12 Things Your Second Baby Definitely Wants (And Needs) You To Know

I know, I know. You learned so much with your first baby. Now you’re an expert and raising me will be a breeze. You’ll do absolutely everything right. If it weren’t for just one small detail...

We are unique individuals, with our own preferences and quirks. We may have the same DNA, but we have very different points of view.

My sister might have liked to sleep in the stroller, but I'm not falling asleep anywhere except the crib. So, you know, please stop comparing us."

It’s true, mom. I swear. I’m just a better sleeper, crawler and bath-taker. Remember those moments when I’m making your life easy, especially next year and around the holidays, when I become so good at walking that I break out into a run in a crowded departments store and you have a little heart attack. Sorry, Mom.

However, I’m prone to skin rashes, stuffy noses and removing my diaper whenever you try to change me. Sorry, but I just gotta be me.

Please get her to stop trying to pick me up or comb my bald head or try hats on me that cover my entire face. I know you just need a minute to run to the bathroom, but I should not be left alone and within arm’s reach of this kid who wants to love me so hard.

I do this mostly to make you crazy, but also because peas are the worst and to point out that my older sibling clearly has terrible taste in food. I’m not trying to make more work for you.

I just want to know you feel fulfilled as a parent by tending to your children’s individualized meal plans. You’ll thank me for this, really.

Great job getting my older sibling to sleep through the night. However, now that you’re crying it out with me, that same easy-sleeping older sibling will be waking up, too. I'd like to say it would be a total nightmare, but no one is going to actually end up sleeping long enough to have one of those.

I’m a baby. I see you leave, I see you come back, it’s all good. I know you think you are not giving enough of yourself to both your children but there is only so much of you, and really, I just like our time together snuggling or making googly eyes at each other. I always seem to get fed and cleaned up and played with and read to and driven around in my stroller, so what more do I need?

Once I catch on to the fact that my sibling gets to do homework and has the opportunity to attend dance lessons and gets to go to your job for “Bring Your Kid to Work Day,” I’ll be giving you some mad guilt trips. Just you wait. All this crying I’ve been doing when you tiptoe out of my room at bedtime? That’s just a warm-up.

While we’re on the subject of neglect, my baby book is just the saddest. I realize it’s a symptom of “second child syndrome,” but you could at least pretend to remember what my first words were and jot some random ones down.

I’m pretty good at what I do and as I get older, you’ll start to grow nostalgic for when I was so tiny.

Maybe you’ll look back at me and my big sister, asleep in our carseats on the ride home from a mostly tantrum-free summer vacation and think, “Yeah. We can do this. There’s room in our hearts, in our lives, in our car. A third baby would be the perfect addition to our world.”

Then, of course, we’ll wake up from those adorable, glorious naps screaming, just as the car comes to a screeching halt and we're all forced to sit in traffic for the next two hours. You'll be out of songs and out of snacks and out of your mind. Have another kid? Are you bananas? What part of your brain, soul, and body is going unused that you can spare it to care for and raise another human being?

Lady, it’s OK to get baby fever. However, it’s also OK not to act on it, if you truly don’t think you can handle having more than two kids. I mean, I’m a lot.