I have a confession to make.
I am guilty of second child neglect.
While I was pregnant with daughter, I daydreamed about the kind of mother I would become as I moved from one child to two.
I swore blind I would do everything I could to make sure I would treat both my children as equally as possible. I would be making sure there were photos of the baby on her own (not just with her brother).
The baby would have a perfect baby book, just like her older brother. (Okay, confession, I didn’t even do a proper baby book for him. Worst. Mother. Ever.)
Both children would have equal one-on-one time with us.
We would read to both of them every night.
Yeah… right.
I started reading to my son at bedtime when he was just weeks old. I built it into his bedtime routine, like many of us do. We would sit together in his bedroom and I would point out the animals in his board books, make roaring noises for lions and say “fishy fishy fishy” pointing to the fish in the river.
He’s four and a half now, and to this day he expects, nay demands, that either his father or I read him a story every single night.
My daughter is nearly one, and I can probably count on my 10 fingers the number of times I have read her a bedtime story in her entire life.
I cannot shake the feeling that I have set my eldest up with the best foundation to develop his future literacy skills and a lifelong love of books, while I’m leaving my youngest behind to languish.
Top Comments
Do the reading after baths on the lounge chair. Make it a family thing - all four of you, then transition to bed through a routine you create.
You need to do the same for your second child that you did for your first. I never wanted to be that mother that did everything with their first child and barely anything for the second. Which is why our fourth child was given the same treatment as our first.