I’ve become quite adept at claiming hand-me-downs with bambino numero tre. Maternity wardrobe? Yes please. Tiny infant clothes? Sure. Gently-used baby stuff? Don’t mind if I do. I feel truly blessed by my community of moms for paying it forward and I’m happy to do the same.

For the most part, my washing machine does all the dirty work and my family saves hundreds of dollars by not purchasing new gear.

One amazing benefactor, my friend Lisa, a stylish mom of twin boys, has even handed me back some of the cute mini clothes that my older boys wore as babies.

Recently Lisa offered me a well-loved exersaucer-jumper that just needed a little elbow grease. My big guys, armed with a few Q-tips and toothpicks dipped in soap to clean out the crevices, made it shine like new. The washer ate up the gunk on the fabric. Sawyer loves it; Holden and Milo were proud to give it to him.

I later learned that Q-tips Precision Tips could have done the job of both the regular swabs and toothpicks combined. Fortunately, there are many more cleaning tasks in my near future.

We are giving away three $50 gift cards.
Comment about any terrific hand-me-down baby product you’ve either given or received before February 16 and be entered to win a $50 gift card to spend at Amazon.com. We will choose three commenters at random after we close the comments on that day. More rules here.

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Disclosure: this is a sponsored post by Q-tips as part of the Tipster Ambassador program. All opinions, creative ideas, and baby toes are ours.

It will suck {My personal studies have shown that as long as you expect it to suck, it will probably be okay}.

the easy kind of flying with a baby

You will be pooped on. If your child is beyond the poo’splosion age, expect a bottle to burst, projectile vomit, overturned apple juice, or a simple pee accident. To combat this reality, pack 1 diaper per hour of travel and an extra set of jammies. I love pajamas because they pack up nice and small. Throw in an extra shirt for yourself too.

You will lose stuff. Hopefully, you only lose the poop-stained jammies, but it might be a precious security object, important part of your breast pump, or your cell phone charger. Expect it, roll with it.

You will annoy other passengers. Being the person with the crying baby is no fun. It might make you sweat (it makes me sweat). This coming trip I’m packing two packs of earplugs for every passenger within hearing range; it might not help, but they’ll know I’m trying.

Your kid will be in pain. I don’t know whether teething will start, an ear infection will blossom, or tummy troubles will kick in. I always pack children’s pain reliever in my carry-on even if everyone boarded the plane healthy. That stuff comes in handy!

There will be delays. Whether it’s an airplane stuck on the runway or stopping every 77 minutes to feed a baby on a roadtrip. Expect it to take longer and be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong (I’m not wrong!).

Your sleep will get effed up for days. Expect an approximate four-day reentry window to train your little one to sleep and wake on schedule again. Coming and going. Room darkening shades can be your best friend but, as with everything else, you might as well plan for sleepless nights.

We do have a few tips and tricks, but I truly find that managing my own expectations and expecting an adventure is more than half the battle. But here you go, some friendly advice:

• Round-up of tips for traveling with a baby
• How to minimize sleep disruption by Nicole Johnson
• Beyond baby, tips for flying with a toddler
• Stop lugging car seats on airplanes
• 10 tips for breastfeeding during the holidays (travel, cocktails, etc.)

Happy Holidays, all! I’m getting on an airplane with my newly minted family of five soon. Can you tell I’m nervous? We can’t even fit in one car when we get there!

My little baby Sawyer is three months old. Yay. He smiles now. He gurgles and coos. He is delightfully what every pregnant woman thinks they will get when they come home from the hospital. Know what I mean? He’s not quite so wobbly, there is a LOT less shrieking, and he can sleep for some good long stretches (sometimes*).

Reflections on the first three months: Cuddly and sweet-smelling with a little torture thrown in.

Being a baby mama for the third time meant that I was very well supported by my local and Internet parenting community. Hand-me-downs, twitter advice, and generous surprises of FOOD were so abundant and lovely. So, thanks for that.

