After a Year of Having 2 Kids, These Were My Biggest Surprise Expenses

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Once my daughter was born, I was faced with a lot of new surprise expenses. Here’s what caught me off guard. 

Having kids is undoubtedly expensive, and the costs only go up when you go from one to two. I expected that the birth of my daughter last March would mean my bank account balance got a lot smaller, but I was surprised at just how much extra cost I incurred when I added an extra child to the family.

Now that it’s been more than a year since my daughter was born, I’ve taken a close look at my credit card statements and other transactions and I’ve noted that these have been my biggest surprise expenses.

1. Higher food costs

I of course expected that eventually my food costs would increase when I went from one child to two since I would have an extra mouth to feed. But I was still surprised by a few things.

First, my daughter wanted to start solid foods much earlier than my son did, which meant I had to start buying more food for her earlier than I expected. She also ate much more than my son did. I attribute both of these two things to the fact she was watching her brother eat, which wasn’t the case with my son since he was my first child.

Second, and more unexpectedly, my son started eating more when his sister started solids, mainly because if she was eating something, he wanted it, too (he’d previously been pretty picky). This meant I was also buying more food for him.

2. Extra activity expenses

I also knew I would eventually need to start paying for activities for my daughter — but I didn’t expect this to start so soon either. The issue is, when my daughter sees my son doing something, she wants to do it, too. This means when we go to Disney Springs and pay to ride the merry-go-round (or to various other places), we end up having to buy two tickets instead of one.

With my son, we didn’t go to all of these child-friendly activities until he was older, but since we’re taking him and she tags along, we are incurring these expenses much sooner.

3. Multiple baby slings

As a second child, my daughter has had to eat and sleep on-the-go a lot. I also have to manage her while chasing a toddler. Because of these two things, she has been in a baby sling for a lot of her life.

While I had one sling for my son, I’ve had to buy multiple slings for her so I have them for different purposes (one sling is more comfortable for napping, and another for looking out while awake). I also require multiple slings because if she has a diaper blowout in one, I can’t just go home and wash it — I have to switch her into another one and keep playing with my son.

Good baby carriers are costly, so this has been a big added expense.

4. Extra childcare costs

I’m lucky enough to have a flexible work schedule, so my kids have never been in daycare. That’s why I assumed my childcare costs would stay mostly the same once I added my second child to the mix. But this ended up not being the case for the simple reason that there are two of them and one of me.

I’ve had to hire a babysitter for my daughter in order to be able to volunteer at my son’s preschool, or a sitter for my son so I could take my daughter to mommy-and-me music.

These were things I didn’t really think about ahead of time, and I suppose I theoretically didn’t have to volunteer or sign her up for music class. But I didn’t want to miss out on these experiences or cause sibling rivalry because I couldn’t do what I normally would thanks to having two kids at home.

Ultimately, I was lucky enough to be able to absorb these added costs since I had some extra wiggle room in my budget. But anyone considering adding a second child to their family should be aware their expenses may go up more than they might think.

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