Two Months into Mothering Two

 

Sweet Lily is 11 weeks old, and I am happy to say that we are adjusting well to being a family of four. For so much of Jackson’s infancy I could not imagine how I could do an infant and a toddler at once, but somehow we are doing it. As I reflect back on the past few months, there are things that were difficult, and wonderful, and surprising about parenting two children. But the best part has been falling in love with and getting to know Lily.

 

 

I knew that we would love her, but that hasn’t diminished the joy of actually meeting her and learning to love her. When she opens her little gray blue eyes and looks at me, I just melt: there’s my daughter: Liliana June.

 

 

From the very beginning she looked so much like Jackson as a newborn that it really contributed to feeling like I was returning to his infancy and caring for him again. I had to be really mindful in the beginning to not refer to Lily as “him” in those first few days. And I think that I came to realize that all my love I had thought of as “Love for Jackson” was really, “Love for my children.” I also realized that my love somehow was limitless, so of course you can’t imagine limitless love times two, because it was already limitless and already enough.

 

 

Of course that doesn’t magically make the time or energy expand so that they don’t have to share and wait a lot, but somehow it eases my guilt about all the waiting. Actually, I don’t have a ton of time for that particular flavor of mommy-guilt right now. There is too much to do to waste much time thinking about it, and blessedly I have been able to fall asleep and stay asleep so much better than throughout the pregnancy.

 

 

And a big part of that is that Lily is a much better sleeper than Jackson was as a baby. From the beginning, I finished labor much less exhausted than I did with Jackson. Miss Punctual Lily came not only on her due date, but at 6:30 in the evening allowing us to be all tucked in bed sleeping in the Postpartum room by 10pm not to be much disturbed until 7 am. (So much better than arriving in the postpartum room at 5:30 am on 3 hours of sleep over the previous 48 hours…because no matter when you get there the parade of people starts at 7 am.)

 

 

I’m not sure why she is a better sleeper than Jackson was. Perhaps it is because she had a much less severe tongue tie (so small the pediatric ENT wouldn’t clip it), or that I had so much milk for her from the start (because I nursed Jackson through the pregnancy) or that I just pushed for 15 minutes (not 90 like with Jackson) combining to getting off to a great start. Perhaps I’m more willing to let her fuss for a minute or two before I pick her up, or she’s more willing to fuss and fall back asleep. I don’t know, but it’s such an answer to prayer that we are all functioning on enough sleep most of the time.

 

 

The other main ingredient to such a successful postpartum period has been the immense and wonderful help we had those first few weeks with our moms staying with us. For five weeks (3 with my mom and 2 with Evan’s mom) we had round the clock help with meals and dishes and laundry and holding the baby and taking Jackson to the park. (Plus a good number of meals from sweet church friends!) It was such a gift to us. I don’t think I would have asked for 5 weeks of help if we hadn’t been trying to make it from Lily’s birthday to the last day of Evan’s school year. But I would highly recommend it! By the end of the time I really felt almost completely healed. (Not fitting into my clothes, but otherwise really good.)

 

 

I felt that I went into this postpartum period fairly well prepared. But the thing that really surprised me was that the midwife who did my postpartum check at about 18 hours said, “Don’t pick up anything more than 10 pounds, for 6 weeks.”

SIX WEEKS!

She explained that it would increase my chances of a prolapsed uterus.

 

 

Now, I’m all about keeping my organs from falling out, but six weeks without picking my 29 pound toddler was completely inconceivable. So a few hours later my regular doctor came by my room (see Lily’s birth story on the tale of my getting switched to a midwife half way through labor) and I told Dr B (who has a six month old daughter and a 3 year old son) about this new moratorium on picking up Jackson for six weeks. And she said, “Well definitely that first week, and be really careful after that…” I’m so thankful for fellow mom doctors. (And I’m happy to report that all my organs stayed inside, and that Evan did a lot of the picking up.)

