Two Under 2 - A life update 6 months in

Whew! We’ve made it to 6 months as a family of four, and I think we all deserve a high five (or rather, Mommy & Daddy deserve a night of uninterrupted sleep, or maybe just a 10 minute lie-in, or wait, maybe just a hot cup of tea, I’d settle for that!). The past 6 months have been crazy, filled with nappies…and more nappies and then a few more nappies on top of that. And even though it feels like the days dragged ooooonnnnn and ooooonnnn this time has really flown past. Everyone said that it would be hard, and to be honest, I didn’t really believe them

Or rather, I didn’t really understand what hard would look like.

My first born, Everly, was (and still is) a unicorn baby…you know the ones that sleep like the book says they should (and then some!) who eat anything and everything, who play independently for hours at a time…the ones you don’t believe really exist. And so I really thought I had it all down pat when it came to having another baby. I just assumed that Everly turned out the was she did because of how we had parented. And while I think part of this is true, a whole lot of it has to do with her being a girl, being our first baby, and of course the things we have no control over, her nature and personality.

Life since Aaron has been hard. It’s been hard for lots of reasons, not just because he has been a colicky baby, but also because of things like the small age gap between him and his sister (17 months) which means effectively I have two babies to care for. Also, with your second baby, you have far less time to sit and coo over them, and I was able to rest more when I had Everly (I spent the first 6 weeks REALLY taking it easy after her birth) and with Aaron, I was basically up and about and picking up a busy toddler after barely a week. It’s also been REALLY hard trying to co-ordinate two little schedules. I am very routine orientated, and somewhere over the past couple of months, Everly has needed to drop from two to one naps (I know, I should be thanking my lucky stars that she has made it this long on two naps) but that transition was quite tricky. Anyway, we made it and she has now settled nicely into her new one nap a day schedule, and thankfully still sleeps through the night (even through Aaron’s bad nights…long may that last!).

I really don’t believe that my little boy is a very difficult baby, he has just been really different to Everly. A big component has been that I actually have forgotten what Everly was like in the early months. But, in saying this, Aaron is a whole lot busier than Everly was, he has already got 2 teeth (and two more are breaking through and he HAS not been a happy chappy for days on end before and after those pearly whites broke through…unlike Evs who only got her first tooth at nearly 8 months and ever since then barely makes a peep when they do) and from what I can tell from my friend’s with boy babies, he is a typical boy. He just wants to be close to his mommy, and he likes intense one on one interaction about 90% of the time. It’s not always easy for me to mentally sit down on the floor and play with him, when I feel torn between work on my computer and then the things that I love doing (photography, blogging and sharing our behind the scenes farm life on Instagram…but gosh writing that out here really does sound terrible…I’m basically saying playing with and talking to my baby is taking me away from doing the things I love doing…and that pretty much sums up parenthood haha). But I do think all of these thoughts are normal (please tell me I’m not alone!) and while the first 4 months for us were the hardest, the last 6 weeks have had way more happy & sunnier days.

Aaron is giggling and laughing, and developing his own sense of humor (typical boy style, the fist full on laugh was over ‘fart’ noises) and he LOVES being thrown up into the air. He is getting really good at sitting, and his slow-to-smile nature means that every smile you do get hits you with ALL THE FEELS.

Here is our new #TwoUnderTwo schedule, for anyone who might like to know how we (try!) to do things most days:

• 06:30 - 7am both kiddos wake up (generally at the same time, which is chaos, but some days Evs wakes up before Aaron and then I get to spend a bit of quality time with just her while I get her changed for the day). I feed Aaron & change his nappy, and then pop some music on for him while I change Evs nappy and get her dressed.

• 8am Everly has breakfast while Aaron sits in his bouncy chair (he gives me about 10 - 15 mins before he starts getting bored).

• 08:30 - 10am Aaron has his nap. Everly and I go an play in the garden, read books, potter around the house.

• 10:00 Aaron wakes up, I feed him, change his nappy and then geenrally pop him in the pram and take him and Everly for a walk.

