Will I be able to love the second child as the first?

Many women who think about a second pregnancy are frightened by the thought of not being able to love the second child as much as the first.

This fear also afflicts fathers even if they are less and less inclined to admit it.

There is often the fear of taking away attention , time and love from the firstborn because, especially in the first few months, the mother will have to take a lot of care of the newborn child, while the “big” one can wait.

Often the mother is afflicted by feelings of guilt for these attentions that she will have to give to the child all the time and consequently devote less time to the other who, one thinks, may become jealous and feel neglected.

How to make the expectation of the second child serene

In reality, when you decide to have a second child, if the parents live this choice peacefully  by involving the firstborn in everything that happens during the pregnancy, he will be serene and will live this moment in a natural way, without jealousy and without fear of being put aside or loved less.

Serene expectation of the second child and the involvement of the whole family will lay the solid foundations for a serene relationship between the siblings where the “grown-up” will certainly show protection towards the firstborn but also the desire to relate and play with him, even if depends on the age difference between the two brothers.

Favorite son

Parents who are in doubt whether it is possible to love both children should be able to understand that love for children is then distributed equally even if the thought of the favorite child exists in all parents.

One child is not necessarily loved more than the other for this reason, or rather, often the child a parent prefers is the one who is then most neglected for fear of giving too much attention to the favorite one.

Most parents do not admit to having a favorite child even under torture , in fact all the families worldwide who have undergone research on this issue have demanded absolute anonymity.

The important thing is that every parent is aware of this preference and is able to manage it in the best possible way, without accentuating the differences too much. For many parents, however, behaving in a similar way is much easier while for others it is not.

It must be said that children are often completely different from each other, like their parents were when they were born and how they behaved with them and unfortunately comparisons are often the order of the day.

However, there is not a child less loved than another, they are only loved in a different way, as they are different and the parents are equally different in their relationship with them.

The favorite child is not necessarily the “easiest” one to love as one might think. For example, a child who sleeps through the night, who always follows the rules, who does well in school, who continues his studies, who excels in a sport is not necessarily preferred over the more “rebellious” one.

Parents and also children should know that the “favorite” child is not necessarily the child who has the most advantages in the family and in life and, to give an extreme example, often those who suffer from schizophrenia, due to the double bond with the mother who it becomes symbiotic, in which the mother prefers a child to “trap” him almost as if to make him stay in the belly without spurring him to individuality and self-identification through separation.

This is an extreme case and fortunately they are not frequent cases but it can help to understand that when a parent has doubts, perplexities and feelings of guilt he is already looking for the best possible way to behave with the children without too many differences.

And the children?

Children, in most cases, know who is the favorite in the family and, according to some research, the favorite son is the first-born, who is given more attention and also receives special treatment.

It is often thought to be the opposite, because the little ones receive more attention, but perhaps this is why the doses of attention towards the eldest son increase.

However, this topic is very vast and in my humble opinion extremely subjective. In many cases, the opposite may be true.

The truth is that every “healthy” parent is able to love one or more children at the same time in a different way. Similarly, each child loves their parents differently. All of this doesn’t mean that love is less or more for one or the other, it’s just different.