 

 

My sweet mother, who had a heart attack last fall (She’s recovering wonderfully, thank the Lord!) had a 10 lbs weight limit for a good while, and she was so mindful of needing to help be good about not picking up Jackson, especially the first two weeks. But still that was so hard to feel even if I didn’t have my arms full of baby Lily that I still couldn’t pick him up when Evan wasn’t there. And it wasn’t that we didn’t get good cuddles with him, he’d climb up on the couch or I could snuggle with him on his bed. It was the discipline. It is hard to discipline a toddler without picking him up.

 

 

Overall, I think that Jackson did really well with such a major life transition hitting in the middle of the already harried business of being 2 ½ and getting a new molar in. But it was a transition, for sure. And it was loud. And there were a lot of tears and not listening and general rambunctious rule breaking (running on the couch, maniacal laughter on the verge of crying, running away from us into corners, refusing to finish–or start for that matter–meals) especially late in the day. And it was just so hard to not be able to scoop him up and physically carry him like I’d normally do.

 

 

And normally it would be completely appropriate for our moms to defer that discipline to me if I were around. So it took a little while for me to realize that I needed to directly and explicitly announce to Jackson and Grandma “Jackson, you are having a hard time listening, so I’m going to ask Grandma to pick you up and put you in the stroller now. Grandma please pick Jackson up now.” (Which of course the grandmas were more than happy to do, but it took me a while to realize that I needed to be that specific and clear with everyone, so everyone knew what needed to happen, and there could be timely interventions.) And while the grandmas were indispensable, it did add a bit to the transition to have another person living with us, and while I cried both times the moms left, just being a family of four has helped make everything seem more normal, and Jackson has just naturally adjusted with time.

 

 

Generally, as a parenting philosophy, we lean low-screen time and low-timeouts (we do a lot of time-ins). But there have been a lot more of those these past 11 weeks for Jackson than before. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, Mr. Rogers on Amazon Prime from the 1970s has been pretty sweet, and sometimes everyone needs to take a break and reset. But I’m not sure we went into it very intentionally, and now we’re particularly re-examining the timeouts (and Jackson’s settled a lot so that there are fewer needs for them). I’m reading Daniel Siegels’ No Drama Discipline and finding it challenging and helpful. I’m sure with Evan going back to school in two weeks this will probably need to be reexamined again as I become the sole caregiver for more of the week.

 

 

Also Jackson, a few weeks before Lily was born (maybe when the tooth started coming in?) really refused to eat anything on his own, wanting us to give him all his bites on his fork, and sometimes even refusing those. It got better when the tooth broke through, sort of, but we’re still doing lots of feeding him. Our doctor suggested maybe it was for attention, which seems like a pretty good guess.

 

 

Still all things considered, Jackson’s doing really well. And he is so sweet to Lily. He loves to give her kisses and little pats.

 

 

He wants to bounce her in her bjorn baby bouncer (we’ve had to coach him on doing that gently). He tells me she wants to nurse when she cries. He likes to help with her diaper changes. He likes to talk about all of us doing various things or going places all together. He’s pretty understanding about having to wait while Lily has something done for her. And Lily’s pretty patient when I need to help Jackson too.

 

 

Evan goes back to teaching in two weeks, and I know that we’re going to have another big adjustment and transition. He’s had to go in a few days this summer, so we know we can get through a day without daddy, but we’re going to miss having him around so much. Especially during Jackson’s nap (ie my writing time), it’s going to be such a challenge to know if I should try and put Lily down for a nap, or just hangout with her as she dozes.

 

 

Before Lily came I made a list of things we were doing to help Jackson get ready in a post called “Preparing for Baby #2,” and said I’d check back in on each category.

 

 

Potty Training. This was a very good idea, and I’m so glad he had been doing the potty for 9 months before she came. Highly recommend early potty training with the book O Crap Potty Training!

 

 

Big Boy Bed & Night Weaning. This went so much better than I thought it would when he turned 2. Then four months later, about five weeks before Lily was born I stopped nursing him to sleep (nursing was still a part of the bedtime routine, but we moved it up), and there were a couple rough nights, but he and Evan did great. And I stopped nursing him to sleep at naptime about 5 days before Lily was born letting my mom put him down for naps. And he really did so well again. I think that probably 2 months for both would have been a safer bet…but we got lucky that it was great.