• 10:45 Everly has a filling snack (usually homemade yoghurt with nut butter/blueberries)

• 11:00 - 13:00/14:00 Everly has her nap (which can be anywhere from 2 - 3 hours long).

• 11:00 Aaron has his solids (we just started about a week ago)

• 11:30 Aaron goes down for his nap, which can be anywhere from 1 - 2 hours long.

  From 11:30 - 13:00 is generally when I get to have my only break from both kiddos. I don’t usually get longer than 45 mins, but there have been a few days when I’ve had 2 hours to myself. It’s wonderful! But it did take 6 months to get here, as usually Aaron would wake up as I was putting Everly down, or vice versa.

• 13:00/14:00 Everly has lunch when she wakes up from her nap, and then the three of us play together until Aaron’s next nap.

• 15:00/16:00 Aaron will have some sort of nap at this time, some days he has a short 30 minute nap, other day an hour. Other days, my wonderful Nanny will put him on her back while she does the ironing and I’ll take Everly out into the garden to play.

• 17:00 Everly has supper

• 17:30 I start running the bath, getting the kids pj’s and nappies laid out (this may sound strange, but as we use cloth nappies, the night time nappy is always a bigger one that has lots of layers, and so I go and fold them/get them ready.

• 18:00 Bath time. I bath Everly while hubby get’s Aaron undressed and baths him. Then I take Aaron to his room to change and feed him, and then pop him down for the night. Everly gets changed and has story time and what she calls ‘talk time….soooo cute’ with Daddy, and I usually get to pop my head in to say goodnight.

• 3:00-4:00am Aaron wakes up for a feed, and then goes right back to sleep till the morning.

It’s taken us a while to get to this point, and I’m so proud of my family! We had about a month recently of Aaron waking up multiple times a night, me feeding him often, us leaving him to cry and eventually settle himself to sleep (again, this has only been doable because Everly sleeps through the noise) and just general rough nights, but with lots of perseverance and consistency, we are back to a good nighttime routine again. I have no doubt this is going to change again, and I’m okay with that, because I know we will get back to our ‘normal’ again.

In other news, I’ve been quite busy again lately with branding shoots & website design, which always pulls me in two directions. I also am in charge of our farm’s BEE certification, and we have our audit coming up in the next 2 weeks which has been crazy stressful, and really, really, really hard to juggle with two little ones. It’s the kind of work that needs uninterrupted focus time (haha yes I hear the moms in the back laughing along with me at the though of uninterrupted focus time when you have kids) but I’m getting there, and once this audit is done, hopefully it will be a while until I need to work on it again.

So all in all, we are getting into our groove and the latest fun milestone has been giving Aaron solids and starting his weaning journey. I’ll be doing more blog posts on that soon, but if you’ve got a little one and will be starting solids with them soon, here are all my blog posts on what we did with Everly:

Some goals we have now for our little family are to go on a hike, and when the weather warms up, to go camping. Are we crazy or is it doable? Do you have any tips for doing any of the above with two little ones? I’d love to hear from you!

Two Under 2 - an update on life 10 weeks in

Goodness me the past 10 weeks (technically 12 weeks by the time I have been able to publish this blogpost) have flown by in a hazzy blur. I’m writing this post so I can (hopefully) look back on these days and remember them if there is a third little one in the future. I”m also hoping this post enourages/inspires other moms and dads out there, and helps them in their own parenting journey.

I’m not really sure where to start, or whether what I’m going to share is even going to make sense and not seem like the jumbled thoughts of a half crazed person, but life with two under two is no joke. I don’t think anything can quite prepare you for a second child, just the same as nothing can really prepare you for having your first baby (although friends with 3 kids have said the jump from 2 to 3 is nowhere near as hectic as the jump from 1 2 kids).

As this is a rather long post, I say grab yourself a hot cup of tea or coffee (something I haven’t had in 12 weeks!) and get comfy…

The hardest part of it all so far for me? My expectations of just about everything, from how much I expect Aaron to sleep, to how much I expect to be able to get done in the day.

