How to prepare for your second child
Photo by Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash
In today’s episode we’re discussing our experiences with second children. How we prepared, what it was like when our first-born met their younger sibling for the first time, and the overall differences in parenting one child vs two.
During this episode we’ll discuss:
How we prepared our oldest child to become an older sibling
The first interaction between our first born and our second born
Signs of regression and other impacts to our oldest child
Present-day challenges of having two children
The main differences between having two children vs on child
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Transcript
Dave: In today's episode, we're discussing our experiences with second children, how we prepared, what it was like when our firstborn met their younger sibling for the first time, and the overall differences in parenting one child versus two.
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Papa est Fatigué podcast. The podcast for dads by dads. I was online the other day, and I saw a comment from someone who was having a second child and was very concerned with how that oldest child was going to react. Today we thought we discuss how we got ready for our second child, what are the challenges of parenting two kids, and all of the stuff in between.
Here's my deal. I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. My oldest was about two and a half when her brother came.
Jim: I'm Jim. My oldest girl is seven and the youngest is five. They were about two and a half years apart almost within two weeks.
Dave: Jim, why don't you kick us off? Can you talk a little bit about how you guys prepared for your second child? What, if anything, did you do to talk to your oldest about what this experience was going to be like?
Jim: It was an interesting experience to talk to the older one about that because it had been just the three of us for the longest time for her whole life, obviously. To start that when mom started to show a belly, understand that she was going to have a little sister, and start to talk it up about three months ahead of time when the pregnancy really started to show, and start to prepare in that way. I think you and I had talked earlier about about the gift. We wanted to make sure that the new child was going to be a friend, was going to be part of the family, and was going to be loved by all of us.
Dave: I'm curious, you talked about the gift, we did that too. Do you remember what you guys gave the oldest one?
Jim: I don't remember.
Dave: It was a little while ago. On our end, we did similar things. You lay the groundwork for the older one to know what's coming up. I think in both of our situations, we benefited from the fact that our oldest was about two and a half, and at least on our end, I think that our oldest could conceptually understand what it meant that there was going to be this other thing in her life. Obviously, it's a little bit different rubber meets the road when you actually see what that means, but at least understanding the concept that at some point you were going to be a family of four versus a family of three.
I remember when we were pregnant, we have a friend who also has two and their age difference is just about two years, and I remember talking to her about how that was going because their youngest is the same age as our oldest, and so I was very curious what she was communicating to her oldest child about her brother that was coming along the way, and she said, at that age, her oldest daughter couldn't really understand what was going. I'm sure that it's a pretty big surprise that there's this new thing that's also coming home with you.
Again, I think that having a little bit of age gap of about two and a half was super helpful in terms of preparing at least our daughter in that case, that this thing is coming down the pipe and to just getting her ready. I remember the present, she was very much into Lilo & Stitch at the time, so I got her a Stitch doll. It was actually a little bit larger than I expected. I think it was about maybe a foot high. I remember when we were prepping to go to the hospital and getting our bags together, I'm like," I can forget everything except for this thing."
My daughter was going to be staying with my parents and so it was like," Well, this has to be given at the hospital, it's pretty important." I remember wrapping it in the garage and hiding it. That was the number one thing on the checklist of things to bring to the hospital. There was a whole story around that. The only other thing that we really did, and I don't know if you guys did this too, but we had this whole conversation, like," Do we need a double stroller? Do we need a buggy board? How are we going to manage all of this stuff with both kids, and especially when they're two and a half, they're still using the stroller."
At the very beginning, there was this whole, going to Buy Buy Baby and try it out all this stuff, and we actually ended up not doing anything. Did guys go through the whole, like what kind of gear, what might we need for this new thing?
Host: Yes, I'm embarrassed to say there was a time when we had just a whole garage full of strollers, and part of it was driven by that, "What are we going to do?" We had a Double BOB and we also had the UPPAbaby, there's like stadium seating for the two girls. That seemed to work okay, but there was all sorts of gear that we thought about. The two car seats, are they going to fit in the back? One's forward, one backward, whatever, with the booster seat, and trying to get all that gear together, it was different than the first time. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about that first meeting? You're in the hospital, your oldest comes in for the first time, what was that like?
