned with what your kid's poop looks like and you will smell like milk at all hours of the day. But when that baby is cuddled in your arms and you smell the top of their head, all the craziness goes away.  You fall so in love and can't imagine how you could possibly love another human being so much.

I have learned that each child is born different and unique. They have their own quirks and you just figure them out as you go along.  And I would also say that the second one grows up so much faster!  In the blink of an eye they start smiling, sitting, eating table food, crawling and then you are planning their first birthday party... Gulp!  I have to make myself stop and appreciate all the little milestones and realize that this very well might be the last time that I get to experience it.

So when people say that the second child is easier, they are partly true. With the second child your life has already made major alterations. You are used to having little people depend solely on you for their care, but you just adjust and now take care of another little person. You also learn that someone is going to cry. It's just the way it is. You can't make everyone happy and you have to prioritize needs.  You are going to lose sleep.  It is inevitable, there is no way around it.  As soon as your baby starts sleeping well they will get sick or start teething, and it is so disappointing.  My final tidbit of advice, go ahead and realize that coffee and wine are your best friend!