Everly was a very easy and content little baba. She has always been a really great sleeper, and everyone told me that I just got lucky with her and that I wouldn’t be so lucky the second time around. Because of this (and my rather defiant nature!) I have been determined to prove them wrong…enter my unfair expectations and hence the frustration I have felt towards my little boy more often than I would like to admit. While he is definitely very different to Everly, I think rather than say he isn’t as good a sleeper as she was, I think the actual difference is that I am forgetting all the hard moments with Evs, and comparing Aaron to a very chilled 20 month old toddler who is firmly in her routine when it comes to naps. Also, when you have your first baby, you are able to give them 100% of your time and attention, especially if you are a stay at home mom, or if you work from home (although the fact that I work from home puts another spanner in the works as it’s one more thing to add to the expectation list). I wish I had been more thorough with Everly’s baby book and documented more than I did (although I’m so glad I did actually have a book and that I wrote the few things/memories down that I did…I wish I had noted more often what her routine was like, how much she slept and how often she fed etc) so that I have something to work from when going through the weeks & months with the next baby.

I’m pretty sure that Everly was napping (or rather NOT napping) for that long during the day at this age. I know she went through a patch of cat napping at around the 3/4month mark, but she did settle back into 2 long sleeps if 2-3 hours and one shorter one in the afternoon by the end of 4 months (I think!). I’m hoping I can get Aaron to link his day time naps soon, because those 45minutes that he does sleep fly by in the blink of an eye when you’ve got another one to look after.

And the next hardest part, trying to figure out a routine for two babies.

I still see Everly as a baby, even though she is technically a toddler. She’s still in nappies (although I’m pretty sure she will be out of them soon as she’s super aware and let’s me know whenever she is making a poo) but she also isn’t that confident of a walker yet (considering she has only actually been walking for 3 months). Thank goodness she is a very independent little thing and has always been very happy to read her books, toddle around and amuse herself. She has taken to the new addition very well, and has not been extra clingy or demanding of my attention. I was worried she would act up when she saw me feeding Aaron, and I had prepared for this with whole basket of new toys for her…but she surprised us all and has just gone about her life as though nothing has changed. I’ve been able to bring out these new toys for her and I to play with when we get a few moments alone together. And while she happily coos over him and talks about her ‘Arrow’, she has handled the disruption to her life (and most importantly) his, what seems like pretty much constant crying, far better than both Farmboy and myself.

Aaron had a very sore tummy from about weeks 5 - 8, and was very unsettled. He just wanted to be held, and he would scrunch up his legs, farting like a trooper, and just generally be very niggly most of the day. I tried just about every colic mixture or tonic I could find, and even though I found Bonnisan to help the most, I genuinely think the only think that cures that unsettledness is time. You WILL eventually get there, and their little tummies will eventually adjust to life outside the womb, but gosh when you’re in the trenches it really feels like it’s never going to end. My best advice is to find another mommy with a little one a similar age to yours so you can vent & encourage one another when the going gets tough.

What is hard when you are at home all day with your little ones, you really only have 2 hands, both of which are generally needed to take care of one baby. This means you often have to make a choice as to who should be left to cry/winge…and in our house it’s mostly been Aaron who is left to fend for himself as his needs are more simpler to meet. I know that if he has been fed, burped and changed, there really isn’t much more I can do for him if he is crying and I need to feed/help Everly with something. We have left him to cry for longer, and more often than I care to admit, especially over the last couple of weeks as he has really been fighting me at nap time, and I’m lucky if he stretches more than 30 minutes at a time. This really throws me as I am a BIG lover of routine, and right now he has little to no routine. He is also at that awkward stage where he isn’t strong enough to sit or hold his head up, but doesn’t want to just lie in my arms and snuggle. I remember Everly being at the same stage, where she wasn’t really old enough to engage much, but also wasn’t young enough to just be left to stare at a mirror for 15 minutes. We do have a full time nanny who is wonderful, and while her responsibilities mostly revolve around housework, she is amazing with Everly, and Aaron has spent many a happy hour on her back (this is where he sleeps the longest…much to my dismay…I do so vividly remember saying I would never have him carried around by someone and that he would just have to adjust to sleeping properly in his cot…how I have now changed my tune). BUT, even though we are having to work SO hard on his day time naps, he sleeps so well at night that I don’t know if I am allowed to complain about the day. He has been feeding once at night for the past 2 weeks or so, and this feed is usually between 3 & 4am. He then goes right back to sleep till the morning. We generally have to go in once or twice to give him his dummy, but I’ve found if I leave him for 5 minutes, he generally puts himself right back to sleep. So all in all, a baby that sleeps 6 - 3/4am and then until around 6 am must be a happy one? So then what’s up with the day time my boy?!

