My first thought when I found out my second baby would be born when my daughter was just 13 months old was, “I am not the sort of person who can do this.”
I’ve never considered myself highly energetic or overly competent in domestic life, and people like me just probably shouldn’t have two children in a year. But apparently it was happening.
Once my son was born, and my husband and I survived those first two weeks (wondering what on earth had just happened to us!), it was time to settle in to our new reality. His mother had gone home and he had to go back to work. I suddenly found myself alone with two babies, zero sleep, and piles of diapers.
On day one, I learned two essential lessons.
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First, it became imperative to leave the house at least once a day. Otherwise I would never get dressed again. Second, it was OK to tend to my daughter’s emotional needs before meeting the new baby’s physical needs.
The first lesson may be a no-brainer in theory, but in practice it was something of a circus act. Our first day home alone, I figured I could handle taking both kids to Whole Foods — one errand in a relatively small place with handy shopping carts.
We parked in the garage, and I managed to hoist my daughter onto my hip and carry the baby in his bucket seat into the store. That’s where I promptly discovered the carts were too small for the baby bucket to fit.
Back to the car for plan B, wherein baby boy was strapped to my chest, and baby girl could ride shotgun in the cart. Perfect. We made it about eight feet into the produce aisle before baby boy threw up all over me. I had two choices: cut my losses and return home defeated, or press on. I swiped at my shirt with a baby wipe, ignored the staring shoppers around me, and managed to buy some groceries. Success!
The second lesson may sound backwards, but when a 13-month-old suddenly becomes a big sister, there is no way to make her understand what has happened to her world. I’ll never forget how confused and sad my daughter looked those first few days after her brother was born. The guilt!
Contrary to how I operated when she was a newborn — attending to her every need the very second she needed it — things had to be different this time around. If the baby needed to be fed, I first fixed his sister a snack and a bottle and put her in her pack-and-play with a book or turned on Sesame Street.
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If she was sad or tired or hungry or upset over the injustice of it all, I tended to her first, even if the new baby was screaming for a diaper change. He would be fine. She needed to know I was still there for her.
I’ll never forget how confused and sad my daughter looked those first few days after her brother was born.
And you know what? Because he had to learn to self-soothe right off the bat, my son was an incredibly easygoing, low-demand baby.
I’m frequently reminded of the saying, “The days are long, but the years are short.” Boy, were those early days long.
In that first year after my son was born, there were many days when my husband would come home to find all three of us on the floor in tears. But we muddled through, and figured out how to make the most of our early years with those two tiny humans.
If I could have had the exact same babies several years apart, would I go back and change it? Not in a million years. I blinked my weary eyes, and they are now 8 and 7, walking and talking and so much more — and best friends. Watching my children grow up side by side, close in both age and spirit, makes all of those bleary nights completely worth it.
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