I am only ten weeks into the new constellation of our family of five, but I have been thinking a lot about the differences among going from zero to one child, one to two children, and two to three. I have heard almost consistently that going from two to three is the hardest and then, after that, it is not nearly so hard to add more children ("hey, what's one more?"): hearing that often has surely biased my perception. And note that most of the mothers telling me this are providential, homeschooling mothers like me: this affects our perception, as I can imagine that purposefully spacing children to be certain ages (closer together or further apart) would change the dynamic, as would spacing children such that the older children are away at school (daycare, preschool, whatever) versus being around all the time while Mama is learning how to take care of a new baby.
Zero to One
For me, going from zero to one child was mainly about Dying to Self. I didn't realize just how selfish I was as a single person--even though I was a pretty nice, giving, average single person. Nonetheless, to go from being totally self-directed and (seemingly) in control of every moment of my days to being at the mercy of an inexplicably screaming, insatiably demanding baby shatters one's ego. I didn't have any life experience (e.g., coming from a big family) to teach me how to take care of a baby, so I was learning all the pragmatics from scratch. I had previously excelled in school, run my own editing business, and then attended a year of law school, so I was used to success pretty much in all endeavors . . . not in the seeming failure of nursing struggles, not being able to "make" a baby sleep, not being able to "make" my baby eat solids without throwing up, not to mention reaching the toddler age and not being able to "make" my one-year-old obey (a laughable idea to me now).
From a Catholic perspective, having my first baby gave me innumerable opportunities to try to replace sin with virtue, particularly these: Greed with Liberality, Envy with Charity, Anger with Meekness, Pride with Humility, and Sloth with Diligence. Realizing just how spiritually defective I was, having my ego crushed, and slowly trying to increase my virtues through mothering inspired many tears. But death to self is a very good thing, as St. Paul knew.
One to Two
For me, going from one child to two was mainly about realizing I Can Not Do It All. Having just one child, I maintained the illusion that if I just worked hard enough, I could succeed in doing it all, in meeting all of my child's needs. By even trying to meet all his needs, I made some serious errors, such as never making him wait for anything. I remember sitting in the kitchen one night when I was seven months pregnant and realizing that I had never made my child, nearly two years old, wait for anything. And he was about to be thrust into a situation in which he would have to wait for many things for quite a while. And I was in serious trouble.
What I remember about the early months of having two children was how John would throw himself on the floor screaming and weeping every time I nursed the infant, which was easily ten times during the days alone. I remember a blur of a lot of screaming and crying: some of it my toddler's, some of it mine--and for three hours every night, it was my infant's screaming too!
I discovered that I could not do it all, nor would that have been a good thing for any child. It is a virtue to learn how to wait to be satisfied. It is a virtue to learn how to share finite resources (e.g., toys, mama's attention, time). It is a virtue to learn empathy for another human being (one's sibling). It is a virtue to learn how to negotiate conflict. Mothering two children taught me to accept--not to be shattered by--being unable to meet all the needs of my precious babies whom I adore. Now I can live a lot more comfortably in the moments when multiple kids have conflicting needs, when they're all crying. It's called "Mommy Triage." Moment-to-moment, I am discerning whose need takes priority. (Another lesson I learned when having two children is that Mama has needs to and sometimes--gasp!--they take priority. Because if Mama continues to be a self-created martyr, she will collapse and become a terrible mother and wife.)
Two to Three
I have had three children for only ten weeks. They are close in age by The World's standards (23 month spacing, then 28-month spacing), but not that close within my circle of providential, Catholic friends.
So far, I think that this transition is mainly about being organized and diligent. I have been tearful and distressed many times because the workload is simply very hard! It's not necessarily new or confusing work, it's just hard and unrelenting. I have discovered that, at least with my personality, I have to be highly organized. I stick to my routine. If I relax and get off my routine, the house falls apart, the children act chaotically, and I start crying. And even if I remain organized, I find that the work is so hard that I feel like I am walking through life (my very blessed life!) with cement shoes on my feet: it is just hard!
Not only do I have to be organized, but I had to ask for help (which is very hard for me, as I bet it is for many mothers). I hear of many mother friends whose husbands help them tremendously in the day-to-day care of little ones. I have husbandly help when Chris is home, but he travels for work easily half the time, so I cannot rely on him being here. I have to have systems in place such that I'm able to run the home even in his absence: that means being organized and asking for help. I have housecleaners who do my deep cleaning every other week, leaving only the daily maintenance for me. I have a nanny who comes for three hours two mornings per week, and it is during this time that I do all my errands and attend any appointments. I now do my grocery shopping online so all I have to do is go through a drive-through to pick up our food. I know that I am very blessed to have this help, especially in the absence of local family.