 

 

Getting Dressed Independently. We’ve made no progress in this area, but it hasn’t been stressful to dress him. And it’s probably nice for him to have our undivided attention. Plus, my sweet friend Julie tells me that one day he will decide he wants to dress himself, and I won’t be able to help even if I wanted to. So, for now we’re mostly focusing on getting him to handle pulling up and down his pants for pottying.

 

 

Independent Play. He’s naturally doing more of this, but we haven’t really been intentional about helping him do more.

 

 

Practicing with a Baby Doll. I don’t know if it helped (once he brought his baby doll over for me to nurse) but the waldorf baby doll my sister-in-law made sure is cute.

 

 

Reading Books About New Babies. I think this was helpful, and in the first weeks of Lily being here he wanted to read the baby books (and the grandmas, especially Evan’s mom were amazing in the quantity of books they read with him.) And I think the books were good for me as well, especially Mr. Rogers’ wonderful book The New Baby with the line “Just like you have enough love for both your mom and dad, they have enough love for both you and the new baby.” Yes, Mr. Rogers you are so right!

 

 

Baby & Toddler Proofing. We replaced our two bedroom doorknobs, and they’ve been working great. I’m sure as Lily grows we’re going to have to do more baby proofing!

 

 

Cribs and Clothes for New Baby. I let people know informally and in my baby shower that I needed used girls’ clothes and people were so generous to us. We got more clothes than we needed! And we found a sweet double stroller on Craig’s List that helped me get out for walks weeks 3 to 5 when my core wasn’t strong enough to walk miles with Lily in the ergo.

 

 

 

Grandmother Help. This was the best! Grandma Debbie and Grandma Ttea were awesome. And it was so sweet to see them grow in love for and bond with their grandchildren. I cannot say enough how great it was to have them.

 

 

Preparing Myself. My big focus was on trying to stay healthy and read books and blog posts about the transition to two kids. And I’m glad I did those things even at the price of a lot less writing time. I had enough pregnancy complaints / minor complications (rhinitis, heart burn, hip and back pain, GBS+ and then at the end gestational hypertension) that keeping myself eating and walking and sleeping while caring for Jackson was a full-time job. And now on the other end when I’m feeling so much better, I’m so glad I took all that time to care for our physical needs, because I think it helped me bounce back a lot faster. Also, reading stories about two kids really was very encouraging.

 

 

But my in-person friends have offered the greatest encouragement. My best friend from high school Kelli sagely told me it took her son about 8 weeks to settle into being a big brother, and Jackson turned a corner about then too. My sweet friend Bridget tried to convince me that taking care of a toddler pregnant was way harder than taking care of a toddler and a newborn, and now I think I’d have to agree with her. And my friend Emily said that having her first son with a terrible tongue-tie was like surviving a hurricane and her second daughter was like a summer storm that blew in and blew out, and, she added, everyone was even getting some sleep. And my sister-in-law Candace with a third due a few weeks after Lily just said simply, “Oh you’ll be fine.”

 

 

These past few weeks we’ve spotted very pregnant moms with 2 year olds on the park paths or in stories, and have shouted encouragements as we passed, “You can do it! It’s not too bad!” And they look so relieved and respond with some version of, “Really? Because it seems like it’s going to be hard.”

 

 

And there are hard moments for sure. But I think that I look back on these first days with Lily in the gorgeous summer Wisconsin weather as some of the sweetest days of my life.

 

 

I’ll probably conveniently forget that sometimes she doesn’t sleep, or how loud it is when everyone cries (and I just sing to them and try to pick up the pieces of whatever we’re trying to do), or how this summer with Evan home might be the summer that I spent the least amount of time with him. I’ll probably just remember holding Lily in the breezy shade, Jackson’s chatting away with his newly fluent sentences, and the immense miracle of new life: green grass, wild flowers, and beautiful babies.

 

 

How about you! Did you find having two kids to be manageable? Does it seem completely overwhelming? Any wisdom for me?