Baby #2 Update
Hi Friends, Happy Friday! I’ve been wanting to do some pregnancy updates for some time now, but life has been so busy.
I’m now 32 weeks along with baby girl #2 and this pregnancy has just been so different than my first! I know this is pretty typical of subsequent pregnancies, but I can’t believe how fast this one is flying by. With Madeline, I felt like it just dragged on and on and the waiting was awful! I remember those blissful afternoons where I could spend the day researching baby things, taking naps as needed, sleeping in, etc.. Once you have a toddler running around, that all goes away! At 32 weeks, all I want to do is take naps and put my feet up, but between work and having a 2 year-old, naps are nonexistent. Sleep is becoming difficult. This baby loves to push on my bladder all. night. long. so I am constantly having to get up. Maddie has also been having sleep issues this past week and I’m just exhausted.
With Madeline, I had to be induced on my due date because she was measuring quite small, stopped growing at 36 weeks, and my blood pressure was starting to become a problem. This time around, my doctor is monitoring baby #2’s growth and we are taking things week-by-week for now. If it seems like this baby might follow down the same path as her sister, she could end up arriving in March instead of April. Eek, I’m not ready at all!
I was basically all ready to go at this point in my first pregnancy. I have done ZERO things to get ready for this baby! Zero. And I’m officially freaking out now! Granted since this is our second child and another girl, there isn’t a whole lot that we need in terms of a lot of the smaller things, but we still have quite a bit to take care of before she gets here! Shopping for this baby is not easy with a toddler who won’t stop climbing on everything. Instead of looking at what we need, I’m too busy chasing her around the store!
Making Things Work in a Small House
I think what is stressing me out the most right now is our living situation. We live in a 1190 square foot, 2 bedroom townhome. We also have a small bonus room in between the two bedrooms upstairs. It’s tight and moving is not an option as we are in faculty housing and already had to wait on a waiting list to get the place we have now, so we have to make this work. Right now my plan is to obviously keep the baby in our room for a while and then create a makeshift nursery in the loft (which also has to be a guest room for visiting grandparents…) until the baby can hopefully start sleeping through the night and we can eventually move her into the same room as her sister.
This, is, of course, assuming all goes to plan, and let’s be honest, what are the chances of that happening?! So, the unknown of how this can all play out stresses me out. What if the baby can’t sleep well in the loft because there is no door and it’s open to the other rooms? What if she never sleeps through the night, how can we move her into the same room as her sister?
These are the types of questions keeping me up at night. If any of you guys have dealt with a similar situation, I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on making things work with multiple kids in a small house!
A Second Crib?
Yes. We’ve decided to get a second crib. It may seem silly, but Madeline still loves her crib and sleeps in it all night and has not once tried to climb out. I’ve asked so many people about this and I seem to get mostly the same response that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Dealing with a newborn is hard enough as it is, we don’t also want to deal with an unhappy toddler climbing out of a bed constantly. We have the toddler rail for her crib so she can transition when she’s ready. It’s really important to us that we don’t completely derail our toddler’s sleep with a newborn. I know she may still struggle with the adjustment, but at least she will still have her room as her room for a while longer.
I’d also love to hear your guys’ experience with room sharing. When did you move your younger child into the same room as your older child? How old were they? Help me!
