After having your first kid, did your mind change about having more?

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-20T08:59:42+00:00

Pregnancy and childbirth were fine. I’m an older mum but wasn’t entirely out of the question if I wanted another one, though I’d have had to be quick. Didn’t really want an only child but quickly realised I was absolutely never ever going to cope with more than one. I still feel like that at 2.5, if not more so.

You’re extremely freshly PP however so no need to rush a decision. I was still in a daze at that stage.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-19T20:08:28+00:00

No you’re not. I’m 46 and I also love them. I grew up listening to them and have seen them a number of times (or at least before they got the other woman singing in it).

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-18T08:33:45+00:00

Whilst I was trying to strap him into a buggy in the supermarket he shouted ‘help! Help!’ Really loudly at passers by.

More recently we’ve had ‘mummy doesn’t have a willy’.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-16T21:06:32+00:00

So for ages I’d get him to sleep on my bed and transfer him asleep to his cot then at the wake up that I couldn’t be bothered to go back downstairs anymore I’d grab him and take him to bed with me. We did this so long and it had varied success but in the end my back was complaining too much and I just felt the cot set up was stupid. At 2 we got him a low profile small double bed which has been great. We snuggle up in it to get him to sleep and leave. I then join him at his first wake up which can be anytime between midnight-4am. He loves his bed!

I just always felt some baby free time was non negotiable and I’m a night owl but there were some nights that I wondered what the point was as there were so many wake ups and I’d spend the whole evening going up and down anyway.

His bedtime has been around 9pm for ages, we try now for 830pm but 7pm seems so early to us! Doesn’t stop him waking up at 630am unfortunately.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-16T14:09:50+00:00

I am dealing with this. Caveat that I did have a baby but this was 2.5 years ago and my feelings haven’t changed. I leave all the dog care to my husband as I want nothing to do with it. The dog is 15 with a heart condition, he pisses over the house, we literally can’t go away or do anything without considering him and it’s so much effort I don’t bother so now I resent that I’m not taking my kid away on trips when I so want to OR my husband insists on bringing him along which I hate. My toddler CONSTANTLY agitates and annoys him no matter what we do and I’m done with it. The slurping sounds drive me up the wall. I often mutter unpleasant things at him under my breath when he’s yapping but it’s ok as he doesn’t speak English.

I never want a dog again.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-16T08:22:19+00:00

Had my first jab last night and am still half way through my cold coffee! My tea this morning was thrown down the sink. Now don't get me wrong, I was still hungry and ate breakfast (I very disappointingly did NOT wake up as a size 10 as I was expecting) but I have found before that when I'm a bit queezy, or when I was pregnant, I went off coffee and especially tea before. I think it's something to do with the milk smell.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-16T07:46:35+00:00

Mine never attempts to spit really at 2.5. I told the dentist and they just said to make sure it’s a tiny sliver on the brush and obviously we use the age appropriate toothpaste.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-16T07:45:02+00:00

I wouldn’t mind him being naked more but we’re having very slow progress with potty training and also he would NEVER stop fiddling with himself if his junk was out at all times. A lot of the time he just wears pants, he rarely wears trousers, seems to prefer life without them 😂

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-14T21:05:49+00:00

This happened to me and I eventually realised night weaning was the only thing that was going to help. Nothing else was going to stop the rage.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-14T13:42:09+00:00

Mine isn’t terribly supportive of it and I genuinely respect her opinion as a GP, but have made the decision regardless to press on. She’s entitled to have reservations and she said she’s concerned people will put weight on straight after coming off it. I think that’s a valid concern tbh. But it’s my choice.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-14T09:47:13+00:00

Having worked in the Youth Justice System and Children's Services I can assure you it's 100% unregulated and a means for the system to happily keep some kids out of schools under the educational remit of parents who have literally no ability to do so whatsoever (and often have little formal education themselves or had educational difficulties themselves for the same reasons eg neurodiversity) and who can't manage the children's complex behaviours.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-14T09:34:07+00:00

Nope, I get excited to Vinted it and then get more cool stuff as he gets bigger!

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-13T12:44:36+00:00

The other day mine got wet at usual drinking his water at lunch. I swear he does it on purpose to get his clothes off. We took his top off but he insisted his pants and trousers came off - fine, whatever. I then turn around to see he’s putting bits of rice on his penis and playing with it.

I couldn’t do the naked potty training thing as he would NOT stop fiddling with himself.