While I love and use my Ubuntu Baba carrier pretty much every day, what I can’t really do with it is sit down, and I don’t really like standing at a table when I am working on my computer. This is why I am so determined to get Aaron into a good routine for his naps, and have him nap as much as possible in his cot, rather than on me/in a carrier. It’s far less a case of not wanting to create bad sleeping habits, and more a case of me wanting to be able to actually have a bit of time without a baby strapped to me so I can sit down to my computer work (haha perhaps this is more of a dream right now than a reality) or be able to pick Everly up/play with her/wash my cloth nappies etc. But, for those times when he is just SO unhappy and refuses to nap in his bed, my Ubuntu Baba carrier is an absolute life saver, and has enabled me to multi task like nobody’s business…I have successfully breastfeed Aaron, made supper and been able to feed Everly her dinner, all at the same time. I may have collapsed in a head shortly afterwards, but we all survived and I only have the Ubuntu Baba to thank. On that note, make sure you’re following me on Instagram as I will be running an awesome giveaway in collaboration with Ubuntu Babe next month.

This is our routine at the moment…it’s mostly Everly’s routine as Aaron is pretty much unpredictable right now. I also haven’t figured out whether I want to have them both awake/sleeping at the same time so I get a proper break, or whether I actually enjoy being able to spend one-on-one time with each of them while the other one is napping. I also know first hand that just as soon as you think you’ve got things figured out, they go and change things up by learning a new skill, cutting teeth, reacting to vaccinations etc but it makes me feel better to have some sort of loose plan that I’d like them to be on.

Right now, this is what our routine looks like:

• 6-7am Wake up (They have both been waking up closer to 7am the past week but it can be anytime from 6 on the dot to 7…I leave Everly in her room to chat/read her books till as close to 7 as possible, but Aaron I go in right away as his cry has a way of eating into your very soul). Generally I’ve been able to feed and change Aaron by the time Evs is awake, so then I will go into her room, give her her milk while I change her nappy, and then she comes with me to Aaron’s room where they both have some play time.

• 8am Aaron’s nap time & Everly has breakfast. Aaron seems to only be able to be awake for about 45mins at this time, and it works well because I can pop him down and then make Everly’s breakfast. He then sleeps anywhere from 45 mins - 2 hours. Although it’s been far more often the 45 minute sort of nap, unless he is tied to Amahle’s back. I give Everly her breakfast and then we go outside for a walk to see the cows, go and feed the chickens or do some gardening together.

• 9am/9:30 Everly’s Nap time. Aaron is generally awake around this time and so I then feed and change him, and then we play together until he starts yawning (ideally around 10ish) and then I pop him down for a nap.

• 11h30ish Everly wakes up from her nap. I change her nappy and then she potters around the house until lunch time.

• 12 o’clock lunch time for Everly. Aaron may or may not be napping at this time, but if he is awake I’ll either put him in his baby chair and he watches us have lunch, or I’ll have him in the carrier so I can sort Everly out. Once she’s had her lunch she then has play time.

