Thoughts on the 1-to-2-Kids Transition

Everything I’ve experienced in my one month of being a mom of 2 is obviously just that—my own experience. It should hopefully go without saying that I have no idea how much of my experience is tied to my particular kids, my particular personality, and my kids’ specific age gap (Grace and John are exactly 21 months apart). But I’m sure all of it’s at play, and then some. Regardless, it feels like I’ve gotten a million questions from other moms or expectant moms on the transition from 1 to 2 kids, and I do feel like I’ve had a ton of thoughts and conversations on this matter that might be worth shedding some light on.

My first baby looked and felt like an absolute giant to me when I got home from the hospital.

And my sister-in-law said something strangely accurate, too: that your first baby’s innocence is gone in a way, and that rings very true. They just aren’t a baby anymore! Their little body and little self suddenly feels like a big huge kid, and you almost long for the way you looked at them pre-baby #2. Like everything, it gets better and you get very used to it, but the first couple days it made me so sad (and bewildered) to look at and hold Grace.

A nurse gave us the good advice of leaving the baby aside when first reunited with Grace after coming home from the hospital, and I’m so glad we listened to her.

Because our hospital stay was a bit longer due to some NICU time, Jon and I missed Grace so much, and I think she genuinely missed us too. It was so nice to just focus on her and play for a minute when we were reunited! After settling in, we said, “Grace let’s go check out this new baby! Let’s go look at the baby on the couch, it’s your baby brother!” It just felt like she approached him with pure curiosity as opposed to anything negative from the get-go.

It took about a week for Grace to get her groove back—and letting her resume her old routine was so important.

I don’t know what I anticipated, but I think I envisioned Grace being jealous and strange toward the new baby, but that wasn’t accurate at all. It’s Jon and I that her behavior changed toward for a few days (needier and therefore more irritable is the only way I’d describe it). Her neediness made me feel equal parts guilty, sad, and worried that I’d done some damage, and I didn’t exactly know how we’d adjust. But truly she adapted amazingly well and was back to her old self in less than a week. What helped immensely, we believe now, was just letting Grace live her regular routine. We made the mistake of wanting to all be home together for that first week (after being away from Grace in the hospital for several days), but the truth of the matter is that’s not what Grace needed at all! She goes to my mother-in-law’s house (in place of daycare) during the week where she sees her cousins and just has a life of her own, and by keeping her away from that I think we really threw her off. After her first day back with my mother-in-law, she came home a new little person (back to her old self!). She played independently, was much less concerned with Jon and I, and was generally just back to being the happy, funny, confident girl I remembered.

We were gifted A “Big Sister” book for Grace, and I honestly think it helped.

Grace is only 21 months older than Johnny, but she’s pretty observant and attuned to things. She loves books, and we’ve been reading this one over and over for a couple of months. Since Johnny’s arrival, I will reference this book in real life situations (such as when Grace comes into our room speaking at an ungodly volume at 3am — “Gracie shhhhh Johnny is sleeping like the baby in the Big Sister book), and I can see her making the connection and attempting to follow suit. It’s really sweet (and helpful).

It took a couple weeks for my own postpartum fog to lift, but after that, things got tremendously easier.

I spent a couple of weeks baffled as to how people do this without their partner being home to help, but now that I’m a month in, I feel heads and tails beyond where I was even a week ago. It just takes time to settle into a groove and regain your footing after the ground is basically pulled out from under you. When you’re in the thick of it, it doesn’t feel like you’re ever going to get past it, but miraculously, you just do. It gets a little bit easier each day, and before you know it, you’re just able to navigate the world of two kiddos by yourself! It’s certainly not pretty all the time, and I am still so far from wrapping my head around how stay-at-home moms do this so effectively (ALL the kudos to those moms), but I’m managing. Yes there’s more Peppa Pig (how could there not be?), and yes there are baby tears and toddler tantrums (how could there not be?), but everyone is alive and happy. And it makes me feel proud to see how far we’ve come in a month!

It somehow actually takes twice as long to get out of the house, especially in the winter.

This could largely be my kids’ age gap, but it takes forever to rally and get ready. Between making sure the baby is fed and changed and clothed to chasing Grace around to convince her to put her clothes on to getting her to put her socks and boots back on after already pulling them off once… it’s a little maddening. The only thing that has helped is making sure the diaper bag is always packed and ready to go, which is less annoying if I stay up on it in my downtime rather than when I’m itching to get out the door. This includes a bib and water cup for Grace—two item we always need and more than often forget to bring—plus all the newborn items. I’ve decided to somehow do my very best to have Spring babies in the future (or MOVE) because winter makes it that much worse (not to mention the disadvantage of not being able to just run outside sans coats/hats/etc. to take easy walks or play in the yard).

