Three Shoes, One Sock & No Hairbrush
Everything you need to know about having your second child
If our first child changes our life, our second child changes it all over again. While the first time mother is accompanied every step of the way on her voyage of discovery, the second time mother doesn’t even get a rousing send off. Having a second child is treated as if it were only a repeat trip, the same familiar journey all over again.
But a second child also brings profound and often unanticipated changes, and for a great many women, the impact of the second child is as dramatic as it is unexpected. The repercussions can be seen in almost every area of a woman’s life: physically, emotionally, professionally, socially and financially. For many of us, the second child creates not just ripples, but shockwaves.
Here at last is book that goes where other parenting books have feared to tread, addressing with humour and wisdom the practical and emotional issues of having your second child and providing second-time parents with the insights, information and guidance they need.
“Rebecca Abrams’ book is an essential. Read it before you conceive.”
PARENTING MAGAZINE
What the Critics Say
“If you find yourself on the yummy mummy circuit these days, the chances are you can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone waving a copy of Three Shoes, One Sock & No Hairbrush. From the nursery gates to the Tumble Tots car park, young mothers cannot stop gushing about this guide to having your second child.”
SUNDAY TIMES
“This wonderful book puts women’s experiences in a wider context and – more importantly – helps them to trust their own judgment. My only regret is that it wasn’t written seventeen years ago when I was going through what it describes.”
MAUREEN FREELY, author of The Parent Trap
“Abrams talks to her readers as equals and would not dream of telling them what to think or how to live. Her aim is to give them all the information she would have liked to have had at her fingertips when she had her second child. She talks about how different it is to be pregnant when you are also looking after another young child. Having charted the physical changes, she looks at the emotional changes that mothers can go through and how relationships with the first-born can alter.”
THE OBSERVER
Illustrations by Jacquie Lawson
What the Readers Say
“Thank you, so much, for this wonderful book. My second child is six months old and I have just bought your book - I wish I’d had it six months ago! I have wept with recognition over some passages, which I could have written myself, word for word. I have laughed with relief at other parts. It has given me so much comfort and reassurance. I am fortunate to have a great support network of husband, parents and close friends, but your book has helped me more than anything else.”
JESSICA
“This book was fantastic for helping you think about possible issues with having a second child. This book has made me far more realistic about the many other issues that could come with a second baby.”
SUE
“A much needed lifeline. This book was insightful and provided valuable reassurance at a time when I was at my most vulnerable.”
AMAZON REVIEW
“The cartoons made me roar with laughter and I found passages that healed my heart, finding in words and the experiences echoed by others, things I had been struggling with myself.”
GEAN
“The relief I felt when I read your book, cover to cover, was indescribable. I read it with tears rolling down my cheeks because it was all so poignant. I have no idea why my friends said it would be easier second time round. Perhaps for them it really was. But this last year has been the most challenging of my life for all the reasons outlined and discussed in your book - how to manage the sibling relationship, feelings towards my firstborn changing, sleep deprivation that made me feel like I was losing my mind, the feeling that this phase will never end even though logically I knew it would. For me, having two children has been completely different to having just one and hearing similar stories in your book made an enormous difference to how I coped during those very challenging days and weeks and months. Thank you for writing such an honest, engaging book, without which I would have felt I was the only one finding it so hard.”
AMY
Purchase
Three Shoes, One Sock and No Hairbrush is available to buy online from Amazon in paperback
A Spanish edition is also available: ‘Segundo hijo, madre de dos’, (2012), Ediciones Medici