Jim: The oldest had spent the night with grandma. I think grandma had come over to our house so that she could sleep, so our daughter could sleep in her own bed. It might be the first night that she had been without a parent. There might've been other nights when maybe we had gone out and she was with a babysitter and gone to sleep, but I think that was the first night to be away from both her parents which was something of a big deal for her. Then grandma brought her over the next day. I was a little raw, sleep-deprived, obviously, an emotional time. We've been through a lot of things.
As I've described before, that was probably the most emotional moment that I've had as a parent because the oldest came in and it was very clear that she understood that something really important was happening and that there was something that was fundamentally going to change. She was very sweet when she met her younger sister, but there was a certain tentative like she didn't really know what was going on. We've got it all on video, and watching it again is very sweet. We let her hold the baby. She sat with her mom for a little bit and held the baby, and then a couple of beats go by and she says, "Can we put her in the crib?" We did, and then the oldest spends some time with mom. Like I say, it was emotional because, for me, it was the end of a chapter. It was the end of us being a family of three and the beginning of us being a family of four. To see that transition through my daughter's eyes was pretty powerful.
Host: It's interesting you talking about having recorded that experience. I always have my camera with me everywhere I go. I'm recording everything, honestly. Until you just said it, it never occurred to me to record that moment, and now I'm regretting that I don't. I have memories of it, but obviously, memories are always going to be different than what actually happened. Until this very moment, it just never occurred to me to do that. We had a similar experience where our daughter had spent the night at her grandparents. My parents live five minutes away, so she was used to that.
I think she'd actually spent the night there a couple of times before, so that was not necessarily anything new for her, but just like yours, super tentative. I do remember her coming in and just looking around and going, "What's happening here?" I'm sure part of it is also that just being in a hospital for the first time and just thinking, "Wow, this is an interesting thing." Also, you could just see that like, "Okay, I know something's happening here and now I'm going to experience it." That was interesting to see because I had never seen her like that before really--
Jim: I can picture it. I think my daughter had something very similar. I think you described it well.
Host: One of the things that I had thought about a lot in advance of having our son was how things were all going to happen. I like to plan things out a little bit so I can be prepared. One of the things that I mentioned this in the podcast that we recorded about having your firstborn is that I always thought it would be important to have a little bit of alone time as that new family. Obviously, with the firstborn, it's your firstborn, there's just three of you, but even with the second one, I felt that it was important for us to have that time just to see this new guy that was in our life and that was just, again, the three of us, my wife, myself, and our newborn.
He was born, I think, before lunchtime. We spent the morning and afternoon with him and my parents brought our daughter over around dinner time. Part of that was because I wanted to, again, have that time with him in the family, but also I wanted to have, in my head, it was going to be this special dinner. Even though we had the son, I was going to take her out to dinner, and across the street from the hospital, there are a bunch of restaurants. I did the research, like which ones have the menu that's going to make the most sense for my daughter, and so she came by. She spent a little bit of time, again, looking at the baby and taking it all in, and I'm like, "Okay, let's go grab dinner."
We went across the street and my parents were with us, and we're ordering, and she says, "Can we go back to the hospital?" It just never occurred to me. I was like, "Oh, we're going to have this nice special dinner." I thought that that would be what would ease her into it to show her that we can still have these special moments. It was interesting to me to see that she was not thinking the same way that I was. She was really more about like, "Hey, I want to go back and see what this is about."
I think for me that was maybe the first signal that, "Okay, this might be okay." There's always this question about how is the older one going to react. We saw the tentative thing, but then also having her express that she on her own wanted to spend some time with our son and her brother was very interesting to me. The next thing that I'm curious about, Jim, it's one thing for our daughters to come into the hospital and you're in that neutral space where does it really belong to anybody, but it's another thing now that when everybody comes home and now that child is in my room or is in my parents' room, they're in my house. How did your oldest daughter react when you brought your youngest home and now there's this realization like, "Oh, okay, now they're in my house. Now, this is really, it's happening."