But regardless of my prior experience, mothering a newborn is hard (albeit snuggly) work. Whitney told me that six weeks of sleep deprivation is actually considered torture, and I believe her. There were hours at a time when Soy Bean would only sleep on me. And only if I was on the move. If I was well-fed and hydrated (and didn’t have to pee), those were cuddly, happy moments. But if I needed to brush my teeth or make someone’s lunch, ugh!

Help. Can't. Reach. Coffee.

These are a few of my favorite things:

• You already know I love my iPhone.
• Miracle swaddling blanket and Fisher Price side-to-side lamb swing combo. Once Sawyer stopped sleeping only on my body, we moved him into the swing in the adjacent room swaddled up. See the photo to see how we safely rigged him in there. Now getting him out of this sleeping arrangement and into a crib will be my next challenge!
  
• Philips Avent video monitor. We had a normal audio-only monitor in the past but I admit it, I really like watching “sleeping baby TV.” A setting lets me turn the screen off unless he’s making noise too. **
• Hygeia breast pump. I first heard of the Enjoye when Kristen called it the best breast pump you’ve never heard of on Cool Mom Picks. Unlike nearly every other pump, it can be safely shared and handed down to other moms rather than cluttering the landfills. Yay! I am so grateful to Kate for sending one to me and I can’t wait to pass it along to the next mama!  After we finish using it every day.

Some moments, like this one, when he takes a long nap and I can catch my breath, all I want to do is look at pictures of him.

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Disclosures, Notes, and Whatnot:

The first three months of this baby’s life were more than a little challenging. Not sure how dark I can get and still be more fun than wiping someone’s tushy, I kept it light. But my gal Whitney remembers it with more clarity. She says, “You felt really terrible and never wanted to leave the house. Nursing hurt. Your back hurt. Your coochie, I don’t know. Your mental state was er, no comment.”

* Don’t get me wrong. We’re not sleeping through the night and to imply that would be to jinx any hope we have of doing so in the near term.

** This monitor was sent to me for free as a replacement for an older model Philips baby monitor that is no longer working. I reviewed that model years ago as part of the Parent Bloggers Network.

We are delighted to share our space with Christine Koh today. She is our second guest blogger on the topic of having a second child.

When I saw Heather and Whitney post their reader query about whether or not to have a second child, my immediate thought was, If only it was as simple as deciding yes or no. I come from a large family (seven kids) and conceived my daughter Laurel quickly once my husband and I decided we were ready to start a family. However, our decision to have a second child was followed by several years of confusion and heartache when I couldn’t conceive. I felt like a failure, particularly whenever Laurel begged me for a sibling.

I “came out” about my infertility on my personal blog in one sentence, but the process of writing that post and putting it out there, then absorbing the subsequent outpouring of love and response was truly cathartic. Not long after that experience, I made my peace. I donated my baby gear. I happily ramped up my client work. I was content.

And then I learned I was pregnant. Of course.

To say that I was shocked is an understatement. The day I learned I was pregnant, we were overrun with family visitors and I was on my way out to an event. I literally handed my husband the pregnancy test, curtly said “We can discuss this later,” and walked out the door. There was no jumping up and down, only shock. Jon and I didn’t even have a chance to talk about it until a few days later. By this point I had taken another couple of pregnancy tests (including one at an already scheduled annual checkup). It took time for my husband, 5-year-old daughter Laurel (who also made her peace after I told her it didn’t seem like I could grow more babies), and me to move from shock and confusion to joy and anticipation.

