How Second Kids Humble Their Parents

My first kid was sleeping through the night at two months old. Other new moms weren’t exactly thrilled for me. I tried to be humble, but I confess I was pretty sure I was doing an awesome job.

Until she stopped sleeping through the night five months later. Then I felt like I was doing a shitty job. When she got back on track after a month or two, so did my good-mom-identity. I was good at teaching a baby how to sleep. I was good at being a mom.

Then I had a second child. At eight months, he was still waking up six times a night. Because it turns out that I am not in fact a sleep expert or a perfect parent. I just got lucky the first time around.

My first was so easy (being a mom was hard, but she was easy). I could take her anywhere. She napped in the car. She crawled early. She walked when we expected. She talked up a storm, with actual little sentences by her first birthday.

So, I confess: I was pretty proud. She was a great kid, so obviously I was an all-star mom. 

When other parents—whose babies weren’t doing what they were supposedly supposed to do (sleep or walk or talk or whatever it was) when they were supposedly supposed to be doing it—would ask me how I did it, I actually answered them. It’s cringeworthy looking back at it now. “Well, I talk to her all the time” or “We do a lot of tummy time” or “You just have to put them down in the crib really slowly.” I actually thought I had answers.

Second kids are really, really good at one thing: humbling their parents.

Apparently, I wasn’t a sleep guru, didn’t have anything to do with my daughter crawling and was not at all responsible for her early talking. My son did everything on his own timetable, because kids are not blank slates we get to draw and they are not even tiny copies of ourselves. They are each their own little individual selves, with brains and bodies that have their own ideas. It has nothing to do with us.

My second kid was really great in helping me figure this out. With my first, I had a lot of “I’ll never…” One of which was: I’ll never give my kid a pacifier. Well, baby number two got one on day two. He needed it. That I never gave one to my first may have been more a product of her temperament than my principles.

The other side of this lesson is that the second kid also teaches you that the first one isn’t perfect either. When my son came along, I looked at him and realized he was good at and easy about different things. Which had a way of shining a light on the more challenging things about my daughter. She, like me, can talk incessantly. My son is quieter. Which is nice. He also hardly ever falls—he seems to have a more intuitive sense of where his body is in the world. My daughter sort of floats around and—no exaggeration—can fall down when she’s just standing still or off a chair she’s sitting in.

With two kids, I think we learn that we don’t know what we’d do if we had a different kids. We don’t know what we’d do if we had someone else’s kid. It’s a lot harder to judge someone else’s parenting when you realize how much it’s a combustible mixture of who your kid is and who you are and how you were raised and a million other things.

I don’t know how I would parent anyone else’s kids but my own. Even that’s an ever-evolving experiment. 

Knowing how much I’ve learned from having a second kid, I can only imagine how much parents of three or four kids learn. Though I think I’ll stick to asking them for their wisdom over first-hand, hands-on learning on that one!

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Kill Sibling Rivalry Dead

My mom was crystal clear, “You will be friends with your siblings.” As she saw it, other friends would come and go in your life, but your siblings will always be there, and you’re going to want them to be your friend. We moved a lot as kids and there were four of us, so all of those things were very true.

Kids can’t understand how big that will feel later. Being friends with your siblings is a gift. One of the biggest gifts my parents gave to us, and one of the most important things I want to do for my kids.

Since not everyone in my family is dead and I don’t have unlimited, worldwide rights to their dirty laundry, I won’t name names. So, let’s just say the “you will be friends” model isn’t universal in my life experience. I’ve seen plenty of pain caused by the kind of alienation you can only experience with family.

For some parents, it seems odd to think of siblings as friends. There's more of a, "Why would they be friends?" kind of framework through which they view the inevitable battles of brother- or sisterhood (because of course they will fight, as any friends would). They're not friends with their own siblings, so why would their kids be friends with each other? Siblings just aren't like that in many families, and it can be passed down like an unlucky inheritance for generations.

We’ve had dozens of family friends and I’ve had more than one boyfriend who has been inspired by the closeness I have with my siblings to at least attempt reconciliation with theirs. I’m not bragging and I’m not saying all four of us lock arms and sing “Kumbaya” every day of every year. I’m just saying that we were raised under with the assumption that we would be friends and we are.

As a parent, I’ve learned that this is not common as an underlying understanding of the way the world works. Siblings rivalry is expected and assumed to be the default relationship between kids who share parents. It’s assumed that they won’t get along, that when they do it’s loaves and fishes and that it’s not a problem when they don’t. It’s normal.

The other day, we had two sisters over for a play date. In the car ride to our house, the girls started working out what they were going to play, and it was clearly not meant to include my son, even though one of the girls is closer to his age than to my daughter's. To their surprise, I think, I made it clear that he was to be included.

Don’t get me wrong—girls can and should have alone time. And siblings should be allowed one on one time with their friends. And if my son is being disruptive or the older girls are playing in a way that’s beyond him, I will swoop in any carry him off to do some “work” with me (which is usually what he’d rather do anyway).

But the default is inclusion.

A sibling is a built-in-friend. As far as I’m concerned, they’re a built-in best friend. I wanted to have two kids so they would have each other. No one else for the rest of their lives will understand them in quite the same way as they understand each other. No one but a spouse will ever have that I-know-who-you-are-everyday kind of closeness with them.