Jim: She handled it remarkably well. Thinking about this, reflecting on this moment, thinking about this conversation that she was really kind, really loving. We were concerned because she is very much attached to her mom and in a way that's clingy. We were worried that mom would have to be giving attention to the newborn and would not be giving attention to the older one and that that would cause some problems, but it really wasn't.
Part of what happened is that because the older was so attached to mom, I end up becoming the attachment parent for the baby, which was nice, but we also had to spend some time and some effort to really make sure we were giving attention to both kids. We're tired, the kids are whining, they want mom, they want dad. It was really easy to say, "You know what, you take the daughter, go in the other room. I'm going to take this one and stay in here."
We had to make a conscious effort to switch up, even if they didn't want it. They wanted mom, you know what, we're going to spend some time together and make sure that we each have one-on-one time with both kids. Aside from that, I had anticipated that maybe there'll be some tantrums or some other problems, but the older one handled it better than I expected, which probably means that we did more groundwork than I'm remembering in setting her up for it, but she was generally kind and caring and will try to make the baby laugh and was excited when she'd roll over and things like that. It was not as tense as I was anticipating, and, in fact, in hindsight, it was pretty pleasant.
Host: We had sort of a similar experience in that there didn't seem to be any sort of negative reactions when we came home. Our daughter was mostly curious and also very helpful, really wanting to help out in the care of our son, grabbing diapers when we needed them, or getting bottles. That was really very helpful for us to also see her being engaging. You see a lot of times that can be advised that the parents give when you have a second one to ask or empower the older one to help out so that they feel some level of responsibility and they feel that they're engaged in the process.
It's funny though. I have a friend and her kids I think are four years apart. She has an older son. She said when she had the daughter, the youngest daughter, the older son just couldn't care less. He's like, "Whatever, you guys handle the-- I'm going to go outside and play. You guys handle the girl." All kids are different. Some want to be more involved. Some are like, "Okay, I can co-exist with this thing as long as it doesn't mess up my playtime or whatever." You don't really know until you come home how your oldest is going to react.
There's a story that I like to tell. I think I've mentioned this in a prior podcast also, but as I mentioned before, I'm a planner. That first weekend I had planned to do something special with her, the first weekend we got back from the hospital with our son. I took her out to a tourist spot. It's not someplace where we go to often unless somebody is in town. We're walking around, we're going to the shops, then I say, I tell her, "You can buy a key chain," which was a special thing because even when we go there with friends, it's not like I let her buy anything like that.
I'm following her around the store and she's looking at all sorts of key chains and pulling things off the shelves and making decisions like this one versus that. She seems to have made a decision, she comes to me, and she says, she's like, "These two." I say, "No, you can't buy two. You can only buy one." She looks at me and she says, "The other one's for my brother."
Jim: That's really sweet.
Host: In that moment I go, "I think this is going to work out." He's only been around now for a week, actually less than a week that she's known him, and already she's thinking about him. I thought that coming from a two-and-a-half-year-old, it didn't occur to me at that age that she could think beyond her own world. I think it says a lot about the capabilities or the capacities of young children to surprise you but also to think about the larger world and their level of understanding and care for the people around them. That was a special moment for me. Again, you just don't know what you're going to get until you get there, but there can be little clues along the way. I think that are going to tell you, "Okay, things will probably be okay," or, "I might need to do a little bit of work here."
Jim: You're talking about that feeling of that they're more aware and more kind. Watching a sisterhood development was really fascinating. To your point, to see how caring the older one was for the younger one, most of the time, but how caring she was and how nurturing she was for her younger sister was really touching. That's an emotional sophistication that I didn't realize was there, and is obviously something that we hadn't taught her. It's just part of the innate nature of siblings, I suppose.