• 2pm - 3pm Everly has another nap/rest time. She isn’t quite ready to drop this nap yet, but doesn’t always actually sleep. I don’t actually mind what she does during this time, but it’s a quiet rime in the house as this seems to be pretty much the only time of the day when their sleeping has coincided. I change her nappy and pop her down on her bed with the curtains drawn, and she either has a small nap, or quietly reads her books/plays with her toys. She still does the odd 2 - 3:30/4pm nap, it all depends on how long her morning nap has been. She has also been generally quite cheerful on the days when she’s missed the nap/quiet time altogether, so perhaps it’s actually me who isn’t ready for her to drop that nap haha. Either way, when she does drop this nap I still plan on making this quiet time where she will be closed in her room to rest. She seems to enjoy this time, and very rarely fights me on it these days. She has gone through patches of being in there for up to two hours, in the dark, singing and playing her xylophone…funny thing. But like I said, as long as she isn’t crying and actually upset, I don’t mind what she does in there during that time.

• 3-5pm is general chaos. Usually Aaron is having a nap at some point, and Everly is happy to entertain herself to a point. But usually by 4pm I’ve got both kids outside for a walk/play in the garden, with Aaron in the carrier, and I’m silently counting down the minutes until bed time.

• 5pm supper time for Everly. Aaron is either being held by Dad if Dad is home at this time, or he is still in the carrier, having a little snooze while I buzz about the kitchen getting supper on the go and giving Everly her dinner. I also get both kids pyjamas and nappies ready, as well as their towels and Everly’s milk all laid out for after their bath. I also try to feed Aaron before bath time, no matter how soon before his last feed this ends up being. I want him to have a nice full tummy for the night ahead. Now that it’s winter, this is also usually when Farmboy will light a fire, something that is always a huge delight for Everly.

• 6pm bath time for both kids. We have gotten into a nice routine with both babes…I run the bath and then wash Evs and brush her teeth, and spend some quality time with her before hubby undresses Aaron and brings him into the bath where both kids have some fun splash time. I then take Aaron to his room for a nice massage, dress him and then he has a nice long feed. Then it’s a quick burp while I turn off the lights and hum our bedtime song, then a kiss and a cuddle before swaddling him, popping in his dummy and putting him down on our Nurture One Pillow. Hubby brings Everly into Aaron’s room to say goodnight to both of us, and then takes her to her room to get dressed and then she drinks her cup of milk and it’s story time and then straight to bed. Both little ones are down by 6:30pm and we collapse in a heap!

  While Everly sleeps right through, I generally am up feeding Aaron some time between 3 & 4am and then whew…the whole day starts again.

It took a while to get the above routine down, and as much as possible we try to keep it the same even when we go away. Obviously there are times when Everly has nap later than she’d like/miss a nap altogether especially when we are out and about, but I find the routine is as much for the kids as it is for us parents. Aaron pretty much goes along with the flow right now, and as much as I would like to get his routine waxed, only time will tell whether this is even remotely possible with two kids. On that note, please share your routines with me if you have more than 1 babe and how you make it all work! I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

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Something I have been asked a lot is how I ‘manage to do so much’ with having two kids. As luck/Murphy’s Law would have it, I have only recently (literally from the last few weeks before Aaron was born) started booking clients for the web design service I offer. I wouldn’t advise offering a new service to clients when you’ve just had a new baby because you will be torn between needing to care for your little one and having to meet deadlines for clients. Having lots of work has really wonderful, in terms of the extra income. I can now justify all the extra cloth nappy purchases I’ve been making (#jokingbutnotreallyjoking).

BUT, because I feel like a lot of you follow me on Instagram and may think I’m some sort of superwomen being able to juggle two kids and work at the same time, I want to say that my Instagram (along with just about every other person I know) is a highlight reel. I share the beautiful and the happy moments on it, and choose not to showcase the hard times (I use my Instagram stories for this because, yes, there are LOADS of hard times and LOADS of moments where I feel like I’m not going to get through the day and LOADS of tears and frustration). But, those moments pass, even when you feel like they won’t, and everything has a season. I’d say right now we are in the middle of a pretty tough season, but I know that we’ll get through it, and that I’ll probably forget just how hard it was. Choosing to share the good and the beautiful is a choice I make, and have always made with this blog and all of my social media accounts. And I hope this is why you follow along, and that the things I share make you smile.

