Making the Transition from 1 to 2 :: Not As Easy As You’d Think!

Despite how difficult babies can be, I still remember my son’s first year of life as good!  Maybe not easy-breezy, but I wouldn’t say horrible or too miserable.  Of course, we had our struggles with nursing and sleeping through the night.  He cried and fussed and hated his crib.  One or two nights he cried for hours for no reason at all.  He had fevers and teething pains.  But I do not remember ever thinking ” this is too hard” or “I never want to do this again.”

So when we decided to go for baby number 2, I had no hesitations.  Maybe I was naive (or maybe it was just wishful thinking) but while pregnant I remember thinking “I can hardly wait, I love the baby stage — it’s so fun.”

What I didn’t take into account was the toddler who was used to having me all to himself.  Sure, it was easy to nurse my son all day and nap when he napped back when it was just the 2 of us.  But with a toddler and a newborn I never seemed to get the timing right.  My toddler would not be hungry all morning until the second I sit down to nurse the baby.  Then he’d asks for strawberry pancakes.

I remember thinking how I would make the baby fit into our lives and she would just have to get used to her loud, noisy brother.   But after weeks of trying to get Natalie to sleep while her brother was making noise, I gave up.  My new baby was the lightest sleeper in the world and needs dark and quiet.  With a toddler who likes to scream (a lot) that is quite a challenge.

Somehow both of my kids always seem to need me at the same time and I just always feel like I’m physically being pulled in two different directions.  And I want to go to both of them, but there’s only one of me.

And time — I feel like there are both more hours in the day when you are up all night nursing and still less hours of the day when 2 tiny beings need your help for everything all day long.

Thankfully I have a wonderful husband to help most of the time – but when he travels for work (which is a lot) the days are even longer.

Slowly though, things have seemed to settle and I’ve started to figure out how to balance things.  Then it simultaneously is getting easier as we get into more of a routine, and harder as new challenges arise.

I was so proud of my sweet 3 year old boy, he was (and still is) great at sharing with kids younger then him.  I really thought this was an awesome sign.  But when it comes to his sister, he has no interest in sharing his parents and his toys.  In fact, my poor baby girl can barely touch anything in our house without my toddler freaking out.  Day after day we have the exact same fight a hundred times — she crawls toward his shoes, he freaks out, screams, grabs them and then holds them over his head and saying “mine”.    His shoes, my phone, a chair, her doll — it doesn’t matter, she’s not allowed to touch anything.  And I’ve tried so many different tactics to help him learn to share with her, from time outs to ignoring it — nothing has helped so far.

But when they do play together — it finally makes everything worth it!!  My oldest loves to crawl around after the baby, chasing her around the house and making her giggle.  He loves to play with her feet and we’ve caught him sharing his snacks and treats with her on several occasions.  He sings ‘You are My Sunshine’ to her when she’s crying in her car seat.  So it’s obviously not all bad.

I know there will be several ups and downs on this roller coaster of raising kids.  And I obviously need to work on being more flexible and having more realistic expectations.  It was just quite a shock how hard it was for me going from 1 to 2 kids.

I don’t know how you mommas of 3 do it!!