Host: I've always wondered about that in terms of, again, I go back to my friend who had the older son, and again, her experience was like, "Yes, if you have an older boy, he just doesn't care." I was curious if maybe her kids were a little bit closer in age, or if he was just a different boy, if there is some level of older sibling responsibility that's innate in kids or not. Obviously, we'll never know in our experience, but that was always something that I thought was interesting. I guess maybe that's also one of the interesting things about having two kids is when you have a boy and a girl and you see the difference. Not all of the differences can be tied to their gender, but there are certainly differences that you see as they're growing. It's just fascinating as you have two and you say, "Well they have the same parents but they're so different." It's just like, "How did we get kids that are complete opposite into the spectrum when they share the same genes?" It's always interesting to see those little things as they go along.
Jim: I always thought that the older one is a product of me and my wife and the younger one is a product of me, my wife, and her older sister. In some ways, I can see that. I can see that the younger one has the best traits of all three of us, and in some way that it's a three-way, not parenting, but three-way nurturing environment that somehow she really sucked up a lot of that.
Host: It's super interesting that you bring that up because I never thought about it, but I will say that-- I have a younger brother but we're six years different. Growing up, I was almost more of a parent at that point. I was like a mini-parent. Certainly, when you're nine and three, you're almost more of a parent figure. I played with him too but you're not playing the same stuff. You are really taking care of the kid at that point. It's an interesting dynamic as you're growing up when there's that level of age difference where they're not necessarily your friend, at least, in the early stages because they're so much younger than you. Obviously, when you get older, again, the relationship changes again but those dynamics. I completely see what you say about that the youngest one is a product of the three of you guys. It's so interesting. I think it's so true.
Let's see now, as you get home, your child, your oldest, is starting to get in the swing of things and now she understands, "All right, this sister is here to stay." I'm curious, did your oldest regress or show any signs of jealousy? I hear that sometimes your oldest can go from being fully potty trained to now needing diapers because that's how I can get attention and get noticed by my parents. We were lucky, we didn't have any issues, but did you guys notice anything like that as you were continuing down the path?
Jim: We didn't see any behavioral regression, but in thinking about it, there was some verbal regression. Some of her verbal skills regressed a little bit. It's probably specific to her, but we didn't see any of that temper tantrum behavior, as you said, making a mess or somehow trying to get mom and dad's attention. Maybe it's because mom was giving the older one enough attention, and, again, we were very careful about trying to divide up and each of us have one-on-one time. Other than those verbal, I don't even know how to describe it. Just her verbal skills took a step back and she recovered it quickly, but we tied it to that moment. Maybe it was just a stressor about the change in the family, but other than that, she was all right.
Host: Let's flash forward to today. Our kids, our oldest are seven, actually probably closer to eight than seven now. Your youngest is five, my youngest is four and a half. What is it like having two kids? You talked a little bit about how they get along but can you expand on that, and then what are some of the challenges that you have now as they're a little bit older?
Jim: Now we're seeing the jealousy. [laughter] Now we're seeing the-- specifically around my stuff, and I understand that. I had a younger brother. "This is my stuff. Why is she touching my stuff? She's going to break it." Trying to teach those things that we all want to teach our kids about sharing and being inclusive about their play and treating each other with respect and things like that. The jealousy has come up more than once, and in some ways, I think they're starting to grow out of it. Maybe they've both passed this developmental stage and they're starting to be more like sisters and more like friends than they were adversaries, which is how my brother and I were.
I remember the moment when we were having dinner and the youngest one was now-- she wasn't just this kind of thing that was just shoving food in her face, and we were trying to spoon her, she was engaged in some way. I had this moment, this epiphany like, "We're now a family of four," which is really fascinating. That changes the dynamic of the family. In some ways, it's a bookend to when the oldest walked into the room with the baby. We went from being a family of three, and then we went to the transition period, and now we're a family of four.
That dynamic changes, the dynamic between both of them, and obviously between my wife and I with each of them individually and with them together. Particularly since COVID, one of the challenges we've had is that the older one will act more mature, the younger one as well. They act more mature. They have an outside persona or an out-of-the-house persona that's much more mature and much more advanced, I would think, than they are when they're in the house.
