Q&A: Grieving and loss with a second child

Marina writes:

"Last week there was a post on second child Shangri-la which I read in earnest, hoping to find some help with my own issues around having a second child. I am having much, much sadness over a loss that I could not anticipate with a second child. With my first child, I was "ready" for losing a bit of my identity and having to give up certain things, which I embraced, and I actually enjoyed that transition and moving into a new role for myself. I found such enormous satisfaction in giving 100% to another person and I was able to manage that intense love for a child with a wonderful relationship with my husband, a terrific job, etc.

Now, with the second baby, I'm having another identity shift that is hitting me harder than I expected: the loss of intimacy with my first child. I miss him, our little family of three, our quiet (and loud!) times together, the attention I was able to lavish on him, and so on. He seems unphased by the change, so I think it is just me and my own feelings of loss. I cannot believe how much I am grieving over the closeness that I shared with my first child, a closeness that we barely are able to glimpse these days with a new baby in the house.

I need help processing and coping with this -- all my friends tell me that it was so much easier for them to move from the one child to two children than it was from no children to one child in terms of identity, transition, life, etc. I thought I was a "pro" at being a mom and now this has just knocked the wind right out of my sails.

If you have any advice regarding this, I need it. My family is across the country, I live in a rural area, and I don't have many mom friends. The Moxie community could really help me process this; perhaps many parents out there have experienced this to varying degrees and have some data points about "letting go" or "renegotiating" the relationship with the first child .....It's causing more "blues" than I really need right now."

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Having my first was tough and really broke me down, but at the same time it taught me how to love another human being. It taught me that I actually could love another human being. And my son and I clicked so well that it just felt natural to be his mother.

And then the second one came, and I loved him instantly (probably sooner than I loved my first one), but our personalities just didn't click as perfectly, and I missed my older one. Those first months were difficult, with a baby I didn't feel I was doing a stellar job with (because there had just been this magical thing with my older son, so comparatively speaking I wasn't as good a mom to the second, I felt) and wanting to be closer to my older son, but not having the ability to with the second one.

It was a rough time, and I also felt like there was something wrong with me because other moms said going to two was so much easier, and I didn't feel like it was easy.

What helped things for me was:

1) The passage of time. As the baby got older I got things together more, got my routines down, and felt like I could have a better balance of time between the two kids.

2) Realizing that my older one needed me less anyway. He was a big boy, and wasn't so dependent on mama. It wasn't bothering him not to be spending as much one-on-one time with me, and maybe that was OK.

3) Working things out with the baby so I could feel that closeness with him, too. I felt like there was a disconnect between us, something that just made us miss each other. What fixed it for us was an offhand remark I made to my therapist (isn't that always the way?) that let him see that what my son was missing from me was something I'd never gotten as a baby (and, guess what--my mother had never gotten as a baby, either!). As soon as I started giving it to him we started to click. And some stuff shook loose in my relationship with my mom at the same time. It was a win-win-win.

I think negotiating the divided mind and affections of having two kids is the biggest problem of having a second child, honestly. (Others might disagree, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who agree with me.) And it takes awhile to find your peace within it, with being a mother of two, with not being the end-all-be-all to your older child, and to having to let this new person into your psyche. Be kind to yourself while you're going through it.

Readers, help for Marina? How did you cope until it started to be OK to have two?

Comments

[Shaynee]

I can empathize. My son is five months old, my daughter nearing three and a half years. One of my most bittersweet recent memories is of the day we went to the hospital and he ended up coming early via a necessary c-section: Before we left for a let's-check-on-the-fluid-level ultrasound in L&D, I knew that it was possible that we would be staying until he joined us. We were slowly getting ready to leave, packing a bag just in case, and my daughter was sitting next to me on the bed. At one point she reached up and pulled my head down to her so our foreheads were touching, and we just rested that way, face to face, for a few moments. I remember thinking, "This might be the last moment that it's just me and my baby girl." And it was.

