Going from From One Child to Two

Having one child is plenty of work! Between and soccer practice, you’ve got your hands full. But what happens when you add another kid to the mix? Every family is different, but here’s how I felt about having another child.

When I got pregnant the second time around, it was quite surprising. We didn't expect it to happen so quickly, my daughter was only 11 months old. I always wanted children close in age and so initially I was super excited.

The first trimester was tough. I was tired all the time, felt sick, and hormonal all while I was trying to take care of my crazy one year old. The super excited feeling started to wear off but I wasn’t totally terrified yet.

My second trimester was a dream. I felt good, Evie was behaving, I started looking pregnant. The stars were aligned, life was good! I thought ahead to how beautiful it would be to share our life with a new baby and I was wistful and romantic about it. That feeling was VERY short lived.

Then came the third trimester. I was roughly the size of a whale, couldn't breathe, I was constantly hungry but couldn't eat more than a few bites because Milo took up most of my body (and the heartburn... oh man don’t get me started on the heartburn!). And Evie, well long gone were the days of behaving. I think she was aware of the fact that it took me 20 minutes to get up from a chair and she took advantage of that. All I could think about was: How I was supposed to do this with two?!

Luckily, five of my mommy friends were in the same predicament. We were all pregnant with our second (or third) child and could commiserate. It felt nice to have a support group! We all looked at other Moms on the playground who had more than one in awe and thought about what lie ahead for us.

Then labor came, and fairly shortly after, my little man came into this world and everything kind of fell into place. I was expecting mayhem. How could I bring this new baby into our family? Will he take love away from Evie? How would Evie act? How am I going to take care of two babies all by myself?? I had so many emotions, but mostly I was scared.

Well let me tell you, it's a whole lot easier than I imagined. Evie loved Milo from the second she met him. Save for a few extra tantrums she was so much better than expected. She of course always waited to climb up into some precarious place while I was nursing and she knew I couldn’t do anything about it but hope for the best (part of me was proud of her for this because she was smart enough to figure that out!). Milo was also an incredibly easy baby which made for a much easier transition. I didn't have postpartum depression this time around, so my emotions were even and steady. It was so much easier than I pictured. Not to say it was easy, but it wasn’t the complete nightmare I had expected.

Fast forward to now. Yes, it can be a lot more difficult with two, especially so close in age. I don't get to do the things I'd like to with Evie because Milo can't do them. Doing basics things like going to the store or going to the can take extra planning. When both of them want cuddles my lap has to get extra big, and now that Milo is a bit older, jealousy rears it’s ugly head and I’m usually the catalyst (how DARE Milo sit in my lap when Evie wants to sit there??).

There are also huge differences between my children. Evie cried ALL the time when she was a baby, she had a mouthful of teeth by 8 months, she rarely got into anything so we hardly had to baby proof, she didn’t start crawling until close to 10 months and when we put the dog bowl down, she knew not to play in it. Now Milo on the other hand, didn’t cry much as a baby, he sprouted ONE tooth by the time he was a year old, he started crawling at 6 months, he gets into EVERYTHING so our house looks faintly like a prison and when we put the dog bowl down, he thinks its a great place to give himself and all his toys a bath. I can’t believe that two people could create two such different children!

Needless to say, sometimes at the end of the day I'm so exhausted that all I can do is lay on the couch. Sometimes I think "oh man... what was I thinking when I had another one??" And then Milo flashes me that adorable smile or I see Evie and Milo playing together and .

Having two may be harder and may seem so daunting, but if you have patience (and for me a good schedule, which isn’t always the case with some Moms. A lot of Moms like to wing it and more power to them! .) it's worth every second of the hard work you put into it!

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