Only you will know whether you are ready pragmatically (e.g., Can we support a second child?) and internally (e.g., “Do I feel ready?”) to expand your family, but here is what we have found in having a second child:

• I worried about Laurel having had our exclusive attention for 6 years. We were so entrenched in our routine and time together. Would I have enough to give to another baby? To Laurel? The answer is yes, there is always enough love to go around.
• If you decide to wait and revisit the topic of expanding your family later, don’t worry. Big gaps are good. Laurel and Violet are 6.5 years apart and it is fantastic. Laurel helps with Violet, she’s old enough to take instruction and help herself to things (e.g., if I’m nursing and can’t get up to help her), and she’s also old enough to have her own playdates and special sleepovers with her grandparents, which I think is a contributing factor to why we have not seen any jealousy issues so far.
• Yes, the first month is hard. For me, it wasn’t so much about sleep deprivation as it was about coping with the freakish boob fluctuation associated with nursing, and the recovery following 58 hours of labor. But you do come out of the fog, and there’s this chubby, smiling baby gurgling at you on the other side.
• People are incredibly generous and will help you. We were immensely touched by the kindness as people came by with meals, to snuggle Violet so I could nap, and to pick up Laurel for playdates to save us the trip and to give her a little extra attention.
• You don’t need to spend a lot of money to prepare for a second baby. We had next to nothing since I had given most of our baby things away. We received tons of baby clothes and gear at my secondhand baby showerand after Violet was born, people came by with more things to fill in the gaps. Honestly, I have barely spent any money at all – the only baby-related things I think I have purchased since Violet was born include breast pads and Seventh Generation diapers and wipes. For real.
• Bizarrely, even though I run multiple businesses, I wasn’t terribly worried about keeping up. I didn’t schedule formal maternity leave and winged it. It all worked out fine. Part of this is because I love my work so it didn’t feel onerous getting back to it, and part of it was because Violet slept so much in her first month that it was easy to poke in and keep work projects moving.
• It is possible to maintain relationships — you just have to make it a priority and enlist help. My husband makes it possible for me to visit with friends and travel for work. My mom made it possible for Jon and I to go out on our first date not too long after Violet was born. And we have a couple of great babysitters too. If money is tight, consider swapping sitting with other mom friends – watch her kids one night and she can watch yours another.

So there you have it. I suggest that you evaluate the pragmatics and internals. If the pro column outweighs the con column, take the goalie out of the net, as it were, and put your faith in the universe. If the con column outweighs the pros, live your life as a family of three to the fullest.In my eyes, it’s win-win either way.

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Christine Koh is the founder and editor of Boston Mamas, the designer behind Posh Peacock, and writes a personal blog at Pop Discourse. She lives with her husband Jon, 7-year-old daughter Laurel, and 7-month-old daughter Violet in the Boston area. She tweets about it all at @bostonmamas.

I want to continue the discussion about having a second child. I have two kids. I never thought about having less. Sure, I’ve thought about more, but the feeling that my family is complete has stopped me. Perhaps I’ll never give up on the fantasy of a victory baby that gets conceived the old-fashioned way, but let’s hope that by the time I’m fifty, I’ll have moved on.

Anyhow, I’ve heard people say that two kids are “more than twice the work”, and I wonder if you guys with two kids agree. Increasingly, I observe that just having one of them around feels like half the work. With only one child in my charge, there are fewer obstacles to pleasure and less conflict resolution. (However, I do adore how much my children play together and think it’s wonderful for them AND for me.)

I am no longer embarassed to put in writing that I was afraid of being left alone with my own two children when my daughter was a small baby. I hated that feeling. I felt sad and ashamed to feel unequipped to care for the kids I chose to have, but I didn’t want my husband to leave the house. (That phase passed, by the way. Now he can travel for three or four days without me calling in for reinforcements.)

In terms of logistics, I’m torn on assessing the load. On one hand, I’ve got so much knowledge gained from my first child, that the second one doesn’t require as much research or anxiety. We already had a pediatrician, know how to hire a babysitter, knew what to expect in terms of breastfeeding and sleeping. We didn’t research preschools for #2 because we already had one we liked. And so on.