My feeling is that the youngest one probably regresses to some sort of babyish-like behavior or toddler-like behavior in order to differentiate herself from her sister, and then the older one ends up getting sucked down, so to speak. Her behavior gets sucked down to the younger's level. When they're out on playdates or playing outside with other kids, they go to daycare and they interact with other kids there, they're much more mature and much more engaged with grown-ups with other people than they are at home. That's one of the challenges that we're dealing with. How do we get the older one to have more interaction with her peers so that she ends up developing those skills? Frankly, it's very rewarding to see that sort of outward persona.
Host: On my end, the kids get along pretty well. That doesn't mean they don't have their fights, that doesn't mean that they don't have frequent fights. I would say that the kids get along well. We have a little bit less of the ownership thing. I think that's actually not even a function of the fact that I have a boy and a girl. It seems like our daughter has started to grow out of toys. The kinds of things she's doing now is like at Christmas, she wanted more science kits or buildings kits. She wants to build stuff, like Kiwi crates. She loves Kiwi crates. They're not really toys, you build something, and then it functions, and that's it. She made a pencil sharpener out of wood and all this-- It's not a toy.
We don't really have the fighting over toys, which I guess is helpful. Maybe also some of that is a gender thing, I don't know, but I think it really is more a function of she just seems to have, at this point, aged out which I find shocking that we're at this stage. She's only seven and a half, eight and she's already like, "All right, I'm done with toys," which I guess is great for the wallet in some respects, until she asks for an iPad or an iPhone or whatever, but those are hopefully years off.
The kids get along pretty well. I think that is definitely helpful in terms of if they're constantly sniping at each other, then it certainly raises the temperature in the house. That is one thing. Another thing that's been interesting is how they influence each other or don't, in some respect. I talked about toys. When she was younger, our daughter used to-- People would give her dolls, but she actually never really played with dolls. As our son has gotten older, it was really more when he was around three, three-and-a-half, he actually was the one that was playing with the dolls all the time.
It was funny because it wasn't like he saw that behavior from his sister, but there just happened to be dolls around the house, and so he started playing with them. There was a time where he would take the doll to daycare every once in a while and things like that. I think that's been interesting.
One of the places where I've seen influence is she got a nail kit for Christmas. She loves doing her nails, and then she'll do his nails. I've seen this a few times where some kids that we see are clearly-- Some of the boys are walking around with nail polish because they have older sisters, and they're cool with it. Our son is one of those. Sometimes you'll catch with, whatever, yellow or pink nail polish, and he's like, "Yes, check out my nails." Just how they play with each other and how they influence each other.
Early on in the lockdown that we're now coming up a year on, as we were all struggling, when we hit the lockdown immediately, and it was like, "Okay, now what? We can't leave the house and there's no school." I busted out the Lego that I actually had bought for the daughter who never really got into it. I introduced it to our son who, again, was I guess about three-and-a-half at that time, almost four. Thankfully for us, the first two months of the lockdown, he could literally go from morning to night just making Lego, playing Lego, which was great. You could see his mental progression in it.
I only mention this because as his skills progressed and he learned to make more complicated things, I could see my daughter coming back around going like, "That's interesting, I want to do that." There was this point where, and I remember this very distinctly because he makes a lot of vehicles, trucks, cars, airplanes, spaceships, she never went that path. She would tell me, "Well, I don't want to play Lego. I can't make that stuff." I'm like, "You don't need to compete with your brother. You make really good buildings," because she started to make buildings which he has never tried to do. It's just interesting how his development of Lego has then boomeranged over to my daughter who now has started to play more and to exercise her imagination a little bit more than she had prior. Just to see how they influence each in the kinds of things that they do I think has been not always a challenge. It's certainly interesting.
