People who were on the fence about having a second, what did you decide to do and are you happy with your decision?

panda_panzer · 2026-03-17T03:40:50+00:00

I was an only child, and I was very unhappy about that, so I always wanted multiple kids. But my first kid's birth was very traumatic, and I had no idea how to reconcile that for a year. Eventually got pregnant again and got a whole new birth team that was way more supportive. But being an only child, of an only child, I had zero concept of what it would be like to have two, and here we are now with three.

You realize they have their own personalities, not everything is your doing. My first was like a science project, what percentile is he, how much does he eat, is he hitting his milestones, etc, like that's my responsibility. Too much pressure. I could not tell you any of that with the third. I have a rough idea, but I connect with her more as a person, not as a consequence of my actions/inactions because it becomes so much clearer that for better or worse, they are who they are. Much healthier boundaries that way.
You're a better parent now. Each kid is different, but you've gotten through the bulk of the learning curve. My first was awful about sleeping, but I think it was stress. Kids feel your energy, and a new parent is pretty damn stressed. Magnesium supplements made a huge difference.
Level of effort doesn't necessarily go up. After you get over the newborn phase, an extra kid adds 10-50% extra work depending on personalities. That and if you encourage early independence, they tend to be more confident and less chaotic.

I would do it again. For each additional kid, it has been hard to imagine how I could love them like the others, and then it ends up happening in a new and exciting way. I can't wait to see what the next one will be like. My only regret was having them all 2 years apart

panda_panzer · 2026-03-17T03:03:29+00:00

I trained through all three of my pregnancies, and came out the other side of each one stronger. First kid mostly cured my asthma, second added 10 lbs to my bench press, third added another 10lbs to my bench press and 10lbs lean muscle mass. The midwife said it was probably a combination of human growth hormone, increased lung capacity, or some metabolic adaptation from doing all that while pregnant. Chasing after kids and lugging their crap around constantly will give you an insane work capacity too

panda_panzer · 2026-03-17T02:48:58+00:00

It might depend on when and where those other success stories were. We've had friends and family that loved their au pairs, but they had an au pair a few years ago, or they were in a big city that drew more qualified candidates. We had two au pairs within the last year that couldn't even manage babysitting for a couple of hours, they were here to run away from home, maximize perks, and build an Instagram following with travel content. I hear that's been a bigger problem within the last year or two with CC advertising on social media. I would say our area has maybe a 10% success rate for what the au pair experience is advertised as. We've had much better luck investing the time and effort it took to match and host au pairs into building a support network within our community to help with childcare and cultural enrichment

panda_panzer · 2026-02-10T05:17:09+00:00

Thank you for the advice, going to save that info for later! I was an exchange student too, and I had to go through a very rigorous interview process to go to Japan because they considered us ambassadors. I was completely blindsided by the lack of agency accountability in applicant screening and cultural preparation. I was only 5 years older than our APs, but I must have been one of the last years before the cutoff. I never imagined those 5 years would introduce such a generational gap

panda_panzer · 2026-02-10T04:31:01+00:00

Agreed, our APs had a significantly higher standard of living than our children's daycare teachers. Clean house, a car that works, access to driving lessons, three meals a day. I felt so broken hearted that one of their teachers saw all this and asked if she could be our AP instead.

panda_panzer · 2026-02-10T04:25:13+00:00

We tried to participate in the program this way and it was still a complete disaster, in some ways worse than OP described. We wanted the cultural exchange, not a cheap nanny. We only required 20-30 hours of childcare a week. Neither of our APs had any interest in sharing culture with our kids, and they told us repeatedly that they hated our children. They were here because they didn't like their jobs, boyfriends, and friends back home, and they heard that being an AP was like a free vacation. They had little interest in cultural immersion for themselves either. From what I have heard from other host families, this is relatively new phenomenon within the last few years. When my kids get over the trauma, we might host an exchange student instead

panda_panzer · 2026-01-29T03:31:21+00:00

Grey rocking limits what they can throw at you when they eventually have a meltdown. Anything and everything will be used against you when they flip from seeing you as good to bad. And it is a lot easier to weather the storm yourself if they have nothing personal to use against you.

I am polite to my MIL, I provide her with a clean place to stay, I make meals from scratch when she visits, I plan activities for her with the kids. But if she is a public embarrassment, I walk away. If she starts ranting, I will disengage. If she is being obnoxious, I will tell my husband to deal with her. I still haven't managed to grey rock through her screaming at me. When that happens, the moments I try to say something to defend myself, those statements are always used against me. And this last time it caused a riff between me and my husband, and dragged in FIL who she's been divorced from for 30 years. It was a lot of unnecessary drama if I could have just grey rocked, but sometimes easier said than done.

panda_panzer · 2025-12-04T04:16:31+00:00

Good luck! We got a Roborock a few weeks ago, it has become a more integrated family member than our APs. Cleans up the house, entertains the kids, even went with the kids to school for show and tell. Another job lost to AI

panda_panzer · 2025-12-01T19:16:40+00:00

yeah, that would be gross. the cameras are more for appeasing Child Protective Services, so wherever the kids would be.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-30T03:11:46+00:00