I’m feeling really lucky right now. My kids love each other. They love to play together. They kiss and hold hands and giggle and want to be together. Maybe I'm getting cocky. I don't expect a smooth ride forever--or even today. And I don’t know if my desire to make-it-true will come-to-be in the same way that my parent’s insistence came to be for me and my sibs. But it’s a place to start.

At my kids’ preschool, they teach the kids to approach other kids with the question, “What are you playing?” They don’t want them to ask, “Can I play?” Because that question has a possible “No” answer, and that’s not an option. The assumption is they will all play together.

And that’s how it should be with brothers and sisters. The default is to be together. The default is to love each other. The default is not sibling rivalry.

Or it doesn’t have to be.

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What to Expect When You’re Expecting Baby #2

“When you have your first baby, you worry about everything. When you have your second baby… you worry about the first baby.”

I don’t know where I first heard that, but I was pregnant with my second and there was a constant hum about how different everything is with baby number two.

If the cliché of becoming a parent is, “It changes everthing.” The cliché of having a second baby is closer to, “It ain’t nothing but a thang.”

In those early days of life as a mother of two, I remember feeling intensely worried about my first baby. And I definitely worried very little about the new baby. I had done the baby thing already, so no problem, but the sibling adjustment thing was all new.

I can still see myself sitting on the couch nursing my son and watching my daughter play on the floor, looking so sad and lonely, and thinking, “Why is this strange baby keeping me away from my real kid?”

As the first child and grandchild on both sides, my daughter had been getting too much attention and I looked forward to her sharing the (sometimes literal) stage with a sibling. But watching the withdraw of that attention after my son was born was physically painful for me.

The transition from one kid to two was, for me, as big a life-changing event as the change from pregnancy to parenthood. If not bigger. Seriously.

Two kids is no joke.

Of course, as with all things parenthood, it depends on what you get. I got a very flexible, social first kid who I could take anywhere and a second who wouldn’t let me sleep and had a special knack for finding knives in unexpected places.

Maybe it would be different if I hadn't struggled with post-partum depression after our second was born. But that's the thing about parenting. Once you’re pregnant, you don’t get to choose much of anything. You don't know what you're gonna get.

It took me longer to bond with my second baby. I caught myself feeling reluctant to focus on him too much, so as not to hurt my daughter’s feelings. Until I realized how important it is for her to see how much we love him, to watch us loving him. How would she learn to love him if we were holding back? And how long would it last anyway, this pretending the new baby doesn’t change anything?

One day I remember, when my son was still new, I was pissed at my husband and not dealing well with my daughter. So I left them at home and went out alone with my son for the first time.

We went to Nordstrom, which was my happy place as a new mom. It may sounds odd, but they have this lovely ladies room (yes, bathroom) with a comfortable changing and nursing room and another room with cozy couches. There are other moms there, too, and everyone is really sweet and friendly, as if it’s in the air when you enter the room. And when you’re hungry, the in-store restaurant is full of older ladies unfazed by screaming babies. An odd oasis, to be sure, but it was mine.

Changing my son’s diaper in that happy bathroom, looking down at him, feeling free for the first time to be openly affectionate with him, without any worry about anyone else, was one of the first times I felt a strong bond with him. I was just his mom, just changing him and looking at him, and he was so easy to love.

Before I joined their ranks, I remember looking at those cool cucumber moms of two and wondering what happens with the second baby that makes everything look easier than it feels for first time moms.

But, starting with pregnancy, it wasn’t easier for me than the first time. There are all sorts of body parts that are a whole lot stronger with a first pregnancy. I had more aches and pains and what are euphemistically called “symptoms” the second time around. Why does no one tell you these things? Or do we not hear it until we’re there?

Expect... it's not all very sweet kisses.

There are some things that are much easier the second time around—labor, for instance. I actually felt like I knew what I was doing! And I bounced back from the delivery so much faster. Instead of feeling like it was hard just to walk for weeks, I had to stop myself from doing too much after day two. I felt great, but I had been warned to put a lock on those first few weeks. I thought of it as the “Don’t do dishes!” rule. You think you can do anything, but as much as you can, take that time to rest, because whatever help you have immediately after will disappear soon enough.

After the first few weeks of feeling surprisingly good, I began to crash. Parenting, especially parenting two, is cumulatively exhausting. I’ve written before about the Fifth Trimester. The hardest time I’ve ever had with kids was during that time with the second baby.

I often hesitate to say anything about that to moms expecting number two or moms with two kids around those ages. I always start with a “maybe it’s just me…” But when I do confess, other moms have been grateful to hear it. I’ve found that moms who struggle with adjusting to mothering two babies (and many other things) often think it’s just them. When actually, it’s just a hard time. It’s just not discussed.

So… Pregnancy? Harder. Labor? Easier. The first year? Harder!!! And the second year…? It does finally get easier.

I don’t know why, except to say that time is a tricky magician. It changes things when you’re not looking. The first birthday of your last kid is a big parental milestone. Not that anything changes on that exact date. For me, it happened in fits and starts until, one day—one of those good days—I looked around and realized that the crazy hard part was just somehow over.

When I had one baby, watching just one kid more was stressful and required careful strategizing. Now? Need me to watch your two kids along with both of mine on no notice? Bring ‘em over. Easy peasy.

I’m no superstar, but these days, I can do some of those things that make second moms look like they can handle anything. I can change a diaper in pretty much any condition in 30 seconds flat. I can (sometimes) keep them both happy. I can shop with two kids, even at Target. And often do. Even if I do tell my self “This is the last time!” every time, we all seem to make it home somehow.

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