On the other hand, I currently have kids at two different schools. That’s two drop-offs, two pickups, and two different vacation schedules, which sometimes don’t align. On Halloween, I went back and forth three times between the two schools for parades and parties in order to be there for both of my children. A special event for one child might require finding childcare for the other one. In these cases, perhaps it is more than twice the work. But my personal mathematical definitions makes it add up to exactly twice.

What do you think? Is each additional child of equal weight in demands on the parents? Does it depend on their spacing? Let’s not forget how much the first child rocks one’s world. Did you feel that your second child was as much an adjustment as the first?

I had a hard time naming Sawyer. Although I do like to retain an air of mystery by not sharing a baby’s name until he is born, this time, I was not playing coy: I didn’t know either.

Rookie Dad Alec and I started off with no ideas at all. When I asked if people thought it was ok to “steal” a baby name from a friend, you all weighed in. We ended up with lot of opinions on my original question, but also a new list of 86 more boy names. Yes EIGHTY SIX MORE BOY NAMES!

I created a google doc of “names we don’t hate” and by the time I was eight months pregnant, we had narrowed it down to eleven names with two front-runners. Unfortunately we hadn’t decided when baby brother joined our family a few weeks early.

In the hospital, we alternated calling him each of the two favored names. Our families were restless and inquisitive. We flipped a coin.*

* We didn’t really flip a coin. We chose Sawyer because it is literary (Mark Twain), ends with R, has a rugged meaning, was a television character (yes, LOST!), and has a slight association with Australia. And also because I had just seen this article predicting that my existing sons’ names were about to explode with popularity so I stopped trying so hard to be clever.

I asked my friend Deborah to weigh in on the decision to have a second baby. I know that Deb doesn’t throw caution to the wind when it comes to major life decisions, so I am happy to share her contribution to this discussion.

I was thrilled and relieved that Whitney asked me to weigh on the current Rookie Mom’s discussion about whether or not to have a second child.  Thrilled because I love Whitney and Heather’s site and feel humbled by the request to do a guest post; relieved because this is something my husband and I have been talking about for months and I need to finally put pen to paper to untangle help some of my thoughts.

I sit down and write this with a sense of irony because I’m already seven months pregnant with number two.  So I guess you could say I’m rationalizing the decision rather than making it, but I don’t think the thought process needs to be significantly different for someone who is considering a second (or third or fourth) rather than preparing for one who is already mid-cook.

First of all, I believe that you can’t make a wrong decision here.  If you decide to have another kid, that’s great.  If you decide not to have another kid, that’s great too.  It’s 100% up to you because you are the only one who lives in your skin and know what you are willing to live with.  I guess I should slightly modify that last declaration and say that it’s 100% up to you and your partner, but quite honestly, if you’re not 100% on board it may not matter what your partner believes.  Yes, marriage is about compromise but let’s be realistic here.  Agreeing to spend Christmas with your family and Thanksgiving with your in-laws is one thing, but agreeing to care for a human life for a minimum of 18 years is another.  You need to figure out what you want to sign up for in your life.

To be quite honest, we were ambivalent about having kids. (Leah and Number Two: When you are old enough to read this, please don’t take this ambivalence personally.  It was before we knew you!)  We decided that if it was meant to be, it would happen but we were not going to go to any great measures to procreate.  Well, it happened and it’s been wonderful.  Sure, it’s been hard, stressful, exhausting and so on, but a life with our 18-month old Leah is much better than a life without her.

So that gets us to the matter at hand: whether or not to have #2.  I remember three conversations that led to our decision.  The first was with two friends who are only children.  While they lamented not having dedicated playmates as children, they believe it’s harder now as an adult.  No matter how much your spouse or your friends care about your own parents, at the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility lands on the offspring.  And without any siblings, that leaves one person in charge.  Families are messy and a sibling is no guarantee of any sort of support system, but it certainly increases one’s chances.  The second conversation was the first in which I tossed out the idea of having another baby to my husband.  I think the exchange lasted for about the two blocks and the conclusion was yes, we were open to it.  Sometime between that conversation and Leah’s first birthday we talked about it again.  This time we discussed the fact that there was no guarantee that our siblings will have kids, so not only could Leah be an only child, but an only child without cousins.  There is a lot of love in our family and channeling two parents, four grandparents, an aunt and an uncle’s worth of love all on one kid seemed a bit intense.  Why not distribute the love across at least one more person?

