It sure has been a while since I posted here. Well.....Claire is now 23 months old and Wesley Mitchell Byers will be 4 weeks old this weekend! I hope to post a birth story here in the very near future along with a little (!) catching up on Claire and the family as well.
This is a post I wrote in response to the question, What is like to be a second time mom?
This pregnancy with Wesley was so much easier for me. I think a lot of it was because I could eat and drink when I wanted to unlike with Claire's pregnancy when I was working as a retail cashier. I had virtually no morning sickness this round and have read that there is a link to breastfeeding and lack of morning sickness. Also I was able to be a lot more active this time, less pelvic pressure. Nursing became really "itchy" for me by 30 weeks. I just wanted it to be over. She just wanted to nurse at naptime by this point so I gently encouraged her to give it up right before Thanksgiving and she has mentioned nursing a few times since then but never outright asked to try it again. She is super interested to see her friends and brother nursing though.
With Claire we had a hospital birth with an epidural and for Wes we had an intervention free homebirth. I really liked the homebirth because we didn't have to leave the house, lol. For both I think I was in denial about actually having to birth the child and kind of panicked when the contractions got regular. Claire's total labor was 13 hours starting with losing my mucous plug and starting contractions 2 hours after that and she was 4 days early. With Wes my labor experience was only 4.5 hours starting with my water breaking and rough contractions starting 1.5 hours later with a boby following shortly after. He was born on his due date. During the pregnancy we thought we would have Claire present at the birth but as she got older and it got closer we were noticing that she would be very concerned even if we had pretend sad faces and I didn't think I would be able to focus on the birth if she was distressed too. I
Having 2 kids 22 months apart has been very interesting. We are all 4 cosleeping in a queen bed with the crib sidecarred for Claire. Originally the crib was to be for Wes but the mattresses don't line up. This has been perfect for Claire because she can cuddle with Chris or roll over into the "little bed" and cuddle with the side of our mattress when she is done. The first few nights were really rough, Chris didn't like sleeping with the night light on again and had a rough time sleeping. Claire only woke up once each night but stayed up for a few hours when she did wake. Naps continue to be rough with her but I think we may be turning the corner on that soon. She has adjusted well to daddy putting her to bed at night. Routine is very important for this.
This time we didn't do an infant car seat, just straight to the rear facing convertable. At times I wish we had the bucket seat but strapping him into the Ergo and having both hands free is necessary to wrangle Claire in public places. I really liked the Moby for Claire but for Wes, I found it to be a hassle to get on and off. We did purchase the infant insert for the Ergo but only used it twice because he just seemed to be very uncomfortalbe, so I just froggy his feet in the bottom of the Ergo and if we are going outside I put a blanket layer between him and the carrier. Putting him in the bouncer or the little swing is super dangerous because Claire always wants to be on top of him and helping to push or bounce. She always wants to hold him and is super sweet. She has picked up some defiance in public places. Whenever we arrive somewhere like story time or music class, she asks to go to the potty but then will want to stay in there or at the drinking fountain forever and pitches a fit if I ask her to come with me back to the activity. I'm not sure if this is because we have a new baby or if it is because she is almost 2.
Wes is the greatest baby. He sleeps so much! He will generally fall deeply asleep around 8pm waking sometime between 11 and midnight to be changed and eat. Then we will wake up at some point between 3 and 5. If it was closer to 3 he'll wake up between 7 and 8 but if it was closer to 5 he will sleep in past 9. Claire generally wakes between 8 and 9 so this schedule works great for us. He gets fussy for diaper changes and does seem to have a gassiness problem, he just won't burp for me without like 30 minutes of patting, and ends up with monster toots. He's just now starting to see the world around him. Today he was super aware of faces and lights. It's amazing how fast time is already flying by and how he is looking more grown up every day. He has already outgrown the newborn covers and prefolds and I have him in size small FuzziBunz and the bigger prefolds. Diaper laundry is consuming my life. Well, really laundry in general. It's amazing how much more laundry one small person generates.
The instant after I had Claire I thought, I could do that again. WIth Wes I was thinking, Maybe I won't do that again. Only time will tell. Right now we are having a great time with two.
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