Comparing children
It seems hard to avoid - once you've already got a kid, everyone either asks you stuff and compares to their own children, or asks comparative questions about your other children. So here goes with a brief summary, mostly for relatives who drift through this site.
- Morning sickness Got a little bit with #1 and almost none with #2.
- Weight gain 20kg with both. Lost it in about 6 months with #1, lost most of it already after 2 months with little fatty #2.
- General stuff Went into major nesting mode with both, but was flat, lethargic and didn't want to actually do anything for #2.
- Length Well, pregnancy #1 went for 37 weeks and #2 went for 41 weeks.
- Size Baby #1 was 3.33kg and 48cm, baby #2 was 3.49kg and 50cm.
- Birth Took 24 hours from water breaking to baby with #1. 5 hours from labour starting to baby with #2, and the midwife had to break my waters. Otherwise, not especially different - #2 was really just the #1 experience but highly compressed and with a few less drugs. It still hurt.
- Feeding #1 was asleep for the first few days from the drugs and didn't get onto the breast until she woke up. Then she spent most of the day eating at her own leisurely pace, generally being the perfect non-grumpy baby. #2 was a piggy guts sucking machine as soon as she was born, scoffs a meal in 20 minutes and consequently became a grumpy little windbag unless she is thoroughly burped.
- Growth #1 had slow, steady growth from about the 50th percentile, slowly dropping percentiles. She's still a dainty little thing, but tall. #2 is growing like a mad thing and shot from the 50th to 90th percentiles in a week.
Well, that about summarises it to date. I can't remember the exact times Aisha started crawling, smiling, grasping etc other than that she was keeping very close to the milestones list the nurse gave me, so unless the new baby deviates radically from the norm I don't think I'm going to notice much. Just please please please don't give me two children who both have Aisha as their first word!