Caring for my son takes so much time away from my daughter, who was accustomed to one-on-one time all day with me. And of course he rarely gets one-on-one time with me either. It doesn't help that both kids only want to be with me. Hanging with Dad is a distant second for both of them. There are some days (ok, many) when I feel that nobody's needs have been met: I've had to constantly put the baby down to get my daughter lunch, help her with the toilet, etc. And I've continually had to tell her that I can't read endless books right now because I'm feeding Baby Brother, trying to get Baby Brother to fall asleep (which takes a fair amount of effort), etc. So other than making sure everybody is fed and not covered in their own filth, I have accomplished little else.

I hope that someday my daughter will start to enjoy some aspects of her little brother. Now she usually just looks at him sadly and asks me to hold her instead. Ah guilt, my old friend.

That was a long-winded way of saying, yes, I empathize with your feelings. I hope some of the responses you're seeing here help.

Shaynee

[Jan]

I can't tell you how many nights I held my first and cried as I rocked her to sleep in the weeks before her younger brother was born. I wept openly in the hospital as I signed paperwork acknowledging the risk ("... including death") or my planned c-section. During the days I was in the hospital after his birth I missed her so much it hurt.

Furthermore, I didn't have that fall-in-love moment with him. His conception was unintentional (at least its timing) and I reverted back to my post-miscarriage ways of pretending that we 'might' be having a baby come December. When I found out I was having a boy, all I could think of was that it was just one more way that he would be different from her.

I absolutely adored being a mommy to one. I felt strong and confident and competent and purposeful in a way I had never, ever experienced before. THIS was what it was all about. When the second one came, I couldn't do everything I wanted to do. Sometimes she cried and I COULDN'T FIX IT for her. It was a terrible loss of not just my relationship with her, but this identity I had built as a (self-proclaimed -- modest, wasn't I?) Great Mom.

What did I do? One thing I did was pick something that was special to me (bedtime) and be consistent with it. It wasn't without its challenges, either, since she was still in a crib and I was under doctor's orders not to lift her. I settled for taking her up and changing her, brushing her teeth, reading and rocking and then calling Daddy (he had the monitor) to come put her in her bed.

I made it a point to include her in a lot of the goings on with the baby. This was good for her, but also good for me. I needed to see her experience joy because of him. I took full advantage of my maternity leave, doing some things I can't usually do because of my work schedule (a daytime gymnastics class, for example).

The thing that helped me most, though, was something I remembered from my recurrent-miscarriage days and have clung to through many a life-altering experience. Feelings do not have a moral value. There is no right or wrong way to feel. (There are, certainly, right-er and wrong-er behaviors associated with those feelings, but the feelings themselves are value-neutral.) It was OK for me to take time to fall in love with my little guy (and oh, how I did -- he is joy personified and I can hardly stand to keep my hands off his happy-go-lucky 2-year-old self). It was OK for me to miss my special time with her.

To this day I have moments where I think how nice it would be to just have one kid (though these days it's a mixed bag which one I'd like to keep -- it's not unrelated to which one is going through the most obnoxious 'how much can I drive mommy crazy' phase).

Marina, as your new baby gets older, I recommend spending some alone time together. It took you time to build a special relationship with your older son; you can't expect that develop in an instant with your younger child. Enjoy the differences if you can, the same way you can enjoy friends in different ways (I have one friend who consistently makes me laugh until I wet myself; another who is the world's best sounding board for marital junk).

And everyone I know told me that the adjustment from one to two would be the hardest one of all ever. So far I'd say that was accurate.

And it hasn't stopped me from wanting a third, now!