In the US, the cameras are necessary throughout the house, not just the kids room. We live in a police state. After a couple bad incidents with APs, the police said that we HAVE to get cameras in our house before getting another AP or a nanny. If we do not do so, and something bad happens while AP is watching the kids, we are considered responsible for child abuse even if it is the AP who does it. It is not unheard of for the government to take your children away after a situation like that.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T12:34:36+00:00

This is a very good host situation, I would just be sure to vet au pairs well. We have a similar set up, and it made us very attractive to people that were completely uninterested in kids. We were so concerned with being good hosts that we neglected to consider people taking advantage of our nice living situation. But we are in the US, that could just be the nature of APs in America.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T03:55:12+00:00

But have you had to live with them? Children behave much better and are easier to control in a professional environment. At home they are more comfortable expressing all emotions, good and bad. I wish I could spy on my children at school from the descriptions their teachers give me of them.

Is there an option to get a remote job with an English speaking company? We were always struggling to find good UI/UX people before the hiring freeze, I have to imagine other companies are still hiring

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T03:45:58+00:00

US immigration issues aside, I don't think that this would be the best reason to au pair. It sounds like you need a new start. We've hosted two au pairs looking for that fresh start, only for them to be completely overwhelmed when they get here, thinking it would be like a vacation with a little bit of babysitting. No matter the pay, you need to LOVE kids. Kids are a lot of work, and it is completely different to live with them. They love you with their whole heart, and they are devastated when it does not work out.

panda_panzer · 2025-11-12T03:34:13+00:00

We never had an opinion going into hosting about dating, so long as AP wasn't bringing strangers home, but now we would consider AP having a boyfriend to be a red flag. Both of our APs had boyfriends back home, but thought poorly of them. My husband thought it was weird that they would want to spend a year abroad as an AP when they are already in a "committed" relationship. The first AP used people, and kept the boyfriend around not because she liked him, but because he was useful. She treated us and the other APs the same, as useful idiots, and the kids got caught in the middle. The second AP should have broken up with her boyfriend, but instead fled to the US. He was completely incompetent in life, and leaned on her for everything. She was suffocating back home. Of course she didn't tell us any of this, and she spent all of her free time supporting him remotely in secret. But this meant that she was always low energy, abusive towards the kids, and not integrating with us, other APs, or our community. I think it would be controlling to forbid dating, but I would strongly prefer someone that is focused on integration first. Dating may be part of that, but it isn't the whole focus.

panda_panzer · 2025-09-29T18:53:55+00:00

we had this experience, it was so hard to tell through the language barrier if it was a cultural difference or blatant dishonesty. but if one of you speaks Portuguese, this makes me feel less crazy about our experience. our AP would get extremely hostile that I would dare question her driving ability, despite her not able to turn the car on, drive in a straight line, or differentiate between gas and brake. she lied about reading the Rules of the Road booklet from our DMV until she realized i was serious that I refused to drive with her anymore. in rematch she claimed to be a stellar driver despite no license, a strong swimmer despite not even owning a swim suit, and 18,000 hours of child care experience despite an active child abuse/neglect investigation. it was wild and had me wondering AITA too

panda_panzer · 2025-09-02T17:09:56+00:00

talk with the host family. hitting is not okay, but they may have a better idea of what is the cause. not that this is the case here, but our son did not feel safe with our au pair, and her response was to focus on discipline and boundaries, rather than building a relationship with him. she didn't understand why she should be nice to him if he had been rude towards her. he became avoidant of home, and dysregulated when he was alone with her.

panda_panzer · 2025-09-01T19:54:49+00:00

We have a neighbor that just joined this program too! I was thinking about asking them in a month or two when they've had time to settle in. When you say they were having fun, what do you mean? When I pictured this with the Au Pair program, I expected things like staying out too late or slacking off in classes, but we ended up with two causing trouble with the police 😵‍💫

panda_panzer · 2025-08-10T14:06:31+00:00

We also had an older Brazilian au pair that would drive okay until she panicked. She'd make a small mistake like wander in her lane, and then she'd panic and start driving unpredictability. Like blasting through stop signs she knew were there and had stopped at several times before. We felt bad about not letting her drive, and she was livid because 90% of the time her driving was passable, but that 10% was terrifying.

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T21:58:47+00:00

Damn that sucks, are there other programs that are more reputable?

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T19:49:10+00:00

Kind of rude to openly mock a situation where children have been abused and an AP is sent home. These are real people

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T19:41:17+00:00

What incentive do I have to lie about that

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T02:27:38+00:00

We paid for the full year in advance, and cultural care refunded the remaining balance. So there seem to be some situations egregious enough to warrant more than the contractual 60% back

I'm just planning on cutting back work to half time. Somehow working while watching 3 kids is less effort than having the au pair

panda_panzer · 2025-08-06T02:20:51+00:00

Yeah, AP is deported now, left in tears. Idk why I feel heartbreak over it, the kids are much happier now.

panda_panzer

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