So how do I manage to ‘get so much done’ you may ask? I try to stay very organised. This means I meal prep Everly’s food (so that all that is required for most of her meals is to take something out the freezer the day before). Because we choose to feed her real food (click here to read more about Everly’s way of eating) having her meals prepped before hand takes a lot of stress out of my day. I also make sure to try and make a batch of yoghurt every 2 weeks or so, so even if I run out of snacks, I know I can always rely on keeping her tummy nice and full with homemade yoghurt which she loves. I also believe that you have to prioritise your day, and that a happy mommy is a good mommy. I like being busy, and I enjoy the feeling of being super productive, and so I generally have a million and one things on the go. I love blogging, designing websites & photographing my kids and our lives, and so I make sure to carve out time (even if it’s 10 minutes here and there) to do those things that make me happy. I’ve also finally accepted there is no such thing as a lie in anymore (or any semblance of an afternoon nap), and I try to get up before the kids so I can at least drink a hot cup of coffee and get dressed before the chaos of the day starts. I don’t always get it right, and quite often Farmboy will pop in during the day and find me looking like a complete wreck, with one kid winging at my feet and the other screaming in my arms, but all make it to the end of the day in one peace, fed and relatively happy.

Some pearls of wisdom from my dear friend Sophie: “Aim for a good morning or a good afternoon, it’s very hard to achieve both and this way if it’s been a bad start to the day, you know things can only get better! It’s also much easier to focus on a few hours at a time, a whole day can seem daunting”

Also…celebrate the small wins with chocolate and the hard times with strong coffee! I don’t believe that food plays much of a role in affecting baby through your breastmilk, and I would much rather have the ‘fuel’ of a strong cup of coffee to keep me going through the hard moments, than be left feeling hard done by and then try to function to the best of my abilities…but that’s just my two cents.

Farmboy is still a farmboy, working hard all day. I often feel like we are ships passing in the night as he is up at 4:30 to go to work when I’m just crawling back into bed after feeding Aaron. Our marriage is strong though, and although we do fight and get frustrated with one another when our expectations aren’t being met (man oh man I believe expectations are the underlying cause of pretty much all fights between couples), we love each other and I would not be able to be the mother I am without him by my side. We do need to work on carving out more moments in the day/week for us to catch up and connect on a deeper level, so if you have any tips on this and how you navigate keeping your marriage strong when there are lots of little ones taking up all your time and energy, I’d love to hear from you too!

So there you have it, a little update on the past 3 months of being a family of 4. I feel like we are slowly emerging from the haze of the past 12 weeks, and I’m looking forward to the chaos (ahem, I mean, fun) that lie ahead in the months to come.

x

6 months in with Pregnancy #2 and what has been different this time around

Today marks the 24th week (or 6 month mark) of my second pregnancy, and I thought I’d share a post on what has and hasn’t been different this time around.

The first, very obvious thing for my loyal blog readers, will be the fact that I documented my first pregnancy (click here to read those posts) quite a lot, sharing every month or so, what was going on with my body and how I was preparing. This time around my time is spent running after Everly, long gone are the days of lying in bed, watching series, and day dreaming of what life would be like when she arrived. Now it’s all hands on deck making sure she doesn’t get into too much trouble and she beetles around the house. Because of this, I have still tried hard to capture this pregnancy with photographs, and with my baby journal, as I would be heartbroken if he (yup! we are having a little boy) grows up and is feels left out of the whole memory capturing process. So although it takes a bit more effort to remind myself to photograph my growing belly, I am still making the time to do so.

My body

Well…the saying that your body is like a balloon after having a baby is 100% true. It blows up a whole lot faster the second time (as it has already stretched once before!) and I am MUCH bigger this time and my belly popped out a lot sooner that it did with Evs. This makes sense, I guess, but still leaves me feeling a bit nervous for what I’m going to look and feel like closer to the end.