I am planning our meals: there is a concept! I started with a six-week plan, which I review each week to change based on any social outings or Chris' business travel. I even have a few of the different nights assigned to themes (e.g., Mexican night, Pizza Saturday, Soup Night) and on Wednesdays I am baking our bread.
I have a to-do list on the refrigerator, keeping me on task at all times, and I live by our family calendar. Although, speaking of the calendar, I think that having three little ones (none in outside school) means having a much more home-centered life. Dragging the kids out and about on errands or too many fun activities throws the whole household out of routine, plus sets up the kids' expectations to be entertained all the time. The kids' eating and sleeping times get changed and then everything falls apart. Thus, I am trying not to waste the kids' outings on grown-up errands, so that I take them out only for a few fun events and Mass. I've recently started doing more play dates than before, but those are at homes, often ours.
I also have a Daily Routine posted on the refrigerator in hopes of keeping me in a rhythm. On one hand, it looks highly structured. On the other hand, I think it offers much flexibility. The eating times and bedtime are the only times fairly strictly set. Neither of the bigger kids nap anymore, and the baby has no routine yet to her nap time whatsoever! I'm involving the children more in chores, so that they are less Mama's Chores ("she does everything for us") and more Family Chores ("we all contribute to the family"). I figure that either the kids are learning to do work by working alongside me, or they're hindering me but at least I know they're not getting into mischief because they're working alongside me! By having the kids work with me more (which they often enjoy anyway), this makes their free play time more coveted, which I hope will inspire them to run off and play more instead of hanging around my ankles, asking for direction all the time.
I'm trying to add another layer of routine into our day through prayer (morning prayers at seven, when we're always in the kitchen anyway, Angeles at noon, Rosary after dinner, and prayers at bedtime): speaking of prayer, another blog post I'm working on is about our goals for family prayer, what we do, what are you doing, and sharing some ideas as mothers.
I've posted my daily routine at the end of this blog post. Some of it I am sticking to very well, some of the items are brand new goals at which I might fail entirely, we shall see!
I am finding the need for this level of routine to help counter the uncertainty and chaos that is unavoidable in having three littles, one of them an infant. I am still carrying Margaret almost all the time, she is still nursing at least 15 times per 24 hours, and waking about five times per night (one of them an hour-long stretch most nights around 3:00 a.m.), so the sleep deprivation is torturous right now. I wish I could do all my chores at set times, but I can't, so, for example, I wash dishes once or twice a day as I can. I do things "in the cracks." It might take me four days to wash the cast iron griddle after making pancakes one morning. I might not vacuum at all in between bi-monthly housekeepers coming--and that is not a pretty sight! The other day, Mary found my vegetable wash (thank God that is all it was) and sprayed the citrus liquid over every floor of my downstairs plus on the TV screen before I caught her. Asked why John watched it all without coming to get me, he said he didn't want to miss any of his TV show. All that is to say: do not let my hopes and dreams of my routine fool you into thinking I've got it "all going on" with my children newborn, two, and four!
I'd love to hear the perspectives of other mothers on the transitions from one number of children to another number.
DAILY ROUTINE
Family Rosary (one decade--takes 10 minutes)
6:30 Everyone upstairs for bedtime routine: bathing, pajamas, pick up bedrooms,
laundry in hampers, teeth, night prayers.
If done quickly enough, there is time for reading stories.
7:30 Lights out for kids (then Mama collapses in a heap, has to hold the baby the rest of the evening or she'll scream, and is usually passed out asleep within one hour--ha ha!)
One to Two
For me, going from one child to two was mainly about realizing I Can Not Do It All. Having just one child, I maintained the illusion that if I just worked hard enough, I could succeed in doing it all, in meeting all of my child's needs. By even trying to meet all his needs, I made some serious errors, such as never making him wait for anything. I remember sitting in the kitchen one night when I was seven months pregnant and realizing that I had never made my child, nearly two years old, wait for anything. And he was about to be thrust into a situation in which he would have to wait for many things for quite a while. And I was in serious trouble.
