Motherhood with Two Children

Life with a two-year-old and six-week-old has been keeping me busy. I’m currently yawning just thinking about it. At times I’ve felt like a total hot mess, clinging on to nap time for dear life. Other times I’ll be out and think I’ve got it all figured out. Motherhood with two has had its ups and downs, filled with plenty of happy moments, but also frustrating moments. I mean, the newborn phase is an emotional roller coaster in itself. Throw in a toddler and things are bound to be chaotic sometimes. Craziness and sleep deprivation aside, I can’t tell you how happy I am that God chose me to be mama to these little ones.

While I do feel like my transition from being a mom of one to two was easier than becoming a mom for the first time, I’ve still been experiencing some things I didn’t expect to run into, but that’s just life with children (those little stinkers are so cute, but very unpredictable), right? At the same time, a lot of moments have been pretty predictable, causing my husband and I to say “I knew this would happen” multiple times.

What I did expect…

Needing that second cup of coffee on a daily basis. Sure, life with just a toddler can be exhausting, but throw in breastfeeding 7-9 times a day, trying to put a baby to sleep constantly and carrying a baby around in an unbearably heavy car seat and you’ve got yourself a mom who craves coffee 24/7.

Our toddler being a little more whiny and upset. When you have a child who goes from being the center of attention to having to share her parents’ and grandparents’ attention, things are bound to get ugly. She’s been much better than we could have expected, but she’s had some trouble listening lately and seems to enjoy the fine art of whining.

Being totally okay with nursing in public. My nursing cover has been my best friend lately and I knew it would be that way. Having an infant isn’t going to stop me from being out and about and if he’s hungry, I need to feed him. I have learned to stop being nervous or ashamed to nurse in public places, I don’t know why I ever felt that way with our daughter. So ridiculous!

Working as a team with my husband. With two kids, it’s every man for himself. Okay, that’s dramatic, but you can usually find each of us with one kid. Lord only knows what we will do if we have three. You should see us in full force at bedtime, we’re like a couple of quarterbacks handing off children and diapers to each other. While we make a great team, I look forward to a time when we will all be able to read and pray together at bed time.

What I did not expect…

My relationship with my daughter would change. This has been the hardest part for me, but I can’t deny that our relationship is different. It’s not a huge change, but it’s enough for me to notice. I don’t have the same amount of energy or time to give to her now that we have a second and I think she’s noticed that too. I’m hoping that things will get back to the way they were in a couple of months when I’ll be able to devote more time to her.

Regretting my decision to wait to potty train our daughter until after the baby was born. Some days I feel like all I do is change dirty diapers. Enough said.

Recovery being much easier the second time around. Make that delivery and recovery being much easier this time around. Giving birth took less time and the nurses and doctors pretty much treated me like a pro because I’ve experienced all of it before. Recovery was not bad at all, it was much better than the first time and my doctor encouraged me to start exercising at two weeks (as long as I felt up to it), so it was nice getting back into running earlier on.

I’d forget how horrible sleep deprivation is. When our son was first born, he had his days and nights mixed up and was waking up every couple of hours at night. Absolutely horrible. I must have blocked how horrible it was the first time around because his first week or so of life was a struggle.

There you have it. A couple of things I did expect and didn’t. If you’re a new mom of two or more, know you’re not alone in experiencing some unexpected circumstances or emotions. I’ve talked a lot with other moms of multiples and they all say it gets easier as time goes on. Hang in there, mamas!