Number 2... How'd you know that you were ready?

[Indi]

We had just reached a point where we were starting to talk about number two when I found out he was already on the way. I think your on the right track by following your feelings and talking with your partner about things. If your really wanting to start ttc you can always take a few months and to ready your body with diet etc. That way you still active about getting pregnant but can have a little more mental space to sort your emotions out.

[sconeonamission]

DH never even wanted kids! DS was a surprise! I have always wanted 2 kids. I come from a family of 2 kids (as does DH), and I've always wanted to have two kids. I resigned myself to only having DS coz DH was always so adamant we were only having one. I just dreamed of having two, would throw names at him jic, had picked out a boys name, and a girls name (however, not the one we ended up using!). I started uni last year, and told DH that I'd like to wait to TTC #2 until after I finish uni (in 3 years - so there'd be a 6yr age gap if all went well). Surprise surprise! Found out we were pg in 2nd semester of uni.

DD is only 2 weeks old, but I reckon by the time she was 4 days old, I was ready to go again! lol

[deletedit]

How did I know? Well, the contraceptive failed lol

Of course now I have a boy/girl pair at roughly the same spacing and roughly the same time as quite a few other people I know, so I'm sure the world at large thinks #2 and #3 were planned. The world at large was asking me "when are you going to have another one" a lot at that point.

Noone asks that anymore

[M22]

well, i wasn't ready at all i knew i would have trouble ttc a so went straight to ob to get clomid and wall-aa first time and miss 1 was born, so we didnt try to hard and it just happen. there are 21 months between my kids

[ashie]

i knew we were making the right decision, DS1 had dh scared as bieng our first he had never really had much to do with babies but it all come natural to him (except i was drugged up on epidural for a few days and when we were allowed home dh was putting disposable nappies on backwards! he thought thats how they went, bless him).
DS2 was not long after and he just fell into place IYKWIM, once he was born it felt like he had always been here with us.
we recently just had DS3 and its the same cannot remember what life was like before he was here just feels right and he always been here with us too.
we are not the most organised family though, we run abit behind schedule, and also dh and i are just very laid back (except when the older two are naughy we keep ontop of their behaviour) we always take life as it comes, more kids means more mess but i tell dh i can be a clean freak once they start school lol. days consisting of messy foods (Ds2 sandwich ends up all around his face) and lots of mummy i've dont poo's! but i love all the cuddles and kisses they give me, DS1 like to try and play hairdressers (he just messes up my hair) and DS1 is accident prone lots of falls and scares me alot. our newest bub oh i say everyday on how much beauty he has, and i love seeing all these newborn firsts being at home with them we never miss a thing!

[Life is Good]

How did I know we were ready? When I stopped having nightmares that I had fallen pregnant. Seriously. I found things were so hard for me with DS (and having no help) at the start that my number 1 fear was falling pregnant again Then that fear subsided and it got to the stage where I worried less about contraception and started thinking to myself that I would be fine if I fell pregnant now. On the flipside, we have always wanted only two children and, in all honesty, I thought "why prolong the nappy and toddler phase for longer than necessary". We were having 2 kids and I figured why not just do it, seeing we took a while to fall pregnant with DS and that we have early menopause running in the family. Work concerns came into the decision in so far as the longer I spread out having kids, the longer it would take for me to go back to work (my intention has always been to be a full-time mum until they went to school and now they will only be 1 year apart when they start). I think that if I was 25 when I had my first child, I would definitely have intended to have a larger gap (3 years is great and I do believe that a three year gap can have really great developmental benefits for both children IMO). Best of luck with your decision - you will know when the time is right.

ETA: But yes, I am freaking out about bringing a baby home in two weeks time with a 21 month old toddler...

[deletedit]

ETA: But yes, I am freaking out about bringing a baby home in two weeks time with a 21 month old toddler...

Toddlers LOVE babies. Your biggest worry will be having the baby dragged off and put in a box somewhere. Which is a legitimate worry, sure. First thing our toddler tried to do with the baby was feed him some hot chips when we said he was hungry. He was less than a day old ...

The programming to love babies seems to wear off at about 4. I take a baby to playgroup and I get swarmed by all the toddlers wanting to get a piece of baby action