In the end, it came down to gut and timing.  The thought of Leah being an only child made me sad.  I don’t know why, but it just did.  And I try to trust my gut.  Also, the decision was kind of made for us.  I think I was off the pill for about five minutes before getting pregnant with number two.  That’s when any remnant of wavering (and there was quite a bit) turned into rationalizing.  (On another topic: could ambivalence increase fertility?)

Name an emotion and we’re feeling it right now: fear, anxiety, excitement, dread, hope, joy, anticipation, submission, surprise, love. 

The thought that there is a decent chance we might get another kid like Leah is reason enough to be over the moon.  But if we just had one Leah, that would be okay, too.  Again, no wrong decisions can be made.

I am due in January and there is no doubt that 2012 will be a dark year.  There will be a lot of things we will not be able to easily do, life will be more expensive, and sleep may be nonexistent.  But it’s easy to get caught up in the baby years because that’s all we know.  At some point in the not so distant future, we exit the hazing phase and start to experience a more “normal” life as a family: movie nights eating popcorn on the couch, art projects, hand me downs, giggle fits at the kitchen table, fighting in the back seat of the car, playing house/school/monster invasion/whatever they can imagine.  At the end of the day, the decision was simple: Most things come in sets of four, not three.  Therefore, I thought our family should, too.

photos courtesy of Deborah Kelson. Read more of Deb’s experiences with motherhood on her blog.

We received this letter and thought our readers could extend some empathy and perspective to “Kate”, who is having trouble deciding if another child is in the cards for her and her husband. I wrote her a note below, but I hope you’ll respond as well.

Dear Rookie Moms,

My little girl is turning two this month and I’m starting to process the idea of having a second child, but not feeling like I come to any good conclusion about what to do. Growing up I always assumed I’d have two kids. I held onto that thought until I gave birth. Then, my immediate reaction was, “No way am I ever doing that again!” That feeling has faded, but the challenges of juggling work, home, parenting, marriage, friendships and family relationships has not. Some days I feel like we get through better than okay and have a great time. Other days I want to walk out the door and never return.

So, I find myself wondering the following: Can I handle having a second child and stay sane and like my life? And, how do I make that decision?

Any input from other moms on how you made the decision to have or not have more kids would be very welcome!

Thanks,

Kate

Dear Kate,

“Will I like my life?” is a powerful and important question.

Although I personally felt no hesitation in having a second child, I have absolute respect and understanding of why you do. (P.S. I was totally compensating for being an only child myself, so my motivation was transparent and unwavering.)

I know that Heather waffled for a long time on a third child and made a pros and cons list in addition to using a Dr. Phil-inspired exercise of embracing the intention NOT TO for one week and seeing how that feels… and then the following week, embracing the intention to GO FOR IT to see how that feels. I think that means saying things to yourself like, “When the baby comes, we’ll move near my mother/buy a ski house/work an extra job” or “When Eve goes to elementary school, I’ll invest in my brother’s company/get a dog to keep me company/plan to spend summers in Europe.”

I would also think about what each unit of five years might look like with or without another child – the under 5 years, elementary school, high school, college – because it’s easy to focus on having another “baby” and forget that you’re signing on for another person in your family.

Other questions to ask yourself: How will you feel if you were surprised by a pregnancy? What advice would you give to someone else who asked you, “Should I have a baby at all?”

Cheering you on,

Whitney

We would love to hear from other women who planned their childbearing thoughtfully and what swayed you to have a second child.