I let Grace help with everything.

… even when it’s not particularly helpful, ha. I don’t know if this is because she’s a girl, or again because of my kids’ particular age gap, but Grace has really thrived with the idea of “helping.” And so I always let her / encourage her to do so, inadvertently adopting a Montessori-esque approach whereby I can tell she’s capable, curious, and interested, so letting her do things feels incredibly gratifying for both Grace and I. If I want her to hang around me while we get ready so I don’t have to worry about her on the stairs, I’ll ask her if she wants to help pick out Johnny’s clothes. Yes, this inevitably means she is going to pull three-quarters of his nicely folded clothing out of his drawer, and no, she doesn’t pick out what I wanted him to wear, but it just feels right to hear her enthusiastically yell “Yeah!” and watch her proudly grab a shirt and pants and bring them to me, asking to help put them on him. I’ve honestly taken this approach her entire life (like when we’re cooking, I’ll grab things out of the fridge and cupboards and hand them to her, only to hand them right back to me at the counter to use), but I think it’s paid dividends when it comes to feeling responsible for the baby and understanding that she’s bigger than him, more autonomous than him, and more like another Mom to him than another baby competing with him for my attention.

… and I make it clear I trust her to help.

I recently read No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame by Janet Lansbury (highly recommend), and she talks a lot about the disconnect for toddlers between, say, hitting and being “mean.” Lansbury explains that a two year old doesn’t hit to be mean—a two year old hits to learn about the world, or in other words learn boundaries and rules based on your reaction to said hitting. So as parents we make the mistake of disciplining around “don’t hit Mommy that’s not very nice—that hurts Mommy and we don’t hurt people,” a notion that may as well be a foreign language (as well as arguably just too much focus granted when attention might be the toddler’s goal) to toddlers at that age, instead of quickly and confidently rejecting the behavior by letting the baby know we won’t let them do it and removing the temptation if necessary. Lansbury also talks a lot about how toddlers basically spend all of their time trying to learn to be autonomous, and that they really rely on us for help establishing that. Essentially, they need us to be steadfast leaders, calm, cool, and collected (and confident!) in our boundary-setting and belief in them to respect said boundaries. Anyway, I’ve applied the concept to Grace’s interactions with Johnny too. She relies on me to show her I trust her with Johnny, and when she boundary-tests by touching him too hard or something, I let her know I can’t let her do that because he’s too small and that I have to pick up the baby if she does so. But I always let her try again, or show her how I do something, before taking the baby away and moving onto something else. 9 times out of 10, she’s back to just being sweet—kissing him gently or touching his head softly, which I celebrate with her by saying how much I love seeing them play, or how much Johnny loves when she touches him. It would probably have been my instinct to say “Stop it Grace, you’re going to hurt him!” but I’m glad I realize that’s not exactly an effective thing to communicate to a 21-month-old. If all of this sounds weird, I encourage you to read Lansbury’s book—she does a much better job of explaining her thought process, and it was really eye-opening and helpful to me.

I’ve gotten really good at awkward and slightly inefficient things that simply get the job done.

I think this often so I should have more examples, but for instance last night I was sitting on the kitchen floor breastfeeding Johnny while making tiny playdough snakes with Grace and surrounded by magnet letters and coins and plastic bags and simultaneously attempting to heat up Vern’s Lost Meatball Ragu for dinner. I’ll be trying to soothe a sleepy John when Grace will cry out with frustration for help getting her baby carriage unstuck from under the desk. And suffice it to say, Johnny (and I have to imagine all Baby #2s) is very accustomed to having to cry and wait. But we’re surviving and dare I say thriving a good portion of the time—it’s just a lot more chaotic and a lot less picturesque the second time around, and that’s fine.

I am constantly comforted by how strongly I believe the complicated dynamic is better for everyone involved.

