Table 6 Additional quotes organized by themes pertaining to learned experience from semi-structured interviews with mothers

A lot of what I learned from the older child [firstborn], I was able to apply to my younger child [secondborn] just having the confidence on you know, this is the schedule that works. Because what we found with our first child and then also with our second child is that routine is key so keep that schedule consistent. (ID 29)

I think most of what we did with our younger [secondborn] was just based off of what we learned with our older [firstborn]. I think we did a lot of a similar things, you know, we started on the same type of foods and kind of food same way. (ID 22)

…it was just very I don’t even know. I guess we were just kind of wide eyed, didn’t really know what we were doing. You know, it was exciting, but it was also kind of terrifying because we were obviously new parents. We didn’t really know. (ID 13)

I feel like once you learn it, you just are more confident. (ID 7)

I am a reader. I like research. If I had a question about something I would go get on the internet, which is maybe not the best thing, but I had books that were passed down or that my pediatrician would tell me to read. (ID 13)

Having a baby, you only always want to have a baby, but you never really did any training for it, besides you read a lot of books, but the execution, you just have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. So to have someone [INSIGHT nurse] walk alongside me and say, can I show you something? For it to work, I was a believer from the minute I started it. (ID 2)

Realistically with my first, and actually even my second, it was what worked for us. I did not do a lot of research online. I just went with my gut. (ID 20)

It was a pretty easy transition. I guess like everything was still fresh in your mind and we knew how to do from the older one, so it’s just throwing an extra arm when you have a second one to juggle them. (ID 6)