Double Trouble Predictions

We’re having another child. Any time now, in fact. I could be pulled away from writing this blog entry to go and inflate the birthing pool – though the due date is still ten days away. So I’m writing this while I still have time to blog, but also to take advantage of the comparative quiet and calm to make a few predictions about what I think life with multiple kids will look like.

This is obviously to provide my future self with content (I can post a followup a year from now to reveal which of my predictions were accurate), but also to provide my readers who already have several kids with amusement when they read the naive, innocent expectations I present below. Let’s go!

The early days will be a lot easier than last time

When Ted was born, we were basically hit by a train for the first week or two. We had “all the gear but no idea” – plenty of cots, moses baskets and gadgets, but no understanding of how to manage our own sleeping, eating and sanity. We didn’t have any external support and had to struggle through (including a trip to ICU for a few days when he lost too much weight).

This time around—perversely—I think we’ll find it all easier. Partly because we’ve been through it before and have a few battle scars (eg. I’ll remember to eat some food during downtime), and partly because we just won’t have time to be able to completely drop out of our normal routines. Ted will still expect to wake up each morning for breakfast, go to nursery, and be entertained/get attention, from the day of his baby sister’s birth onwards. I think this will force us to keep going, not get too weighed down with the monotony of the newborn’s needs, and even keep us sane/amused.

I also predict that after four years of experience of poor/interrupted sleep, handling the needs of a child, juggling work and caring responsibilities and cleaning bodily fluids, we’ll be much more capable of adapting again compared to the decadent, luxurious lifestyle it felt like we led before kids.

We’ll start living our values a bit more, environmentally

Two kids will make logistics a bit more challenging (understatement alert). Getting places will be harder, although Ted will be 4 which at least means we don’t need to worry about pushchairs or toddler car seats for him. Having both kids means we’ll need a good way to transport them both.

I’ve already been putting some serious thought into buying a cargo bike for the school run (one which will seat two kids), but as it turned out, Ted’s recent school place has assigned him to the local primary school about 200 metres away from the house – there’s no need for the bike for that trip.

On the other hand, though, I’ve been mainly dropping Ted off at nursery (2 miles away) by car when the weather hasn’t been great. This is a stressful trip in most cases – ​​Birmingham’s roads aren’t famed for their empathetic, welcoming drivers, and the stretches we use for the trip are amongst the most traffic-choked in the city (which I’m contributing to). The period where my car was in the garage for almost a month for repairs ended up being an eye-opener for me about public transport with Ted – I took him to nursery through snow, rain and winds even when I had to walk almost a mile from the train station with him on my shoulders.

I don’t want to be stuck in the car for another few years with the next kid. I’m conscious that having two kids is adding yet more of an impact to the planet – so I need to balance that with fewer miles behind the wheel. I’m still figuring out how this will look (a proper cargo bike with weather protection for the little one?) but I know it won’t involve driving an enormous SUV every day like most of the other parents at nursery seem to.

We’ll be more relaxed about everything

Ted has been challenging to parent at times. He’s high-energy, extremely independent and curious, and very physically active. Particularly from age 2-3 he was unpredictable and fast – taking him to places was often an exercise in patience/chasing as he ran off into a dense crowd of people, disappeared to climb up something we couldn’t see, or shot off in the direction of a busy road while ignoring our shouts.

It’s simpler now, but it did make us weary (and wary) of visiting certain places or doing fairly typical toddler things (cinema, restaurants, etc). I’m hoping the second kid will have slightly different characteristics (not that I’d change Ted, but I don’t think my blood pressure can handle doing it all again exactly the same) and in turn that will embolden us to be more up for “ambitious” stuff like taking the kids on a city break somewhere (we’ve still never flown with Ted) or visiting more of our favourite places like restaurants and pubs.

We’ll need to book in time to be a couple

Ted’s been a good sleeper since he was six months old – sleeping through the night, although usually with early starts (5:30am for a year!). We might not be so lucky with the second one, and even if we are, we’ll have double the bedtime routines to do.

We don’t have family living close by so we know we’ll need to be a bit more organised when it comes to making time for Maddy and I to be together. Booking in babysitters, putting date nights in the calendar and arranging cover from a long time out… boring admin, but now a requirement if we don’t want to limit our interactions to emptying the nappy bin or passing the Calpol.

I can imagine finding myself a month from now trying to juggle an endlessly-crying baby while a four year old shouts “DAD WHERE’S MY REMOTE CONTROL CAR” in my face, sardonically laughing at Past Matt thinking “the early days will be a lot easier”, but where would be the fun in writing a bunch of predictions about how hard everything will be?

I’ll revisit this on the other side – and share the birth story sequel. Hopefully this time we’ll get our home birth as planned.