[eta]

I skimmed above (while stealing a moment while Dad does baths) and am not really adding anything new except another vote for "you aren't crazy" and "me, too--it's a weird shift." My kids are 2.5 yrs apart, and, though I'm an only child and desperately wanted a second, I was filled with terror for the whole new cliff we were jumping off--and it wasn't just me and Dad this time, like with the first kid. No, this time I was making my tiny bambino jump off the cliff of uncertainty with us! I repeated the sentence that "Life is uncertain with or without a new baby" a lot, and I also practiced a short sentence of what I would say to my son if he ever said "Why did you do this to me?" Therapy helps immensely, of course, but things here started looking up when my daughter was about a month old, and I said something about before we had her, and my son looked at me like I was nuts and said, "We've always had her here. What do you mean?" in 2-yr-old-speak. That's when I saw both the light at the end of the tunnel and when I could start to see the gains, and not just all the familiar stuff that we had so concretely left behind.

I've gone on too long, but two years out, my kids' joy in each other makes all my craziness and the things that we miss NOT having an only child seem like the road not taken--just as leafy and dark and dappled, but not our road. So that's a vote for the above comments that time passing and learning who the newcomer is help immensely, too. Thanks.

[andrea]

Despite swearing up and down after the twins (11 months) were born that these would be our only children, the sadness that I have missed out on that intense bonding period you get with a singleton first-born is making me think that perhaps I would like one more when the girls are older (like, five years old or so).

My attention has been divided and stretched from day one. No time to just snuggle with one and fall asleep cuddled on the couch. No time to nurse one to sleep and stay like that till she woke because the other always needed feeding or I was feeding both on a whopping big feeding pillow. One having to cry and cry sometimes because I was busy comforting the other. Now, always feeling guilty when I acknowledge something clever one has done because the other is staring at me, like "what about me?" The serious effects (still wondering about PPD ...) of the intense sleep deprivation caused by almost a year of double wakings. There was never any "Bang! I'm so in love" moment with them because I felt overwhelmed from day one.

I have felt the lack of this bond all along, especially every time I saw me singleton-mother friends with their babies. But reading these posts, I'm in tears. I KNOW, believe me, I know, how lucky I am to have my girls (they're IVF). But I really feel that I have missed out on something too. Another baby down the track would be lovely. But my husband is older than me, and I doubt we'll be able to afford more IVF and maternity leave, and so I may never have another baby. I hope these feelings go away and that I can instead learn to appreciate what I do have rather than mourn what I don't.

[andrea]

PS. I should add that I'm an only child. And I also mourn on the girls' behalf that they'll never have my sole attention (apart from one-on-one time when we can fit it in). Neither of my children will get to experience the benefits of being first-born.

[Lisa]

Add me to the list!
This has been SO hard for us as a family. My son was exactly 4 when our daughter was born, and while the first few weeks were pretty much ok, the rest of the time has been just so difficult. She is now 14 months and we are just now feeling like we're getting our family back on track. Someone said to me that being a mom and having another child is all about 'weaving the threads together' of your new family and I feel like a total failure at this ! We are still very much apart from one another at the moment. I know we'll get there in the end, but it's tough. It makes me feel so much better to read that others are struggling with it too. The loss of time with each child is just awfull, my son misses me with him all the time, and my daughter is missing out on all that my son had when he was a baby! Theres just no way to stretch myself out to fit both of them the way I want to, so I am trying to mould them to fit me better, if you know what I mean? The guilty feeling of not giving 100% to each of them can be overwhelming, specially when you factor in the housework, husband, friends, etc too - 100% split up into all those units means not much for each!!!
I am trying to focus on how wonderfull it will be when I see them playing together in the backyard on day, or when I see them really grow into siblings - they are still very much 'the big boy and the baby' at the moment.....

[AJs Mom]

Wow! I can totally see how Marina feels the way she does and expect that if we are ever so lucky to have another child I will feel the same way. This post just made me remember that it took me months (over 6, probably closer to 8) to get over mourning the end of my pregnancy and the fact that my baby was no longer inside me. I don't think that I had much of an identity shift when she was born, but being not pregnant was VERY hard for me. I loved my pregnancy and loved having a newborn and now I love having a toddler. I think, almost daily, that I can never go through this again for the first time and that makes me sad. On the other hand, it also makes me enjoy every second.

