Baby number two will be easier, right?

It’s got to be easier, right? Surely having gone through it once before, it will all come flooding back, just like riding a bike.

That’s what I’m hoping anyway when my second baby arrives early next year.

The swaddling, the feeding, the burping, the up every hour through the night. As a first-time mum you are learning everything and have no confidence in your abilities. Well, I didn’t anyway, and it was terrifying.

Am I being too rough when I burp him? Why won’t he stop crying? How many layers should I dress him in?

Will I remember to burp the baby after every single feed? And will I remember that burping has to be strategic in case they projectile vomit all over the couch?

After learning the answers to these questions the hard way, I’m excited to go into this with a few tricks up my sleeve and some knowhow.

However, it’s so easy to forget the newborn stage. Babies turn into toddlers so quickly, and you get swept up into each new stage along the way, promptly forgetting the last.

Just like childbirth.

I’ve forgotten, for the most part, the pain and the trauma, otherwise I’m sure there’s no way I’d be doing it again.

In my last pregnancy I read all the books, did everything right, and went to antenatal classes, but I’m not sure if it helped.

I was scared of my first baby and getting something wrong. It was so hard.

Any time he cried, I panicked. I remember a colleague telling me that she would happily have the newborn phase again and wants a refund on her 5-year-old.

Hearing that, I thought how can a 5-year-old be harder than a baby?

But now that I have a toddler, who never sits still, has gone from eating nothing to being a bottomless pit I can’t seem to fill, throws things, kicks the dog, and throws a tantrum when his chicken falls off the drumstick, somehow making the chicken inedible, I get it.

A newborn, who can’t move independently and only requires milk, seems like a breeze.

They just sit there and do nothing, really. I must have had so much time on my hands not having to chase a small person around the house, stopping them from putting things in the toilet and eating things they shouldn’t.

But I certainly don’t remember it that way.

Perhaps it will be like that this time around now that I, to some degree, know what I’m doing.

The second time around feels like a second chance. A chance to slow down, go easier on myself, and try and enjoy it, rather than being in a cloud of uncertainty and frazzledness.

I know it won’t be easy, especially because I’ll have the aforementioned toddler as well.

There’s also the fact I’m prone to depression and anxiety, so there’s a good chance those old pals will rear their ugly heads again.

But now I’ve got the secret power of having lived it before, knowing it gets better and that those old pals don’t stick around forever.

If I can give myself some advice, and perhaps you whether you’re expecting your first, second, third, or seventh kid, it’s that you will get through it one day at a time and to ask for help when you need it.

So I’m hoping that when I get back on that bike in the next few months, peddling will be that little bit easier and smoother.