To go back to the challenge thing for us, right now, the biggest challenge I think for us is bridging the age gap. Two and a half feels like it's not much but the difference between a five-year-old and a seven-year-old is a lot different than a 16 and 18. One of the things, in particular, that I've been struggling with recently is movie night. You and I have talked about movie nights a lot. I know that you guys, movie night, it's smooth for you. You've got it down. For us, it's still a challenge. When we started, it was like, "Okay, well, how do we determine who chooses the movie?" We rotated off. What we found is that the movies that our daughter wants to watch, they just scare our son too much. He's more sensitive. The kinds of things that he wants to watch like PJ Mask, or Octonauts, or short 20-minute episodes, it's not super interesting for our daughter. After going back and forth and a bunch of fights about this and starting movies and then he leaves after five minutes because he's scared, the way that we handle it now is I pick and it usually is a documentary from Disney+ like Secrets of the Zoo: Tampa Bay. Which we can all get behind, but it's not quite the same as watching a movie. I don't know, it doesn't feel special, at least for me. It doesn't feel like it's the same experience. That's one of the big challenges that we have.
The other thing is as our daughter has grown and gotten more capable in terms of what she's able to do-- I've always been very fond of board games, and I think of board games as being conduits for "secret learning". A lot of the board games or games that I have some sort of mechanic-- It's not just the strategy stuff, but it might a math mechanic that underpins the gameplay. She's obviously able to do that whereas he is not. He is getting to the point where he wants to play the same games that we play, which can be difficult. Sometimes, if he's okay playing his own game, there will times where I'll take a turn with her and then when my turn is done, I turn to him and there's a completely separate game I'm playing with him like Chutes and Ladders on the left with the boy and King of Tokyo on the right with the girl. That's been something that I've been trying to bridge because I do want to foster his love of those types of games because I have that love and our daughter certainly does. It's like, "How do we get him to a point where we can all play together?" Sometimes it's changing the rules fairly dramatically so that he can participate, but it is hard when she wants to play the actual way the game is played and he can't understand the mechanics yet. We're starting to see that delineation between just where their minds are at in terms of what they're capable of doing. At this point, it's really the big challenge for us at this point.
Jim: We've had a very similar experience. We have a game night once a week after our family meeting on Sundays. We had a problem with trying to come up with what game we're going to play, so we decided once a week, everyone's going to pick. The youngest first, then the oldest, and then my wife, and then me. Every week we get to pick a game, but it's very hard. The movie thing, not so much. They figured out how to-- They watch a lot of TV, frankly. They're on par with each other, so we can get away with that.
For the games, because there is that cognitive and developmental level too, it is hard to find a game that we all enjoy that's all fun. When it's the youngest trying to pick a game, it's-- There's a game called Duck-A-Roo which is basically a counting and a memory game, a very simple memory game. We go to any of the older games or those younger games, obviously, the older daughter just cleans up on any-
[laughter]
Host: It's no mercy.
Jim: She just dunks on the rest of us mercilessly. Then the older one, we've got to make sure that we're playing a game that the youngest one wants to be engaged in as well. I've felt like that I've been missing on that opportunity of playing games with my older one because I feel like we have to keep it at the lowest common denominator. Your idea of the separate games is great. I think I can try that and play maybe a one-on-one game with the oldest and keep the other entertained. To your point that developmental gap it's difficult to find things to do collectively that are going to both hit their interests, keep them engaged, and also be developmentally appropriate.
Host: As we think about from top to bottom, from the beginning of this new chapter of life to where we are now, what do you feel are the big differences between having one child versus two?
Jim: Everybody lied to me. They probably lied to you too. The second is so much easier, and it was. The second one was much easier. We had some complications with the older one that she was very needy, and it was somewhat stressful. The youngest one really was just a breeze, she was just a piece of cake, but everyone, when they tell you that the second is easier, they forget that you already have a kid. Having two kids is much harder than having just a second kid by themselves. My friends that have three kids, they talk about the zone defense or whatever. It's nice that we can still do the one-on-one, but because we have that one-on-one, we have to be very cognizant of spending time with both of them and making sure that we have one-on-one time with each of them. We call it special daddy-daughter time or mommy-daughter time and make sure that we're giving them that attention.
Like I said, with the attachment parenting, it's really easy to hang out with the one that's tugging on your pant leg and to make an effort to be involved in both of them. I say that the whole like, do you have a favorite kid? Not that that's come up yet, but I told my oldest one that she's always going to be special because she was my firstborn. I'd tell the youngest one that she's always special because she was my baby, she was the one that was born second. In some way, letting them understand that it's not I want to call them number one and number two, that's not a ranking. She was first and she was second. The sister relationship that I alluded to earlier has been really interesting to watch. That's not a challenge. It's something that's just a pleasure to see that the secondary nurturing instinct that the sister has for her younger one. It's really sweet.