I have always wanted 2 or more children but now that our baby is 18 months old, I just can't bring myself to start trying. I am hoping that one day it will just feel right; but maybe not!

[Laura]

My son had a really hard time when his sister was born, since he had been the king of the house and had all my attention or almost four years. You know, even two years later, I really don't think he has ever gotten over that. He still treats his sister as an annoyance, and it's hard for me as a mom to try so hard to convince my son to accept his sister. The one thing that has always helped has been nap time. Thank goodness for that. When the baby goes down, my son knows that it is our time, the time just like before to spend together. Even on days when I am so tired that I fall asleep on a pile of legos, I try my hardest to eek out alone time with him every day. So far, that's the best I have. The dynamic will never be the same, it's true, but I just keep talking to him (and remind myself when I start to feel like I don't give him enough time) of all the benefits they will have growing up with a sibling.

[paola]

I haven't had time to read all the comments, but of the ones on this page, Jan, has put it beautifully- 'feelings don't have a moral value'- it's the behaviour that counts.

I bonded instantly with my first child (son) and loved him to bits and couldn't bear the thought of another human being coming between him and I. 2 years down the track my daughter was born and I felt a lot of guilt not bonding with her immediately. I didn't suffer the loss of intimacy with my son fortunately, as this would have made things even harder on me, but I didn't feel the same overwhelming passion I had felt for my son. My daughter in the early days was just such a good little baby, I was happy to have her with us in our family, my son loved her instantly, but I was looking for that 'passion' that I had had with my boy. You know after 16 months, the 'passion' still doesn't exist and I have started to think, that it might only come around just that once, usually with the first, but not necessarily. I love my daughter to bits, but when I look back at the early times I don't think, 'wow, that was amazing'. With my son I did, but then, you only become a mum once and that is what is amazing.

[JenniferB]

It has been very helpful to read all these comments. I am pregnant with #2, and my son is 21 months now and will be 2 1/2 when the baby is born in December. We really, really want this second child, but there are a lot of mixed emotions about it all.

I know that the love multiplies, but the time and energy can only divide. I spent so much wonderful one-on-one time with my son, and I won't be able to do the same with this one. Someone will always be getting the short end of the stick, especially in the early years when they are so physically needy. So there is guilt over neglecting one child or the other at any given time.

I feel like my son and I have worked out such a great routine with the two of us - I really do love spending time with him, and it is relatively easy to get out and do things. Also I have my "alone time" when he is napping in the afternoon. So there is concern about adapting to a new routine, and forgoing that time for myself. I know it will be harder to come by.

My son is such a fantastic kid that I sort of feel like he has set the bar so high, how will any sibling ever measure up? Am I always going to be comparing the two? I know some comparison is inevitable, but I hope not to turn it into a competition.

On the other hand, I feel a lot less anxious about this baby than I did with my first. I know what to expect as far as pregnancy and birth and the early days of taking care of a newborn, so that adjustment will not be as abrupt.

Moxie said: "negotiating the divided mind and affections of having two kids is the biggest problem of having a second child, honestly." That's what I feel too. I know it will take time to adapt to having two kids and eventually it will all work out, but I'm not particularly looking forward to those first days/weeks/months. I will definitely bookmark this post!

[hedra]

@JenniferB, I hope you get something like what we got with B and G - kids so totally off-angle from each other, they could never be opposites. They were utterly different planets, in different solar systems. That probably helped keep us from doing the 'you're X, he's Y' thing... my favorite example is that when G was little, the first time he pulled up on furniture that put him in reach of 'stuff', he looked to us before touching anything, checking to see if it was 'okay'. B, the first time he pulled up on the toy-covered piano bench, ignored the toys and tried to dissassemble the bench by digging at the screw heads. Not opposites, just totally different planets. Comparing was usually so obviously not the point...

Okay, I need to get to work... sigh.

