Finding My New Normal After I Became a Mother of 2

Nothing could truly prepare me for this new life.

Nothing.

Of course I’ve heard stories from my mom-friends. I’ve also read a ton of mom blogs. But like becoming a first time mom, you don’t really know what it’s going to be like until you’re in it.

So I was optimistic. I mean I already knew what it was like to have a baby. And I knew what it was like to survive the darkness of the newborn stage. Now it was just a matter of having to go through it again… but with a toddler.

No big deal, right?

Boy was I optimistic. I can’t help but laugh at myself a little bit. Because really… I had no clue.

Becoming a mother of 2 is basically starting all over again. Like seriously. Starting from scratch. The routines that were established with Ella was designed through trial and error and what worked for us and Ella. Not Us, Ella, and Baby. Just when we thought we were winning in this parenting thing, we decided to challenge ourselves by having another kid.

Let’s start with life at home. Because let’s face it… my outside social life was put on hold until further notice. So the only life I had was my home life. That’s just the reality of it. If I could not get a grip on tackling day to day chores, forget trying to take on the outside world.

When you have 2 kids… 2 babies… trying to establish any kind of schedule in the newborn stage is not even worth the effort. Especially if you are exclusively breastfeeding. Having to balance nursing Everly on demand and feeding Ella took a lot of time and effort. I was lucky if I got to eat anything myself. And like my babies, if I didn’t get anything to eat, I became very cranky. And stressed out. Which made my toddler cranky and stressed out. And by the end of the day we were all crying when Daddy came home.

We used to have a system where dirty dishes was loaded up into the dishwasher at the end of the day so that we would have clean dishes for the next day. Some days it gets done (usually when the hubby is off work and both of us together, we get ish done) and some days it doesn’t. It just piles up until we are completely out of clean ones. Okay maybe I’m exaggerating just a little bit, but for real… some days I just don’t have the time to do dishes. There’s been a couple of instances where it literally has taken me an entire day to get a sink load of dishes done – in between diaper changes, feedings, and putting babies to sleep!

When it was just Ella, our living room would be picked up each night before we went to bed. Because there’s nothing like the feeling of waking up to a clean house each morning. Yeah… getting Ella to help pick up toys now that Everly is here is like trying to pull teeth. Sometimes she helps, sometimes she refuses. Sometimes the living room stays messy with toys everywhere for days!

Laundry. Can’t save it for the weekends anymore. I’ve actually started doing a load of laundry or 2 a day just so they don’t pile up. Because the pile grows quickly when you got a newborn. Can’t believe how much laundry a little tiny human being can accumulate in one day, but it does.

And forget about looking cute! The effort I put in to look decent when I went out after having Ella went out the window with Everly. Pajamas is high fashion status these days. When we didn’t have any visitors, my go-to outfit consisted of a pair of shorts and a nursing bra and a comfy robe. I rocked the mom bun and no makeup look for weeks! When people came to visit, I added a shirt and put on minimal makeup. And by minimal I mean moisturizer with a brush of powder foundation. I was now a mother of 2 and I was definitely going to use that as an excuse to why I looked the way I did. I was too tired to care.

I hardly ever cook anymore. My poor husband has had to deal with working 40+ hours a week and then coming home to cook dinner for us all. And then on weekends, he helps me meal prep for the week. Okay, okay, he doesn’t just help… he pretty much does it all. And when we both can’t, we order take out. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Everly is now 3 months old and although we are still adjusting and setting new routines, it’s getting a little bit easier. It’s definitely a team effort for the hubby and I.  But we’re getting there.