What I remember about the early months of having two children was how John would throw himself on the floor screaming and weeping every time I nursed the infant, which was easily ten times during the days alone. I remember a blur of a lot of screaming and crying: some of it my toddler's, some of it mine--and for three hours every night, it was my infant's screaming too!
I discovered that I could not do it all, nor would that have been a good thing for any child. It is a virtue to learn how to wait to be satisfied. It is a virtue to learn how to share finite resources (e.g., toys, mama's attention, time). It is a virtue to learn empathy for another human being (one's sibling). It is a virtue to learn how to negotiate conflict. Mothering two children taught me to accept--not to be shattered by--being unable to meet all the needs of my precious babies whom I adore. Now I can live a lot more comfortably in the moments when multiple kids have conflicting needs, when they're all crying. It's called "Mommy Triage." Moment-to-moment, I am discerning whose need takes priority. (Another lesson I learned when having two children is that Mama has needs to and sometimes--gasp!--they take priority. Because if Mama continues to be a self-created martyr, she will collapse and become a terrible mother and wife.)
Two to Three
I have had three children for only ten weeks. They are close in age by The World's standards (23 month spacing, then 28-month spacing), but not that close within my circle of providential, Catholic friends.
So far, I think that this transition is mainly about being organized and diligent. I have been tearful and distressed many times because the workload is simply very hard! It's not necessarily new or confusing work, it's just hard and unrelenting. I have discovered that, at least with my personality, I have to be highly organized. I stick to my routine. If I relax and get off my routine, the house falls apart, the children act chaotically, and I start crying. And even if I remain organized, I find that the work is so hard that I feel like I am walking through life (my very blessed life!) with cement shoes on my feet: it is just hard!
Not only do I have to be organized, but I had to ask for help (which is very hard for me, as I bet it is for many mothers). I hear of many mother friends whose husbands help them tremendously in the day-to-day care of little ones. I have husbandly help when Chris is home, but he travels for work easily half the time, so I cannot rely on him being here. I have to have systems in place such that I'm able to run the home even in his absence: that means being organized and asking for help. I have housecleaners who do my deep cleaning every other week, leaving only the daily maintenance for me. I have a nanny who comes for three hours two mornings per week, and it is during this time that I do all my errands and attend any appointments. I now do my grocery shopping online so all I have to do is go through a drive-through to pick up our food. I know that I am very blessed to have this help, especially in the absence of local family.
I am planning our meals: there is a concept! I started with a six-week plan, which I review each week to change based on any social outings or Chris' business travel. I even have a few of the different nights assigned to themes (e.g., Mexican night, Pizza Saturday, Soup Night) and on Wednesdays I am baking our bread.
I have a to-do list on the refrigerator, keeping me on task at all times, and I live by our family calendar. Although, speaking of the calendar, I think that having three little ones (none in outside school) means having a much more home-centered life. Dragging the kids out and about on errands or too many fun activities throws the whole household out of routine, plus sets up the kids' expectations to be entertained all the time. The kids' eating and sleeping times get changed and then everything falls apart. Thus, I am trying not to waste the kids' outings on grown-up errands, so that I take them out only for a few fun events and Mass. I've recently started doing more play dates than before, but those are at homes, often ours.
I also have a Daily Routine posted on the refrigerator in hopes of keeping me in a rhythm. On one hand, it looks highly structured. On the other hand, I think it offers much flexibility. The eating times and bedtime are the only times fairly strictly set. Neither of the bigger kids nap anymore, and the baby has no routine yet to her nap time whatsoever! I'm involving the children more in chores, so that they are less Mama's Chores ("she does everything for us") and more Family Chores ("we all contribute to the family"). I figure that either the kids are learning to do work by working alongside me, or they're hindering me but at least I know they're not getting into mischief because they're working alongside me! By having the kids work with me more (which they often enjoy anyway), this makes their free play time more coveted, which I hope will inspire them to run off and play more instead of hanging around my ankles, asking for direction all the time.
I'm trying to add another layer of routine into our day through prayer (morning prayers at seven, when we're always in the kitchen anyway, Angeles at noon, Rosary after dinner, and prayers at bedtime): speaking of prayer, another blog post I'm working on is about our goals for family prayer, what we do, what are you doing, and sharing some ideas as mothers.
I've posted my daily routine at the end of this blog post. Some of it I am sticking to very well, some of the items are brand new goals at which I might fail entirely, we shall see!
