A couple of weeks ago, Emily posted asking for advice on what she’s in for with having a second baby. A lot of you responded reassuringly that she was going to be just fine! And I’ve no doubt she will be!! Then the other day, I got this query from a reader named Jen:
“I’m halfway through my second pregnancy, so i’m currently contemplating what two kids will really mean (ie. “what the heck was i thinking?!?!?!â€) i think you should do a blog about all the little tips for us moms going from one kid to two. =)”
Well, I don’t know if I have any tips per se, but I thought it might be at least interesting to share with you about what it was like for ME to go from having one kid to two. I thought it was pretty challenging. I think that obviously the distance in age between your kids has something to do with it, but I’m not sure what the magic number is as far as age range goes to make it “easier” to go from one kid to two. My kiddos are two years and nine months apart (that’s right, it was “Happy 2nd Birthday Joshua! We just made you a sister!”) and I was realllllyyy hoping to have Joshua potty trained by the time Sophie came along, but that really crashed and burned. So, I had two in diapers for awhile, and then I had the constant fun of trying to get Joshua on & off the potty while I had a baby attached to my boob. This of course happened about 47 times a day. His bladder and her need to nurse were perfectly in sync! I am not exaggerating!! (ok the 47 times part was a bit of an exaggeration. But it was still just about every time he had to pee.)
While the whole nursing-potty thing was logistically difficult, the hardest thing for me to deal with overall was having to care for Joshua’s basic needs when I was SO EXHAUSTED from being up with Sophie all night. I couldn’t nap when Sophie napped during the day, like I did when Joshua was a baby. (Not that he ever kept me up all night. He was way too easy!) I remember one day when Sophie was 4 or 5 weeks old, my friend Megan & her little boy came over to visit and bring Christmas goodies. Well, Sophie had been up every hour on the hour the night before, and I was just a mess. If Megan hadn’t been there I might have just gone out in the cold and laid down in the middle of my busy street and let nature take its course. Those were some tough days, but thankfully I was too out of it to have much of a memory of them now.
Now that Sophie is one, and crazy, and very mobile, my biggest challenge is to keep peace between the two kids. Joshua is constantly getting irritated that his sister is messing up his train track, or chewing on his toys, or something of that nature. But, often, they really enjoy each other and it is so sweet to watch! They love to chase each other around, and every morning when we come downstairs, Sophie howls with laughter as Joshua comes down the steps behind her. It is incredibly heart-warming (sorry that is the only word I can think of to describe it!) It’s nice to know that Joshua will never remember a time when Sophie wasn’t a part of our family. I hope that they will grow up to be good friends, just like my older nerds brothers and I did.
So, there ya go, Jen (and Emily). Once you get over the shock of having a baby that is commpletely and totally different from your first child, it’s pretty great to have two little boogers running around. And Em, just think, it’ll be TWICE the BLOG FODDER!