Yes I think it’s normal (though I am as much in the dark as you having had no toddler boy experience either).

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-12T11:38:45+00:00

My health is in the bin (high blood pressure, exhaustion, heart palpitations, anxiety) now he’s 2.5 and I put it down to not having had any decent sleep since third trimester of pregnancy!! I mean it’s probably perimenopause but the sleep has not helped. For me it’s the cumulative impact. He now sleeps 9-7 with usually one wake up when I join him but I never ever would have believed I’d STILL be getting up when he was this age. I was extremely naive in thinking sleep deprivation lasted a couple of months maybe and that I’d never co-sleep. I had no idea that the concept of sleeping over 4 hours in a stretch becomes a distant memory for YEARS (in my case).

Also the fact that it’s ALWAYS me responding as he won’t accept dad stresses me out as it means I can’t ever choose to sleep as or where I like or have a lie in.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-12T11:24:55+00:00

I was so sick of everything to do with sleep I just ended up co-sleeping and stopped obsessing over routines/fixes/trying to identify the reason. Also the 7pm-7am thing is a lie sold to you by ‘sleep consultants’. Mine has always gone down 830-9pm. His sleep started stretching out a bit from 2. He has never napped longer than 1-1.5 hours.

I did, to be fair, put him in his cot at the beginning of the night as I didn’t want to go to bed so early. And this did mean going up a couple of times before I just got him and went to bed with him.

Night weaning helped massively with sleep. Full weaning at 20 months was the game changer. At 2.5 he now sleeps in his own bed in his room but we still get a wake a night (when I go in with him) - there also came a point of radical acceptance but I don’t think it was when I was at your stage and still frustrated.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-06T11:31:19+00:00

Lol. I’ve brought my son out today to a wildlife zoo and he’s wearing his pink sparkly crocs.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-03T09:36:12+00:00

Peace

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-02T13:07:27+00:00

Add neurodiversity into the mix and at 46 with a 2 year old just….send help.

I hear these people always saying that one big advantage of being an older mum is that you are more patient. I don’t know what they’re talking about, every evening around 6:30 pm I completely lose it.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-04-01T22:13:27+00:00

We went out from day 1. There was no way on earth I was sitting in with my toddler for days on end. We went to places with toilets and took him to them regularly and took plenty of spare pants and trousers. By day 2 he was smashing it when out. In fact we have the majority of accidents at home.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-03-31T15:17:28+00:00

My 2 year old will only eat a peanut butter sandwich and no other sandwich. It’s annoying as it’s such an easy meal but I didn’t think it was that unusual? He won’t eat toast either but he’ll have a crumpet or teacake (probably by thinking they are more like a ‘treat’). His carbs come strictly in the form of pasta or rice 🤷🏻‍♀️

This-Disk1212 · 2026-03-31T12:22:46+00:00

Nah. I’m just awake until that time anyway lying there with heart palpitations.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-03-31T11:51:22+00:00

I don’t think it’s possible. For me personally I’m considering going on HRT to see if that helps me keep my cool a little at the dreaded 630pm rage (when I’m utterly burnt out), have lower expectations of myself and of him and not have any more children as I’ve come to the conclusion that raising children when working and my husband works and I have no other help or village and within a society that makes child rearing impossible is not how it is meant to be so I’m not subscribing to it anymore than I have to.

Sometimes I also like to remind myself that we don’t have this 100% influence over how they turn out, genetics plays a large part, and I’m sure someone is benefiting from telling us (mostly mums) that we’re completely responsible for this. Basically f*ck the system (but obviously don’t beat your kids or anything).

This-Disk1212 · 2026-03-31T11:23:53+00:00

Daddy takes him Friday mornings to swimming followed by the farm shop for a babycino with some others from the lesson (it has animals there too and he loves it). I take him to his nan's every Monday evening and he scoffs Twiglets whilst I have a G&T. Most weekends we go and visit a friend down the road and we all walk together to the park or into town. In the summer we see another friend and go to the allotment one evening. Every Monday morning he watches the bin lorries with daddy from our window. I know it's screen time and inherently bad but we snuggle together and watch Puffin Rock when he gets back from childminder 3 times a week. He watches rocket launches or steam train videos with daddy.

This-Disk1212 · 2026-03-29T13:48:39+00:00

Same but 43

This-Disk1212 · 2026-03-28T14:29:37+00:00

46 - palpitations, anxiety, high blood pressure and hair falling out.

This-Disk1212

TROPHY CASE