1 to 2 Transition

So, the transition to two kids was not “easy” but honestly it was “easier” than zero to one kid for me. Let me explain…

I thought I was super ready to have a baby, I had my first baby when I was 35. Both my husband and I were a little “older”, we were well established in our careers, married blah blah. Not that any of that actually matters or makes one more ready to have a baby, BUT I truly thought we were totally prepared. Pregnancy was harder than expected, but not as bad as some and overall I greatly enjoyed being pregnant and miss it occasionally. By the time she arrived, I was ready, prepared, my water broke on her due date and I thought I had this! Long story short, I didn’t and that first year was harder than anything I have ever done…but that’s a post for another day!

Backstory to getting pregnant with our second, 6 months into trying we had a really rough 6 weeks when our 1.5 year old was going through an awful sleep regression. She had never been a great sleeper and went from 7 pm to 5 am (which was rough but we had gotten used to it). All of a sudden she started having 1-2 hour parties every night and waking up at 3:30-4:30 am EVERY MORNING! No idea how she was surviving on 6-7 hours of broken sleep a night because it was beyond hard on her parents aka my husband and I. We came up with a routine and would trade off with her everyday, which gave us a day off to sleep ha. On my days, I would take her for a walk, in the pitch black mornings, she would just eat her snacks and look around like it was totally normal to be awake.

About a 5 weeks in, my husband and I got into a fight about sleep training and decided to stop trying. I was in the middle of my ovulation cycle and we were thinking maybe we were just meant to have one kid. Then 3 weeks later I found out I was pregnant and a tad hesitant to tell my husband. I had a plan for months on how I was going to tell him. I put a “Big Sister” shirt on our daughter and sent her to him with the positive pregnancy test. His reaction was “Is this real?!”. He was very excited, and despite our decision to stop trying, I was already pregnant!

My second pregnancy flew by, I worried less about certain things as I knew what to expect. Which was basically; plan for the things you can control and let go of everything else! If I learned anything my first time around it was, I needed help, prepared food ready to go and to rest more. So I lined up a postpartum doula, froze a ton of meals ahead of time and got food delivered and on days where my oldest went to daycare and my husband went to the office, I binge watched Netflix and napped with my baby. It was amazing.

I digress, I was worried about having two in diapers, worried about how my oldest would deal with someone taking the majority of her mommy’s attention, worried about endless sleepless nights, working full time with 2 kids under 3. Magically it all worked out, the first couple of months were super hard, not going to sugar coat that. The learning curve with two kids, a baby with awful reflux and screamed from her last nap till bedtime and postpartum anxiety was really tough. However, I had already gone through so much with my first, I knew it would get better, that we would get to the other side and even on the worst night, the baby will go to sleep, the sun always comes up and there is coffee.

I think the second time around was “easier” for me because I wasn’t naive about how hard motherhood really was. I knew how tough I was and to not pick fights with my husband over nothing in the middle of the night just because I am exhausted and annoyed. I gave us all a little more grace, I had time with just my oldest so she wouldn’t feel left out, I gave her things to do so she was the helper and felt needed and wanted. I let go of A LOT, I didn’t try as hard to be the perfect mother I thought I needed to be, instead I was just the mother my kids needed which was perfect for our family.