Planning for your first weeks at home with another baby
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Listen to the episode and find the show notes in the yellow box below.
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Extremely Good Parenting Podcast EP. 012 Show Notes
Paula is the author of When Baby Becomes Big Sibling and we talk about her real life stories in the first weeks of being a parent of two, how to prepare for a larger family, and more.
- Kara’s Extremely good of the week… Pom Juice
- Paula’s Extremely good of the Week… brownies
- 2:55 Paula refills her parenting cup by tickling her kids and other small moments
- 4:15 Our guest’s parenting fail story about inside voices
- 5:45 Why Paula is loving age 5
- 7:19 the fear every mother has with a new pregnancy
- 8:45 When Paula decided she wanted to expand her family
- 9:45 My husband actually has been convincing me to have more babies close together
- 10:49 What would you tell someone that’s interested in expanding their family?
- 12:06 The story of how Paula’s daughter got a knot on her head as a newborn
- 13:00 The gift of siblings
- 15:17 The hardest time period of adding a new baby to your family
- 16:19 Planning ahead for baby feedings with your young child
- 17:18 No prep and low-prep activities for your toddler
- 17:55 Never talking about baby negatively even in pregnancy
- 18:34 Truing to abide by the routine established
- 21:00 The validity in jokes about second and multiple kids
- 22:10 Book Recommendation “Hello Baby“
- 24:23 The baby gives Christmas gifts
- 26:44 It’s ultimately a personal decision
- 26:58 “When there’s love, you can find a way to swing almost anything”
- 27:28 “Chaos is not a sign of failure, it’s a sign of children”
- 27:40 It’s ok if you only have one child. It doesn’t make you less of a parent.
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Kara is an author and advocate for positive, grace-filled parenting. She is homeschooler to her 5 children living on a farm in New England. She believes in creative educational approaches to help kids dive deeper into a rich learning experience and has her degree in Secondary Education & Adolescent Childhood Development. She is passionate about connecting with and helping other parents on their journey to raise awesome kids!
40 something Mom
You should ask yourself not only if you can handle two children, but can you handle two children… one with special needs? We were not prepared for that and our older child has regressed tremendously due to the amount of energy we have had to expend on the 2nd child. We were not prepared financially for a special needs child, nor for having two children in daycare (we thought we were, but then one child needed special respite care which cost more money).. We were not prepared emotionally for the weight of so many needs coming at us at once.. Moreover, we simply do not have the energy for two toddlers. If you are an “older Mom” you really need to think this over, hard. Just because your first child was perfect doesn’t mean you should push your luck and have a second. And just because you have enough energy to raise one child, does NOT mean you will have enough energy for two. Two is a totally different dynamic. Oh and by the way, I hope you are not a control freak because your house will never be clean and tidy again! I asked myself “how hard can it be to raise 2 children when you are already raising one?” the answer is “Damn hard”.