When I was about to have my rookie baby, Holden, I looked at my friend Susan (going at it for the second time) as though she were a total expert. I thought that I was sooooo special (not true!) and sooooo clueless (true!) but she had it all figured out.
Well, I have news for my rookie-pregnant self and any of you rookie parents-to-be: a second-time around mom may be more comfortable with the new baby, but she’s still living on the frontier of how to deal with her older child PLUS more to juggle and even less time for a nap. So, it’s still a pretty big deal.
If you have any friends about to have second babies and you’re wondering what to get the mom who already has all the baby gear, allow us to make a few suggestions:
- Private Yoga class: prenatal or post-partum yoga where she doesn’t have to figure out how to leave the house = awesome.
- Food train. Enlist a gang of friends to sign up for meals on a calendar with mealtrain.com or a shared google spreadsheet. Witching hour times two is no time for cooking.
- Advice book: interview your friends with more than one kid about little and big things. How do you load everyone into the car? How do you get food on the table? What is something you swore you’d never do (that you now probably do)? Useful or not, these are great little keepsakes.
- Forgo the shower and chip in for a massage.
- Meal Prep party where mama gets freezer fodder from everyone; there are places that can organize this for you.
- Everyone gets a massage 🙂
- If different gender, clothes
- If same gender: a fresh towel, wash cloths, onesies that are unstained
- If name known, personalized clothes so that #2 has a few things of his own
- Babysitting dates where other moms of same aged #1 will come get #1 and take him away for a couple hours
- The basics, be the sweetie that buys a full medicine cabinet’s worth of infant tylenol and butt zinc. More excellent gift ideas for new parents on our amazing registry guide.
What are some other great ideas for moms going again for their second, third, or fourth?
psssst. Hey Whit, You had a “real shower” with shower games and it looked like fun. did you like it? Did you wish you had a group massage instead? Shhhh… I won’t tell.
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