[Aletheia]

I have been grieving since I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant 20 some weeks ago- we weren't planning on number 2 until #1 was 3 or 4. I regretted that I was no longer able to breastfeed him, that I was so nauseated that I could hardly get off the couch, and that I'd soon be divided in my attention, as Marina is feeling.

I still feel that way, and I don't anticipate an easy transition.

But the best advice/consolation I've gotten is from people who focus on the sibling relationship you are "giving" to your kids. I wasn't always close to my only sibling, a sister, but now am best friends with her. I am so thankful for her being in my life, especially now as our parents are aging.

You might be taking attention away from #1 right now, but it is so someone else can insure #1 is getting attention and love... even after you are gone.

[Jennifer]

@ Enu - Uh, a "pre-installed bully?" I hope it's not really that extreme! For the most part my girls have each really enjoyed having a sibling. - Absolutely. Not at first, but now that the little one is almost walking (he's 14 months old and the older is almost 3) there is definitely a bullying going on between them. The older cannot walk by the baby without a bump or a shove and the baby cannot crawl up to the older without an intent to bite or scratch. I cannot say that my boys have ever enjoyed each other. I can say, though, that I don't think the baby would be as defensive (biting, scratching) if he were the first-born simply because there would be nothing for him to defend against.

I think I am beginning to see how common it is to mourn the loss of the time with the older. I just never experienced that and I do not understand it firsthand. I thought it might be good to comment because I have never met another woman with more than one kid that also does not "get this." I guess I am very strange.

[hedra]

@Jennifer, the ages of your boys are likely part of that dynamic. When the younger is over 3 1/2, I suspect the dynamic will change - provided you can set up an expectation that these relationships both can and do change over time. When B was 14 months old, and really between 6 months and about 2 years, there was some tension between my boys. Fortunately, the elder was old enough to have the cognitive skill to understand when I said 'he's just a baby, he doesn't know why he shouldn't do that, here, let's move your things to keep them safe from him for now.'

It never occurred to me to think of it as bullying, just as different developmental levels and needs that were sometimes challenging to manage but that would be outgrown. Likewise, when the twins were 14 months old and were always smacking, pinching, poking, pulling hair, etc., on each other, I was pretty stressed out about it, but I already had seen that go by (long since) on the older two, so I knew it was a temporary condition. Sucky, miserable in the moment, un-fun for me and them, but temporary.

If you mean the 'bully' thing very lightly, in the sense of 'someone who might make you really angry or take advantage SOMETIMES when you're not at your best', yeah, siblings do that. But they are so much more, too, that I would hesitate to use that term. I think it's likely that what you're describing is the very physical nature of defending boundaries and territory as well as establishing identity and roles before 3 1/2 or so - not actually 'bullying' in the larger sense, just so dang PHYSICAL in their relationship that everything ends up in tears when they're together (eventually, we figured out that the positive/negative cycle was about 20 minutes long for our kids - 20 minutes from any given point, they'd be having a different interaction, usually positive-negative-positive-negative in series). You may find the same becomes true - that there is a rhythm that develops, eventually (though I definitely recommend the book 'siblings without rivalry' to help ease that along...).

[Celia]

My son is 22 months and i'm 12 wks pregnant with #2 right now. I have wondered what will happen with "our song" (i love you kyan sung to the tune of we love you conrad from bye bye birdie) and wondering what will take the place of "i love you more than anything in the world" but havn't had any major anxiety yet about him feeling neglected. Maybe it's because the reason we're having #2 right now is not because it's the best time for as parents or breadwinners but because we think this is a good sibling separation for him. As "mostly" only children (half siblings not in our generation for both my hubby and I) I am so jealous of my friends who have siblings that they can be friends with, or who can help them make the tough choices re: aging parent care. I also think it's about time he realizes that the world really doesn't revolve around his precious self. Since he's with his father or I at all times (we split child care work different shifts) he really does think that we exsist solely for his pleasure. Anyway, maybe that would help to think of it that way... you are having siblings to provide them with a broad support base and a fuller life, so you're trading some one on one time for a whole life of companionship.