Here’s a little size comparison between 22 weeks with Everly, and 22 weeks with #2:

My skin has also been a lot worse this time around, and this may have to do with the fact that I am carrying a boy this time around, but who really knows. Each pregnancy, just like each baby, is so unique, but I really only battled with a few pimples until about the 10 week mark with Everly, and this time my skin is only going back to normal now, 24 weeks in. It is also a different time of the year so there is that to consider too (I was mostly pregnant through Winter with Everly, and this little guy is due in Feb…so basically a peak Summer pregnancy…you’ll find me in the pool whaling around from here on out!).

I also seem to have picked up weight a lot faster too. I put on nearly 20kg’s with Everly (that’s a WHOLE lot of extra weight on my usual 52kg frame) and I’m already on the 12kg mark with another 3 or so months to go. It always boggled my mind that baby ends up weighing +-3kg’s so where does the other 17kg’s come from! Anyway, I was delighted to be back at my pre-baby weight within a few short months after Everly (mainly due to breastfeeding and following a semi low-carb high fat way of eating) and I’m hoping my body will do the same this time around.

What I am struggling with at the moment is picking up and carrying Everly around. She’s only 14 months old and not walking on her own yet….although considering she only started crawling at around the 12 month mark it might still be a while…and this means I need to pick her up and carry her everywhere. She weighs about 12kg’s, and my poor body is struggling with that and the baby bump to haul around. But, I guess it’s keeping me relatively fit so I should be thankful.

Photography by Dillon Kin Photography

My Mind

As this pregnancy was a bit of a surprise, it took a while to wrap my head around the fact that another little bundle would be joining our family. A lot of people I’ve spoken to have shared the same worries as I have, and have even gone so far as to say that didn’t bond much with their growing bump throughout the whole pregnancy. While I definitely felt like that in the beginning, as I’ve gotten bigger and felt him move and kick, I’ve definitely grown closer to him and am really starting to look forward to him being here. At the same time I’m still absolutely terrified with how I’m going to manage the 17 month age gap, but there ain’t no going back now and I guess no matter the age gap the adjustment is always a hard one in the beginning. I think Everly is going to LOVE having a sibling, and the nice thing about the small age gap is the fact that she probably won’t ever remember her life before her little brother. I hope this helps them grow closer together and that they don’t end up spending each second of the day fighting.

Image by Derryn Schmidt Photography

On that note, if you have any tips for adjusting to two-under-two please leave me a comment below. I would love to hear from other mommies who have/are navigating the same waters. I have been told that it’s super helpful to try and get them on the same schedule/routine as quickly as possible, so that they are both napping at the same time (that’s the idea anyway) and so that leaves mom with a bit of breathing space amongst the chaos. I also wonder how Everly will cope with me feeding her bother, and whether she’ll have any regressions on that front. She didn’t even bat an eyelid when I weaned her at just over a year, and she didn’t fuss for the boob at all. Hoping this means it won’t even phase her in the slightest, but who knows how they will react when the time comes.

Everly

A lot of friends and family have asked me whether Every is aware of what’s going on. I don’t think she really has any idea and although she uses the word Baba all the time, this has come to mean the dog, the chickens, the sky, my belly button and about a million other things. I think maybe closer to the time she might start to have more of an idea of what’s going on, but right now she’s very content playing with ALL her baba’s :)

What is going to also have to change very soon for her will be her bed. We haven’t quite decided what the next best thing is for her, but as her baby brother will be needing the cot relatively soon after he is here (although we do plan on using the family bassinet for the first couple of months) we will need to think carefully. I have been toying with the idea of turning her room into a Monessori style room, with a mattress on the floor. This is great in that we don’t need to worry about her falling out as she would just sort of roll onto the floor and I would put carpets underneath the bed. But this would mean she would be free to move/get out of bed when she wants to. I really like the idea of her having the freedom to get up when she wakes up and encourage her independence, but this could also have the opposite effect and mean she just won’t sleep because she can play with her toys whenever she wants to. So we will see what happen a little closer to the time and see how she manages in her cot once we’ve taken the sides down and converted it in the toddler bed it is designed to be.

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I hope you enjoyed this life update!

Thanks for following along.

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