And hey, I’m still workin’ on getting that birth story written. 😉

The 4th Trimester

Before you go any further, I have to tell you that the following content was written in pieces from the moment I got home from the hospital (in the wee hours of the night when I nursed or in the middle of the day when the babies were napping) and completed about 5 weeks ago. But for whatever reason, I managed to forget to post it. Go figure, right? Anyway, I thought of just 86’ing the whole thing altogether and just start a whole new post. But then who knows how long it’ll take me to write that one and then finally post it?! By the way, it is currently 2:46AM and I am writing this insert from my phone with my 12-week old on my boob. Yup, can ya believe she’s already 12 weeks old?! Oh how my life has changed…

Please read on… and maybe my next post won’t take another 12 weeks to publish 🤣

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Give me a minute to find the right words to describe what life has been like for me in this 4th Trimester.

(Long pause)

It’s been amazing.

It’s been chaos.

It’s been a bunch of highs and a lot of lows.

But most of all, it’s been exhausting.

I am beyond exhausted.

The sleep deprivation.

The inability to function when you don’t get a good night of unbroken sleep.

Which, in turn, leads to frustration.

And then comes the tears.

Ohhhh the uncontrollable tears!

Tears of joy.

Tears of frustration.

Tears that just come out of nowhere because having a newborn all over again can make you lose your mind and you begin to think you know nothing about babies or being a mom. And then it makes you second guess the decision you made in wanting another one!

Seriously.

The newborn stage is hard. I’ve been through it once already, I know how needy newborn babies are. The never ending cycle of eat, sleep, poop/pee may sound boring easy but mix in the crying (especially the Witching Hour crying) and an energetic 2-year old who doesn’t quite understand that I can’t just “put Baby down” whenever she tells me to… it can get pretty overwhelming.

7 weeks in and I have yet to establish some sort of consistent routine. There are days where my days start off pretty good and I feel like I’m gonna be a rockstar and totally nail this motherhood thing. And that lasts about, ohhh maybe 2 minutes. I’m talking just tackling everyday chores like doing the dishes and picking up toys and doing laundry! Yeah there’s been days where my house is just a complete mess. And yes it bugs me… but I’ve learned to let some things go. Especially since I am still trying to recover from childbirth. The first 3 weeks were rough. My body was sore. I was weak. I was instructed to not do too much and to just let my body heal. I was also told I wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than my newborn baby. Yeah, try telling that to my toddler.

Learning to give my time and attention to my newborn and my toddler was hard. Ella was excited to have a new baby around. But, like the rest of us, there were a lot of adjustments to get used to. Like putting Ella to bed, for instance. That’s always been a special moment for Ella and I. Lots of cuddles and talking and story telling happened at bedtime. After we brought Everly home, the hubby had to take on the task of tucking Ella in at night. Ella wasn’t happy about it. And to be honest, it made me sad, too.

The only thing that’s “easy” about caring for a newborn this go around is knowing that this phase is just temporary. It’s tough yes…but it won’t last forever. And that’s what gets me through the sleepless nights. Through the days where hubby comes home from work to find his newborn, toddler, and wife all in tears because I can’t seem to figure out how to simultaneously play with my toddler, nurse the baby, and make us all something to eat…and I probably never will!

Ok so before you swear off having kids forever (for those of you who are on the fence about having them) or change your mind about having more of them… just keep on reading.

Even though this stage is hard.

Even though we feel like we’re going insane…

We are completely over the moon in love with this tiny human. Love cuddling her, kissing on her, getting to know her… love seeing my Ella Bella love on her little sister (I know it’s just a matter of time before Everly is old enough for Ella to fight with but for now, I’ll take it!) it’s just been an amazing blissful time. You know, all the feels.

Yes the newborn stage is hard, and at times “boring,” but the best is yet to come. Almost 8 weeks in and Everly is starting to “outgrow” this stage. She’s more alert. She coos. She smiles! And yeah these moments only last for a few minutes at a time right now before the crying starts, but this is just the beginning.

So that’s that. Life with 2, a toddler and newborn, is exciting, wonderful, chaotic, and so very unpredictable. 7 weeks in and I’m doing my best to just roll with the punches. Learn as I go. Fair enough