I am finding the need for this level of routine to help counter the uncertainty and chaos that is unavoidable in having three littles, one of them an infant. I am still carrying Margaret almost all the time, she is still nursing at least 15 times per 24 hours, and waking about five times per night (one of them an hour-long stretch most nights around 3:00 a.m.), so the sleep deprivation is torturous right now. I wish I could do all my chores at set times, but I can't, so, for example, I wash dishes once or twice a day as I can. I do things "in the cracks." It might take me four days to wash the cast iron griddle after making pancakes one morning. I might not vacuum at all in between bi-monthly housekeepers coming--and that is not a pretty sight! The other day, Mary found my vegetable wash (thank God that is all it was) and sprayed the citrus liquid over every floor of my downstairs plus on the TV screen before I caught her. Asked why John watched it all without coming to get me, he said he didn't want to miss any of his TV show. All that is to say: do not let my hopes and dreams of my routine fool you into thinking I've got it "all going on" with my children newborn, two, and four!
I'd love to hear the perspectives of other mothers on the transitions from one number of children to another number.
DAILY ROUTINE
Kids Katherine
6:00-7:00 a.m. Kids wake up
No TV before breakfast Put away clean dishes
7:00 Morning Prayers as family (new goal--should take 10 minutes)
7:30-8:00 BREAKFAST TIME, done & cleaned by 8:00
8:00 Everyone upstairs: make beds, get dressed, hair & teeth, bring down laundry.
If done quickly enough, there is time for 30 minutes of TV at 8:30.
M/F: House chores
W: 9:00 Mass (new goal)
T/Th: Errands (while nanny is here)
10:00 SNACK TIME
M/W/F: Circle Time (Saint of the Day, book of Mama’s choosing) (new goal--should take 15-30 minutes)
11:30 LUNCH TIME
6:00-7:00 a.m. Kids wake up
No TV before breakfast Put away clean dishes
7:00 Morning Prayers as family (new goal--should take 10 minutes)
7:30-8:00 BREAKFAST TIME, done & cleaned by 8:00
8:00 Everyone upstairs: make beds, get dressed, hair & teeth, bring down laundry.
If done quickly enough, there is time for 30 minutes of TV at 8:30.
M/F: House chores
W: 9:00 Mass (new goal)
T/Th: Errands (while nanny is here)
10:00 SNACK TIME
M/W/F: Circle Time (Saint of the Day, book of Mama’s choosing) (new goal--should take 15-30 minutes)
11:30 LUNCH TIME
12:00 Angelus Prayer (new goal--should take 2 minutes)
Free play time or quiet time in own bedrooms
Good time for baking or dinner prep-cooking
2:30 SNACK TIME (no eating after 3:00)
Free play time or quiet time in own bedrooms
Good time for baking or dinner prep-cooking
2:30 SNACK TIME (no eating after 3:00)
Free play time
Kids clean up den before TV allowed
4:30 One hour of television Cooking dinner
5:30 DINNER TIME
Kids clean up den before TV allowed
4:30 One hour of television Cooking dinner
5:30 DINNER TIME
Family Rosary (one decade--takes 10 minutes)
6:30 Everyone upstairs for bedtime routine: bathing, pajamas, pick up bedrooms,
laundry in hampers, teeth, night prayers.
If done quickly enough, there is time for reading stories.
7:30 Lights out for kids (then Mama collapses in a heap, has to hold the baby the rest of the evening or she'll scream, and is usually passed out asleep within one hour--ha ha!)
For me, going from one to two was the most difficult because there were only 12 1/2 months between the two boys. John Joseph still needed me almost as much as a newborn and was teething terribly, and Will and I had a lot of trouble with nursing. Between nursing and pumping Will at night and during the day, John Joseph still required a bottle in the middle of the night and/or medicine for his teeth. It was exhausting!
ReplyDeleteLife after Mary Elizabeth was a little easier simply because John Joseph was older at almost 3 and Will was almost 2. Mary Elizabeth was a good nurser, and the boys had each other as friends for playing. Nights were still hard, since she woke a lot, and Will still woke from nightmares or something else, but they were managable. Keeping her safe from rascally and rambunctious boys was also challenging.
Now they are all great friends. Mary Elizabeth even refers to the boys as her friends not her brothers. Daily fights over toys are the challenge.