Host: I like what you said about the whole favorite thing. We haven't gotten there either yet. I'm curious. Have you ever read that book You're All My Favorites?
Jim: No.
Host: It's a book that we got when our daughter was younger. I don't remember. I actually don't remember where we got it, but it is exactly what you just said. It's the story of three bears and they're all like, "Well, which one's the favorite?" One of the bears is like, "Those guys have to be the favorite because it's the first one and that bear's brown and I'm black," or, "That bear's gray and I'm yellow." You go through the process of all the three bears saying, "Oh, well, I can't be the favorite." They asked the dad, and the dad does exactly what you said, "You're my favorite because, whatever, you're the first one. You're my favorite because you're the yellow one." Actually, until you had brought this up, it's not something that I had ever read into the book, but I'm like, it totally makes sense now. I get it. I do wonder now if somebody gave this to us when we had our second child and knew way more than I did at the time, this is going to come up potentially. This lays the early groundwork. I thought that was funny. I like that story.
I think that the difference in having two kids is you understand the baby is not the difficult part. You already know the signs of hunger, you know how to change a diaper, you've got your system ironed out about the nighttime routine, and all that stuff, but you're now having to manage this other thing that may or may not need you. What happens is your time becomes really stretched thin whereas before, one person could handle the child.
Jim: True.
Host: Now you either have both parents are occupied or one parent's occupied with both kids. The worst scenario could be that both kids gravitate towards one parent, and now that parent is overloaded. This is something that I see a lot is that one parent feels left out, like, "Wait a minute. I'm a parent too. Why don't these kids like me? What's going on?" At least if it's a one-on-one, I know I got one kid, I'm the favorite of this one kid. I think sometimes the, not psychological, but more of the emotional part plays into the second child, and also, just that lack of time, it just exacerbates some of the challenges that you might have with the first child.
The other thing that I found was you're forced to think about that second child more than you might if you just had one. Again, in those first few weeks and months, I was always very aware of what our older daughter was experiencing. Especially when you start having friends over or family members over for the first time, and they're seeing the newborn and all that attention gets lavished on the newborn. Meanwhile, your firstborn is sitting there on the side, like, "Wait a minute. It used to be they would always come see me and play with me. Why is everybody over there?"
I think you start to think about those things in the early stages. Obviously, they get older, everybody adjusts, but in those first few weeks or months, however you have it planned when people come and see the newborn, I think that's the thing that I was hypervigilant about it.
It's interesting because you notice that some people also were attuned to that and they go, "Oh, you noticed it." They just spend like a minute or two with a newborn and then they'll come back and spend a lot of time with your oldest. I don't know if that's because, at the time, I don't remember if it was because they were parents of two and they've been through it or if maybe they were a second or a third-born where they felt like, "When I was growing up, I'd never got any attention," so they see where the attention goes and they go in the opposite direction. I always thought that that was interesting to see.
The other thing that I think is a challenge with having two, and a lot of parents bring this up, is that just the second child can get the short end of the stick a lot of times because when it's the first child, the first time your first child walks, it's like a miracle. When your second child walks for the first time, it's like, "Oh, great, a milestone." It's just the importance and the event it's just it's different because you've already experienced it. I think to be aware of that, I would hazard a guess that if you pulled every person you know with two children, there are fewer pictures of the second child than of the first, even if you're constantly thinking about the second child. It can get to an extreme. I'll just give one example. I have a friend who she's the third child, and she says there just aren't a lot of photos of me growing up. She mentioned this as an adult.
Jim: Especially back in the day when it was real film.
Host: Right. The fact that this comes up as an adult, says to me that somewhere it has affected her that there's a ton of pictures of the firstborn a little bit less than the second, and a birth picture of her, and a graduation picture of her, nothing in between. I think that that can be a challenge.
