Mummascribbles – Dreaming of maternity leave second time around – Mummascribbles

When you are pregnant with your first child, you spend a lot of time dreaming about maternity leave. You dream about long walks,  coffee mornings/lunches with fellow mummy friends, trips to soft play when it’s quiet and your child is still not on the move. You dream about time at home, keeping the house going, welcoming your other half home from work to be reunited as a three again.

Then there are the realities – the long walks when you get unexpectedly rained on, the coffee mornings/lunches where you are trying to feed your baby and yourself simultaneously (Zach once decided he wanted a feed just as my pizza had been delivered to the table!), the soft play visits where your child has fallen asleep and the welcoming home of your other half after hours of clock watching and immediately handing baby over in order to go and have your first shower of the day.

Maternity leave is wonderful but maternity leave is hard. You are suddenly thrust into a world where you can’t just quickly pop to the shop when you realise the milk has gone off and you can’t have that cup of fully caffeinated tea that you so desperately require!

When you are expecting your second child, it’s quite easy to get into the mesmerising thoughts of that first time. I am already dreaming of those long walks, the coffee mornings and the soft play trips.

And then I remember that I’m going to have a four year old in tow and suddenly, it becomes a lot less of a relaxing thought!

My four year old will not want to go on long walks. He won’t want to sit in a cafe while I drink hot chocolate. He won’t want to sit peacefully at soft play and probably, when daddy does come through the door, he’ll still be in his pyjamas through my utter failure of getting him dressed and I’ll probably have given him too much chocolate!

He will however, still be going to nursery for two days a week. We don’t want to mess up his routine too much and that time for him is so important, seeing his friends and having that social aspect. It’s also important because he’ll be starting school next year and I want him to have some continuity of getting out the house on time and spending the day in a structured environment. 

This of course means that I’ll have two days where it’s just me and baby. Two days when I can go for a nice long walk with baby in the pram and meet friends for coffee. Or sit on the sofa with a sleeping baby and not feel guilty for not entertaining my eldest child. Those moments that I had when it was just me and Zach can be repeated.

The other three days with both of them…well that will just be crazy won’t it?!!