I pray that when the next baby arrives in a couple of months that we will have an easier transition. There will certainly be lots of challenges. So far, the biggest is that I STILL do not have a daily routine for our life. I can no longer wing it in a house as small as ours and with another soon to join us and with homeschooling on the immediate horizon. I am reading Large Family Logistics in order to hopefully overcome my shortcomings in this area. Wow, how I wish someone had given me this book before marrying instead of the smutty books I received from "friends" at a couple of my showers. 7 years is never too soon to learn and improve, though.
Ashley: Yes, having Irish twins would make for an extremely hard transition! I keep thinking of a new online acquaintance (hi, TridentineWife!) who has Irish twins and real twins! She had twins, then another baby something like 13 months later.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that book looks amazing and I am ordering it.
I STILL don't feel like I can get to a weekly mass mid-week and I have older kids than you. I commend you highly if you can stick to that.
ReplyDeleteComing up this fall the 2 older girls will be doing a coop of sorts (hist & science with a few friends) and I hope to get to a daily Mass with all the families in the coop once a month. We'll see how that goes!! Now that I have two communicants I feel it's important. For now, we can barely go to mass all together as a family and sit through with BOTH parents there so I don't feel (so terribly) bad about not going myself with the kids even though we are close and even though mass is offered daily.
I have found going from 2-3 to be quite difficult too...I think for me the hardest part now is that I get no breaks! Whereas I used to use naptime to get things done, now with three kids and two who don't nap, I've really had to learn how to multitask. I finally feel like I'm a full-time parent, which is why the thought of another at this point is like "what's one more?"
ReplyDeleteTo me it feels like building stronger and stronger mothering muscles. At a point, the increased work load is not that huge (how much more does one toddler eat? or one toddler create laundry?) but the added blessings of more children are still huge.
ReplyDeleteThese are wonderful thoughts Katherine. I can only identify with going from zero to one, but you were right on with that dying to self. Even I thought I was a nice person, who was selfless and giving before we had Matthew. But now I look back and can totally see that I have done a lot of dying to myself, and yet, still have so much more to do.
ReplyDeleteI think the more into motherhood in get (as in more experience, not more kids) I find myself feeling like I've got it figured out, only to then have something brand new come at me- illness, behavior changes, food dislikes, etc and totally throw right back into that novice feeling again!
Love the photo of the three children after Mass!
I am only 5 weeks into my 2-to-3 transition, and the memory of each newborn period is somewhat foggy, but I actually feel like this transition has been a little easier for me than 1 to 2. (So far – but we have many phases and stages to live through yet as the youngest one develops! I also feel like I am still on somewhat “light duty” as I have not resumed cooking and cleaning to level that I was previously at.)
ReplyDeleteHaving only one child, I could more easily be in a very loose routine and meet all of his needs much more quickly. I probably also underestimated what he was capable of doing himself, so I continued to do many things FOR him that made more work for me. This continued after the second was born. Also, before number 2 was born, I had actually developed a pretty good household chore routine. After number 2, that chore routine went out the window, and I have never been able to get back to it! Additionally, I remember that my expectations for Joseph soared, and my patience plummeted. I was yelling and loosing my temper all the time (for a good 3 to 4 months, as I recall). I think I had a steeper "re-learning" curve with all the newborn care. I remember for example how difficult and complicated it was to get a baby and a toddler in the car to go anywhere. It always took SO long!
This time, I think I have re-learned the newborn stuff more quickly (as I can never quite remember what it is like to care for one until I am actually doing it!) For example, it does not take us as long to get packed up in the car as it did when Simon was a newborn (but certainly longer than it did with only 2 kids.) While I am definitely experiencing a shorter fuse and loosing my temper more easily, I am better at anticipating their needs and problems and I think that helps with *some* prevention. When I am in the midst of flying off the handle, I nonetheless have a little rational voice in the back of my head saying, “Sarah, you have lost it. How can you come back off the edge?” I don’t remember having that after #2 was born. Although I am usually too far gone to actually do anything about it in the moment. (Like the other day when Simon who can go potty all by himself 97% of the time had an accident while I was nursing Clara and not available to assist him, so I had to clean up pee on the rug and floor and became livid over it!) It also helps that both the boys, by virtue of their age and/or personality, have a certain degree of self-sufficiency that frees me up, allows me to delegate or ask for help, or permits me to assist with just one hand or more quickly than if they were younger.
That’s me at 5 weeks in!