Jim: We all know the joke about the baby book, and we had the same thing. The first one's baby book just complete, little clips of hair, and all the photos, and all the little stories. My wife had done like a thought a day for the first year and wrote something down every day. Second one. No, there's no baby book. I don't even know if we tried.
Host: Hand me downs. Actually, our son is wearing some jeggings for my daughter right now. [laughs] He's still at that age or whatever. It's different. I think being aware of that, hopefully, at least mitigates that so that our second-born when he's older has more than just those one or two pictures. That is always something that I try and keep a top of mind. It was funny, I was talking to a parent and she had a-- It was in school. This was last year or I guess the year before, it was pre-COVID. There was like an end-of-the-year concert or something and she wasn't there. I felt so bad for her daughter because her daughter was crying off in the corner. I went over to her and I said, "Hey, I got you covered. I took a video," because I always take the videos. I'm like, "I took a video. I'm going to send it to your mom. It's going to be fine." When I talked to the mom confidently, she's like, "Whatever, it's the second child. I've been through this before." [laughs] It's in jest, but there is a kernel of truth to this like, "It's just different the second time around." I think as long as you're aware of that, hopefully, the child will never recognize that. I think that's the important part is that they never think that they're the second fiddle to the firstborn. That, I think it's the most important lesson out of all of that.
I've talked a lot about the negative stuff, but it's funny because you and I have, I think, the exact same benefit, which is to me, it's having two kids and seeing their relationship. It's so special. In particular, those moments when they are thoughtful or helping one another out. Sometimes it's just these little daily things. Like there's one last piece of whatever and the older child wants it, but she knows that the younger boy wants it, she'll give it to him. This happens frequently when you split it in half and then he just shoved the whole thing in his mouth, and now he's like, "Right," and she's like, "Okay, I'll give you some of mine because you just inhaled that." Also, I find it really special too, in particular, when our youngest, the boy, does something special and thoughtful for the sister because I don’t always want her to think like, "Well, you have to compromise because you're the oldest," because I think that can tend to be a thing like, "All right, you're the oldest. Suck it up." I always appreciate when he does something nice when he goes out of his way to do the reverse like, "Oh, you want some of my pie? I haven’t finished it all. Have [unintelligible 00:40:31]" whatever. Those little moments of interaction when they're getting along and it's just not like faith and humanity restored. You see the good in these relationships and you see the good in people. Again, it can be just little, little things that happened on a daily basis. It's not some grand gesture, but that is so special to me.
Jim: One of the things we saw recently was or that I saw recently was the older one standing up for the younger one. We were out on the sidewalk, and the neighbor kids came by, and the neighbor kids said something insensitive, the toddler, say to the younger one. The older one just snapped to it, stepped in front of her, and stood up tall, and like, "Don’t talk to my sister that way." It was fascinating to see because it's entirely instinctual. It came from a deeper truer place than I think I've ever seen.
Host: I'm curious also, what I've noticed is when we have playdates with, say, only children that are our daughter's age, so the seven-year-old, our daughter is always good about including the younger one in. What is your daughter's relationships like? Does your oldest one bring the youngest one in? Because that also can be a thing where the oldest one is like, "Look, you're always following me around. You're trying to be like me. Get away." What have you seen with your kids?
Jim: Particularly since COVID when we have so few playdates and so few people that we see, we've really made a point to make it inclusive and tell the older one that she's got to include her younger one, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem. I think it's good for the younger one to be involved with the older play. She gets better modeling. We try to drive home the inclusion part. If one of them has a friend over that they both have a friend over, but then we also have times where it's specifically a playdate for just that one or just the younger one, and sometimes it's hard for the younger one to understand, but she's going to have her own playdate with her own friend. The older one is going to have her own playdate, but when we do have interactions in some like your family or we've got some other families in the neighborhood that have kids that are almost the same age as the older and the younger, so we can have these four-way playdates that seem to work out really well.
Host: Those are some of our experiences with having two kids. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions around fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions for us, hit us up on the Facebook page facebook.com/papaestfatigue. That’s P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
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