When you have a second baby, how does the first kid react to their newborn sibling?
When you go from being a mom of 1 to a mom of 2…
Does the chaos also double?
My son just started solids and my daughter’s reciting to me an entire episode of Paw Patrol where Mayor Humdinger gets into trouble and the pups have to save him….AGAIN.
Nod nod nod…scoop, scrape, wipe
Nod…uh huh…uh huh…
“And then what did Chase do?”
There goes the flying blob of yams…and onto the floor. That orange wet goop stares at me, dimpled, judging me, challenging me, silently screaming,
“Wipe me, wipe me, wipe me before I harden into a crusty old booger that gets flicked onto the carpet, stepped on by little feet, entangled in the fibres, forever waiting to be plucked.”
Then, a little hand pulls my arm; I look over. The preschooler sighs,
“Mom, you’re not listening!”
Another blob falls to the floor.
Does this sound like chaos?
It is but it isn’t.
When we came home with our son, it was beyond chaos. It was survival, pure endurance, grinding, every day, through sleep deprivation, hourly feeds, changes, postpartum recovery, hormonal fluctuations, baby blues, cabin fever…etc.
But one thing was missing when I compare that first month with our son versus the first month with our daughter.
FEAR.
Fearlessness comes with experience
Firsthand experience trumps reading parenting books, blogs, articles, listening to parenting podcasts, watching parenting videos, talking to other parents, trying to get your own parents to remember how it was for them, babysitting your sister’s kids…etc.
With my daughter, I was scared shitless.
How do I hold her properly? Is she comfortable? Where do my hands go? I’m so stiff. Should I be this stiff?
Is she supposed to make those weird sounds at night?
Why is she crying this much? Does she need to be burped? Fed? Changed? Held? What is it?
Why’s her poop look like that?
Ew cradle cap…more like cradle CRAP…I thought babies were supposed to smell like little angels?
Staring at her while she’s sleeping, I’m thinking, “Should I keep staring at her in case she needs me? I have no idea what I’m doing and if I’m doing the right thing.”
Doing it the second time around made adjusting to the constantly changing new normal easier.
It was hard but not complicated because I generally knew what to do and what to expect. It was like riding a bike. Everything I thought I forgot came back, like the Terminator who never quite dies.
How do I hold him? Oh right, snuggle up, you little cherub.
Ah…he’s making his nocturnal noises again…grunting like a little piggy while he sleeps.
Hmm…that sounds like a hunger cry. Oh now the little fella needs to be burped.
Quick peek at the poopy diaper…yup French’s mustard.
Cradle cap? Let’s do a spa day with grapeseed oil and a comb, then a nice bath.
Staring at him while he’s sleeping, I’m thinking, “He’s in a deep sleep now. I have a couple hours to write and work on my blog.”
So yes, it took less time for me to adjust to becoming his mom but it’s taken a lot of time for me to adjust to also being her mom.
Before, it was just her, mom and dad. Now it’s her, mom and dad, plus a nugget.
Something that I’ve had to learn and grow as a mother of 2 is cultivating the current relationship with my firstborn.
As the books and experts say, it’s important to involve the first kid throughout your pregnancy and reassure her that you’ll always love and care for her when the baby comes. And we did that.
I told her I was pregnant (and what that meant) the day I knew myself. She was the one who let it slip with my in-laws. She got to look at his ultrasounds, touch my belly when he started kicking; we even pretended to involve her in the name picking.
We watched those weekly videos of how the baby was developing inside mommy’s belly and what veggie/fruit he was the size of. We read books about becoming an older sister. She got lots of Daddy time while I napped on the couch so that they could bond and continue to when the baby came. We also had lots of one-on-one time as mother and daughter, reading, laughing, playing, going for walks.
The nugget doesn’t do anything
Then the big moment came and she got to meet her little brother. She was weirded out by how small he was, cautious and slightly unimpressed, anti-climatic. I remember she compared him to Chickaletta in Paw Patrol because he didn’t do anything.
For the first few months, he took up a lot of my time and she voiced it. She threw tantrums. She wanted dad to do everything for him and me to do everything for her. She felt because he was a boy and dad was a boy, that he was his responsibility and she was mine. My husband felt helpless, hurt by her dismissal whenever he attempted to care for her.
She would get easily upset over things she didn’t use to, like losing a sock or not being able to find her toy. I knew she craved my attention but I had no capacity to fulfill it. I was physically, emotionally and mentally drained.
It was hard for me. My heart was torn. Guilt rippled through my mind, body and soul. I thought I did everything “right,” what the books said, what I read and heard to prepare my firstborn.
Then she did the opposite of regressing. She wanted to differentiate herself from her brother. She started going to the potty by herself. We gave her underwear and off she went. We were relieved to escape the double diaper duty. But her sudden display of independence made me reel back in grief…my little baby is no longer a baby.
The night we both broke down
There was one night when I was getting her ready for bed. I had her toothbrush in hand, waiting to brush her teeth. She wouldn’t let me. I got cross and began my usual lecture. She broke down. She started crying.
I held her in my arms while tears flooded her face. She wouldn’t look at me. I tried to see her face but she kept turning away. I told her it’s okay to cry, that it’s a tough time right now with so many changes.
Then I started crying.
She buries her face deeper into my chest and with a muffled breath says,
“Are you crying too?”
I gulp,
“Yes.”
She looks up at me. Both our faces are dripping. I held her tighter, repeating,
“I’ll always love you because I’ll always be your mom.”
Just then, we hear him crying in the other room. She says to me,
“Little brother (弟弟) is crying. He needs you. It’s okay. You can go.”
I give her a long kiss on her forehead as she lets go of me.
And the sibling rivalry/revelry begins
Since that night, it’s gotten better. She started to interact with him more and it’s been easier since he’s become more animated.
She likes making him laugh. Most recently, she was swishing water around in her mouth when he started giggling. She kept swishing and his giggles turned into howling and squealing. She loved it. They had a blast, making each other laugh, feeding off each others’ joy.
She also enjoys comforting him. Sometimes, he’ll cry when I’m changing his diaper. She’ll come up beside him and say,
“It’s okay. Diaper changes don’t hurt.”
He’ll look at her like he’s in love with her. He’s always fascinated with what she’s doing and saying, more so than what my husband and I are doing and saying. She’s a little person like him so he constantly wants to touch and play with her when she’s near. He has a sneaky smile whenever he’s able to grab her hair or touch her feet. When she pulls away, he’ll giggle, pleased with himself that he got her to react.
She’s warming up to him and likes to talk about all the things she can do with him once he’s older. She’ll say things like,
“Dad’s going to have to buy 4 chocolate bars instead of 3 once little brother gets older.”
“When he’s bigger, we can both go on the slide.”
She’s very observant of his growth, making comments about how his hair is longer and suggesting he wants to crawl soon or that he’s teething whenever he drools.
She wants him to grow up quickly so they can play together. In some ways, I want that too.
But for now, I’m relishing in watching their budding friendship transform into a lifelong bond.
So Readers, do you have more than one child? How did they get along at first?
