If you are pregnant for the second time or are considering getting pregnant soon after having one baby at home, you will probably have quite a few thoughts that characterize this exact status. Although you are already a mother and you know more or less what awaits you and you have already dealt with everything with the first child, but being a mother of more than one child - you don't know that yet.
So especially for you, mothers who are on the way for the second time, we have put together a collection of common thoughts that appear in the period before the second birth, maybe also before the second pregnancy and maybe shortly after baby #2 is already born. If these words make you feel that you are "in good company" and that you are not alone - we have done our part:
How will I manage to bring someone else into my heart?
The love for your first baby is something that cannot be described in words. He is the one who made you mothers, with him you learned your new role, with him you experienced for the first time the birth and the first bath, the first diaper, the first high temperature and the first exciting steps. How can you go through all these things again and still be excited? How can you put such huge feelings into a heart full of love? So it turns out that it is possible, and mothers of two (or more) children say, and this is not a cliché, that the heart simply expands and opens up another place that you didn't think you had.
How will I do this for my child?
Your baby is used to being the center of things, the one everyone is interested in and concentrating on, and suddenly a brother will emerge into his life, a tiny baby who will demand the full attention of you and those around you and will be completely dependent on you. Your feelings of guilt are not long in coming and the thoughts are strong - my older child will be sad, he will feel that we are less with him, he may misinterpret the situation and think that we love the little one more.
So therefore, as mothers, there is a lot of room to mediate the new situation for the older child (and tips for this can be found in other articles in Jama), to understand that he can indeed be sad but your job is to contain his feelings and find the ways to integrate him into the new reality. It is important that you remember that you are not "doing something wrong", even if you feel that you have caused difficult feelings in your child. You allow him to deal with challenging situations, and finally you add to his family unit a little brother who will be connected to him for life. We changed it when it was difficult for you.
How can you handle two when I could barely handle one?
When you have one child you feel that you are so busy, so what will happen when there are two? The question of the questions, the so-called. Remember that even before the eldest was born, your daily routine was different and did not include consideration for a tiny creature, and somehow you managed to adapt to a new routine. Maybe it took some time and learning, but in the end, you managed to do both. It will also be that you will have to add a new baby to the equation.
It may seem like an impossible task, but you will see, like magic it will happen. The magic, by the way, will be difficult, make no mistake. It will require a relearning of reality, it will seem beyond your strength, but it will happen. You will find your way to deal with life with two children - and you will do it successfully.
Will my maternity leave be less fun when there is an older child at home?
Maternity leave for the first time is a period that will not return. You were then all mobilized and free for the sake of the baby and experienced everything for the first time (for better or for worse). The second time - it's another story. There is an older child at home, and even if he is in the frame - it ends in the afternoon at the most and you will be required to juggle the desires and needs of the two. This does not mean that the maternity leave will be less experiential than your first maternity leave. She will be different. Try to see at least one positive thing - you will no longer be "clumsy" and you will arrive with much more experience and calmness and maybe things will be much more fluid.
The Jama application was established with the aim of responding to mothers of babies between the ages of birth and three, and to gather for them content, activities, tips from experts and videos that will accompany them throughout this challenging period.
All the content in the application "grows" together with the baby and is precisely adapted to the stages of his development, so that the mothers receive only what is relevant to them and interests them at any given moment. The Jama app is the place for mothers in Israel to meet and get to know other mothers around them, and to create new and exciting friendships in the fascinating journey.
Search us on Google: https://app.jama.co.il/