Your entire life changes when you have your first, but there’s also a lot that changes between each of your kiddos. Here’s a few…
1. You take less pictures. Especially of yourself, but in general your second baby doesn’t have nearly the millions of pics that you took of your first. The second time around you don’t take a picture every time #2 does something new, or cute, or exciting…because, well, you’ve kinda already been there, done that.
2. You probably let your first sleep in the bassinet next to your bed for months. And by months I mean like 6 or 8…or maybe even more. Terrified that you wouldn’t be able to reach over and touch them at any point during the night, you probably jinxed your little one’s sleep habits since they had to learn to sleep through the inevitable snoring of 2 more people. But #2 got kicked to their own room to sleep ever-so-peacfully in their own bed after only a few weeks.
3. You don’t remember the milestones. Sad, but true. While it’s still very cool when your second reaches those special milestones, you just don’t remember them the same as with your first.
4. Less 1-on-1 time. You’ll have to make a special effort to spend time with just one kiddo or the other now. Quality Mommy and baby time significantly decreases since now you’ll split all your time and attention between two.
5. You don’t sweat the small stuff. With your first you worried constantly about what they ate, where they were, how they spent their time. No TV, a balance of fruits and veggies, and don’t you dare let them put that rock in their mouth! But with #2 you’ve finally resolved that as long as they are happy, healthy and safe, all the rest doesn’t matter so much.
6. Any former phobias about snot, poop, blood go out the window. If you used to get queasy at the sight of puss, kiss those days goodbye! You’ll start wiping boogers with your bare hands and don’t blink an eye when you end up with poo all over, well, everything.
7. Let them cry. While you may still not use the Cry It Out method entirely, you are a lot more willing to let both of your kids cry for a while before you decide if it’s absolutely necessary to pick them up. Visible blood aside…
8. Back to the food thing. You used to worry if you kid wouldn’t eat anything except for fruit snacks. OMG they aren’t getting a full rounded meal because they refuse to eat anything I put on their plate! Well, you finally figure out that as long as that kid is eating something, anything, that they will eventually eat other things too. So if for an entire week all they will eat is Goldfish and juice…so be it! They’ll eat veggies another day to make up for it.
9. Get rid of the extra baby crap. Remember when you registered for everything in the “suggested registry list” at Babies R Us – aka: the entire store? Yeah, well by baby #2 you’ve weeded out all the extra crap that you never did use and finally your house is only 1/2 full of baby gear.
10. You’ll constantly compare your kids. Not to other kids so much, but to each other. Baby #1 did this when they were this age, but Baby #2 is doing this sooner or later than that. Eventually it’ll all blur together though, and trying to remember who got teeth first and who’s first word was “yeah” will become harder to differentiate.
Twice the kids may equal twice the work, but you’ll quickly figure out how to get them both fed, washed, out the door and loaded in the car each morning and fed, washed, and into bed each night as if it were your second nature.
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