Grace has to learn there are other people and things that require our attention; Johnny has to know he’s joined a world that was already turning; and Jon and I have to be reminded that things don’t have to be easy and neat to be comfortable and effective. I have a pretty deep seated bias against coddling, spoiling, and enabling—and so it is my personal belief that the best gift I could possibly give Grace is a sibling and the best gift I could give myself is multiple kids to juggle. The world isn’t perfectly attentive to our every wish, so our home shouldn’t be either! For as hectic as things can feel, they also just feel right. This is the beginning of what I’ve always dreamed of: a house that’s buckling with love and chaos and sibling rivalry and a place where everything and everyone fits but not without being a bit on top of each other. Layered in love (and chaos). Maybe that will be our house motto.

I try to balance giving Grace attention with letting her accept that sometimes the baby needs me more than she does.

Again, I think the most effective, underlying way to achieve this is by making Grace actually believe that the baby does need me more than she does: remember, she’s autonomous and capable and able to actually help, too, whereas the baby isn’t! This has been remarkably powerful. But at the same time, when the baby doesn’t need me, I don’t make him need me. John spends a lot of time not being held, and I think that’s been nice for Grace. Similarly, Grace has gotten even more independent in the last month, which has been great to see. If she’s happy reading by herself, I try not to interrupt that. In general, I’m trying to give Grace a healthy combination of “Johnny sounds sad, do you want to help me make him feel better?” and just playing with her alone like we would have pre-baby #2. Most importantly, when I’m with her, I try to just really be in the moment (not glued to my phone scrolling Instagram).

All things considered, it’s been easier than the 0-1 Transition.

Having a first baby literally turns your world over—it’s an entirely new journey that I couldn’t possibly have prepared for even if I’d tried. And what I really mean is there was no way to prepare myself for the depth of love I’d feel—how much it would instantly change my heart and the wiring of my brain. With baby #2, my heart exploded all over again, but the foundation was at least already there. This makes for less uncharted territory, which makes things generally easier. However, I think I thought that having done everything before would make everything about the newborn process somewhat of a walk in the park the second time around—but it’s still just not. Breastfeeding was as painful for the first two weeks as it was the first time around, it’s not any easier to be running on fumes when sleep feels constantly interrupted, etc. However, I was able to lean on one great comfort—which is the knowledge and experience that everything is going to be okay, every day is an achievement, and I’ve proven I can do this before and will do it again. It’s helpful to just know certain things: breastfeeding doesn’t hurt forever, the baby will learn to sleep, babies are more resilient than anyone wants to believe, a schedule or routine will work itself out without forcing it, there are certain huge milestones to make it through and celebrate (2 weeks and 1 month especially!), and that truly the best days are yet to come. With baby #1 there’s a lot of faith and simply a lot of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other; with baby #2 the faith is less blind, and there’s a lot of power in that.

However, it’s hard in a different way.

The stress feels different. Time feels different—my attention is divided by default. One newborn felt like such a breeze in so many ways—I threw Grace in the stroller or car seat and took her everywhere I wanted to go (bars, restaurants, stores, etc.). When she slept, I learned to be the most productive version of myself—something I never thought would happen. Two kids is no joke. Especially in the beginning, I wondered if I’d ever leisurely stroll the aisles of Target again (answer still might be NO, unless I’m by myself), or if I’d ever be showered, dressed, and ready to go anywhere in a timely manner. And… where would I even go and how?! But like I said, over the last month, it feels like we’ve all just somehow settled in. It feels like there’s somehow more of me. I didn’t grow any extra hands or feet, but I’m better at using my hands and feet to do more than one thing at a time. I’m better at getting creative in a moment; I’m better at dividing and conquering; I’m better at multi-tasking; I’m better at prioritizing my children’s needs or wants in a given moment. I didn’t consciously learn any of this stuff—it just happens, and there’s tremendous comfort in that too. A natural transition and adaptation seems to take place. I still have no idea how people do life outside of their home with several small children at one time, and I’ve never had more respect for full time stay at home moms, but I do feel like Super Woman compared to how I felt even 2 weeks ago. (Also, pro tip: park next to the Cart Return! Only way to get out of the car with both little ones, and quickest way to leave, too.)

I try not to get hung up on any one moment.

Some hours suck, some moments suck, and some days are particularly shitty. This kind of thing probably would have thrown me for a loop pre-babies, but I offer myself a lot more grace now. When I have a particularly bad day, I go to bed knowing the next one simply has to be better, and it always is. Being a mom is hard! And it’s much easier if I try not to sweat the small stuff and focus on those things that *actually* matter—making sure Grace my kids are happy and exploring and safe. AKA, Grace dropping her dinner onto the floor doesn’t matter, Grace having more screen time in a day than I’d like doesn’t matter, not getting the dishes done doesn’t matter.