[kates]

What a great conversation. I haven't read all the comments (because I'm trying to spend some time with my toddler, #1, while #2 is sleeping!) but I wanted to mention something I read when I was making this adjustment. I was reading something about people who have large families, and the author (a father of 4 or 5 kids) said that one of the benefits was that all the kids saw that the important thing in their lives was caring for other people. Their parents had made a conscious choice to make their lives about *kids*, not about something else. They saw it play out every day, in every situation -- the give and take, sharing, putting their own needs on hold momentarily so that another's needs could be met. I think this applies to any sibling situation, whether a child has one sibling or ten. (And of course, standard disclaimer, this is not to say anything against only-child families.) It helped me to think about it this way, that I am teaching my oldest, not that he is not important, but that other people are important too, and on my best days, I can model that well, how we can all take care of each other.

Hope that makes sense. I'm listening to a veggie tales song at the moment so I'm not sure how coherent that idea was.

[Sarah V.]

Before my second child was born, I read a book called 'Three Shoes, One Sock, and No Hairbrush', by Rebecca Abrams, which is about the experience of having a second child and all the ways in which things are different - and potentially harder - second time round. And about the way that people just don't talk about this stuff, but assume that having a second child is no big deal because you already know all about parenthood - so, if you do find it difficult to cope with, you feel very much on your own.

One thing I read in that book that I found interesting was that, in one survey, opinions were found to be split about fifty-fifty as to whether it was the birth of the first child or the second that changed your life more. In other words, there are probably just as many women out there feeling like it's the *second* child that's the big deal as there are women feeling that the second child just fits in with the first.

I have to say that I found the book depressing and scary, because it left me feeling like having a second child was going to be a really awful experience for the first couple of years. So I don't know if I'd recommend this book to women who are still pre-second-child. (The book I'd recommend in that case would be 'From One To Two', by Judy Dunn. Lots of useful information on coping and what to expect, but a much more upbeat tone overall.) But I think 'Three Shoes...' would probably be worth reading if you *are* struggling with second-time-around parenthood and want reassurance that your feelings are normal and that lots of other women feel the same way.

[jodi]

I'm so glad I found this post! My second son is 4 months old. I still feel disconnected from him and miss my alone time with first son. My first is still a mommy's boy, but I can't get on the floor and play with him as much as he asks me to and that still hurts my feelings. I look forward to the day when the 2 can play together, maybe then I won't feel so guilty about the change in our family.

[Christina]

I can't agree more with Moxie's response. As they say, "The days are so long, but the years are so short." My girls are 7 and 5 now. As with anything, once the years have flown by, it's easy to sit back and say, "Well, that wasn't so bad." It's easy to forget the pain and worry and guilt once you come out of the tunnel. But yowza, that tunnel seems endless when you're in it. When you are smack dab in the middle of the 1 to 2 transition, you are positive you are ruining your first child's life AND your second child's life, not to mention your own. Once you gain a little distance (ok, two years' distance!) you realize what a GIFT you gave your special first baby when you turned their rosy little world upside down with a sibling. Only a tiny fraction of two siblings' (and their parents') lives are spent in this transitional phase. When you are long gone, they will still have each other, and will still be connected to you through each other. And hey, once the little munchkin can function like a normal human being, having somebody available for 24-hour-a-day playing and parent torturing is simply a lot of fun! What you are feeling is 100% normal, and really common among my friends and three sisters, all of whom have 2 or more children.
I should also say that I believe the decision to have an only child is a perfectly fine choice as well. We mothers have a knack for heaping guilt and blame on ourselves no matter what we do. If, at the end of the day, your children are alive - you're a success in my book!

[moby wraps]

Each child has a special place in your heart and if you lose one then your oevrall live shatters down.

[Jordan Spizike]

Kindness is like a large dose of medicine, Is good; fools, Dose is good; just, Dose not, Is hypocrisy.

[air jordans]

I hope you all have a blessed day