General Chat

Your clothes:
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms you're pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

Preparing for the birth:
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don't bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

The Layette:
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn's clothes, colour-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

Worries:
1st baby: At the first sign of distress..a whimper...a frown..you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your first born.
3rd baby: You teach your three year old how to rewind the mechanical swing.

Pacifier:
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor you put it away until you get home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When it falls on the floor you squirt if off with some juice from the babys bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.

Diapering:
1st baby: You change every hour whether needed or not.
2nd baby: You change every 2 or 3 hours if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change before others complain about the smell or it sags to their knees.

Activities:
1st baby: Baby Gymnastics, baby swing and baby story hour.
2nd baby: Baby gymnastics.
3rd baby: Supermarket and dry cleaners.

Going out:
1st baby: The first time you leave baby with a sitter you call home five times.
2nd baby: just before you go through the door you remember to leave a contact number.
3rd baby: you leave clear instructions not to call unless she sees blood.

At home:
1st baby: You spend all day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend all day watching to make sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

Swallowing coins:
1st baby: You rush the child to hospital and demand x-rays.
2nd baby: You carefully watch for coin to pass.
3rd baby: You deduct the coins value from their pocket money.

My mate, who had six, was wondering where the last one was losing all his dummies.

She told me when she found out that it was when he was sorting through the kitchen bin and found something he liked the look of he would take his dummy out and put it down in the bin so he could eat whatever it was. tea-bags were particularly attractive and he would have them all round his face.

He never seemed to be any worse for it and was rarely ever ill growing up.

She also did toast for the others going to school and gave the baby cereal. Finding time to have her own breakfast upon her return from delivering them to school, she found that the milk he had had on his cereal was sour. He had eaten it without complaint.

I had 3 single births in 33 months I didn't have time to think lolol

:-D

I've always been saying third child has a name and clothes good enough.....6 though no thanks.

Oh, Supercrutch, I hope you found out what was causing them.

I think the fact she wasn't thinking explains whats causing them :-)

Hmmmm I still don't know lololol

Oh dear.......

I had more patience with my 3rd and last child than I did with the first 2, love all of them the same no favorites but my baby well she will always be my baby :-D

Mr Owl had four with wife number one and the first two are less than a year apart. Now I’m becoming wife number two in ten weeks I wonder how many we’all have? He loves all his kids but admits it is chaos when the four are busy doing things.

I had one ........... and decided that was enough :-D

but I have to say that I think I treated her more like a number 3 :-D

wailing and crying ............ check her out to make sure no pins, diaper OK , no problems? Close her bedroom door and retreat to the other end of the house.

dummy ......... pick it up, wipe it, put it in my mouth to clean it, give it back to her. Then learn your lesson, and attach dummy to a piece of ribbon, pin ribbon to her clothes.

I went back to work when she was about 6 weeks old, neighbour looked after her. I don't think I ever called to check on daughter.


Maybe I did learn from my much older brother and his wife who had 3 daughters, with the eldest 2 only 13 months apart and the youngest one 5 years later, and I baby sat all 3 of them at different times.

As a third child, I can relate to this. Also,

Baby 1 - lots of studio prints with baby in various cute poses and different outfits.
Baby 2 - one studio print, lots of snaps as a baby and toddler.
Baby 3 - a few crappy snaps, with knickers hanging down or in the background of the shot of Dad's rose bushes.

Oh yes thanks forgot that one.....thank goodness my third looked like my first....no way I would have been able to send in any decent baby pictures of him into school otherwise.

I only had two....Light weight that I am :-D

With the first one I was so sleep deprived (he slept only 4 hours out of 27 until he was 2) I only have the photos taken by the photographer who came to the post natal ward and in those he is wide awake and looks bliddy angry (takes after the ex :-D)

I was the usual over cautious 1st time mum with him until my Health Visitor (a real old fashioned been there and done it mum) pointed out he needed germs to build up an immunity so worrying about sterilising everything, or putting him on the floor, went out of the window....He survived!

Chris

Chris
That reminds me of the time when I was a first-time Mum in 1970s.

We lived abroad and in the preparation classes were warned of the dangers of gastroenteritis and we should be sure we kept everything clean.

Well that was not going to happen to MY child.

All his clothes were separately handwashed in Lux soap flakes after each wearing. Nappies were boiled to keep them snow white.
If a neighbour brought their young child to visit, as soon as they were gone, all son's toys got washed in Dettol and surfaces were wiped clean.

My the time next child was born, I was more realistic, but still sterilised plates and dishes etc until she was a year old.


Photos reflect the different stages.
1st child..... We have many photos carefully taken, baby spotless.
2nd child.......There are a few household items , like boxes of tissues in the photos and 1 with daughter looking gleeful, after her brother had shared liquorice with her.
3rd child.......Very few photos.. and I remember saying "Let me move that pile of ironing, before you take that"

Sheila in Wilts ..your post brought back memories, My Mum was married 3 years before my oldest sister was born, My mum constantly told anyone who would listen what a beautiful baby she was people would stop her whilst she wheeled her out in pram to admire her blonde curly haired baby. There was albums of photos of her, a few of my next sister , not a one and I repeat not a one of me, till my 1st nursery school photo. :-|

I only have two.

For the first one, I got a professional photographer to put together a small album for me when our son was around eighteen months. It was dire - showed him with red eyes, red hair and a distinctly ruddy complexion, a bit like ruddy-faced farmer pictures. He was, at that stage, fair-haired and with green eyes.

I complained a few times to no avail and, in the end, gave up as I found myself wasting time, getting nowhere and too irate. (I am happy to report that the firm eventually went out of business so I was pleased I had not wasted time and money on legal redress which, I admit, I had thought about as there had been no offer of a further sitting.)

When my second child started crèche at the age of three, we received notification that a professional photographer was visiting one day. I thought it was about time I did the same for her so I asked that he take a few photos.

Unfortunately, I went off to work, forgetting about the photographer's visit that day, and sending my daughter off in a pair of old scruffy shoes, a pair of her brother's old trousers that had been made by a friend (who eventually became a dressmaker), and her brother's old jumper over the only new item, a red skivvy (not sure what the English name is but it is like a cotton t-shirt, polo neck and long sleeves. In fact it was probably the worst she'd ever been dressed in all the time she was there.

Her photos were crystal clear with all of the colours correct, clothing, fair hair, blue eyes - absolute gems of pictures of a scruffy kid!

Still raises a smile when I look at them though.

I did the same with my youngest, when my son was having his nursery school photo I took my baby daughter and him all dressed up he took one of them together I asked if he would also take one of the baby alone, he did and also of my son alone I had no option to buy all 3 with money I did not have, A few weeks later my eldest son was having his school photo so once again I dressed them all up and had a photo of them together boys either side of the baby only my eldest son had a face like thunder on it years later I said why do you look so cross on that photo he said " I wanted one of just me and the baby like the other son had "