I met Dana as @civil3diva on twitter. She offered me her best lessons learned that helped make the transition to baby #3 smoother than the one with baby #2. I love her suggestions and I can see myself doing some of them!

I have some hazy but not unpleasant memories of missing sleep and being knee-deep in unwashed onesies when my first child was a newborn. When her baby brother arrived three and a half years later, I was completely unprepared for the mayhem. It seemed easy on paper. I would be “home” while I worked freelance. I greatly underestimated caring for an infant while juggling work, preschool, swimming lessons, music class and even just breakfast for a three year old. My first two are now seven and three and a half. Six weeks ago, we welcomed a new baby brother.

Here are some things I learned from the second baby that have served us well since his arrival:

1. Simplify and Document the Morning Routine.

If possible, have someone else take it over for a few weeks. This has made a huge difference in our household sanity this time around.

I remember finally getting to sleep on the night-shift only to be woken up at 6:30AM by little fingers poking me in the eye. This time, I asked my husband and any visiting family to handle mornings. I’d rather have my spouse take 1 hour of vacation per day to do mornings for six weeks than a solid week off.

We have whiteboards for each big kid that spell out what they need for that day.

We gave everyone low maintenance haircuts and switched breakfast to easy foods that they can reach and don’t generate a lot of dishes like: yogurt, granola bars, cheese sticks, dry cheerios. Our first grader gets up to an alarm clock and gets herself dressed. We sort her laundry into a sweater organizer that contains five days of complete outfits including socks and underwear.

2. Put a bed in the baby’s room

I never saw the point of having two of us completely exhausted in the morning, especially once my husband went back to work, so I didn’t like the idea of having the baby in our room at night. The new baby’s room took our guestroom, so I put a twin bed with storage underneath in there along with the crib. I can sleep near the baby and feed him at night without waking anyone else or walking across the whole house. I know I am not getting much more sleep than I did with the other two, but somehow I feel much more rested. A temporary bed would do the trick, too.

3. Lower expectations

It all looked so easy when I plotted my life out in MS Project. I’d get the big kid to school, feed the baby and write my textbooks while the baby slept. I was stupid enough to think I might even be bored. Instead, I wrote to-do lists like “Laundry, Write a chapter, Get Baby to stop crying, Get myself to stop crying.”

This time, I took as much leave as I could handle without going broke. I asked my husband to take some time off. Last time, I wanted things to remain “normal”- which meant more than once I was dragging my daughter with one hand and carrying the baby in the other while running late to a swimming lesson where she ultimately refused to swim. Nobody seems to mind that we’ve cut back, and we’re all much more relaxed.

I am sure baby number three will kick my rear in all kinds of surprising ways over the next thirty or so years, but I will say that his first six weeks have been very fun. It’s been almost like having a first baby again because our big kids are old enough to feel the joy as well. I’m taking lots of notes so that if I do something stupid, like say, have another one, I can fine tune my systems even more.

Thank you Dana!

I asked the lovely Audrey from MomGenerations to share her secrets for getting a big posse of little boys out the door and off to daycare, preschool, and school. She has four boys, so she knows what she’s talking about!

Do you have any tips to help get a gaggle of little ones out the door?

Thanks so much Audrey for sharing your ideas!

Sawyer was one day old

Yep, that’s my baby boy as photographed in the hospital last week. He’s a cuddly little guy that is happiest on me. Since he wasn’t due until next week, I’m trying to cut him a little slack on this point. Since he’s riding in the most awesome swing ever right now, I might have about seven minutes to type this up for you.

We already did the first of the rookie moms challenges on one of our recent super short walks through the neighborhood. I’m hoping to be a good example and do all 52. Yes, I’m that crazy. Speaking of crazy, I made it to Milo’s first day of preschool my third day home from the hospital (and totally regretted dragging swollen body out of bed) and Holden’s back-to-school night for first grade. Apart from these outings, I’m cocooning.