Going from 0 kids to 1 was a BIG transition. Not only was there suddenly a tiny person in our house who needed care 24/7, but it totally changed my identity when I became someone’s “Mommy.” And now that we’re adding a second tiny person to our family, I have a few recurring worries.
How will my first born deal with being a big sister?
We have been talking about the baby for a while – since I started to show – so E knows what is coming. Or at least when you ask her, she will tell you that she’s getting a new baby and it’s her baby there in Mommy’s belly!
But I do worry about how she will react when the new baby arrives and suddenly needs a lot of my attention!
We are planning to do some gifts “from” the baby, and also giving E a gift for the baby, so she will feel more involved. I’m just not sure yet what those gifts will be! (If you have any ideas, I’m all ears.)
What will our schedule look like?
Originally, we had this all figured out. E is the perfect age to start preschool this fall, so we have her enrolled in a program three days a week just for a couple of hours. That way she gets to do something really fun, while I get a couple of hours alone with the new baby. Especially after T goes back to work, I pictured this as a nice structured part of the week.
Well, the coronavirus has certainly changed a lot, and preschool is one of those things. Our plans have kind of flown out the window, and we probably won’t be starting preschool this fall.
I’m unsure what our schedule will look like (at all), but there’s not much structure to it so that’s an area where we need to put some focus. Obviously this is something we will have to figure out once we are home as a family of four! (Five counting Sprout!)
Will the concept of “free time” not exist anymore?
Obviously, the decision to have kids changes a lot: Your work life and career trajectory (especially if you’re a woman), your home life and what you do on the weekends, the amount of free time you have on a daily basis.
While I’m thrilled to be adding to our family, I worry that I will never have free time again – or at least until we hit the stage of independent play! (Which is where we are right now with E, and it can be amazing to just listen to her playing on her own sometimes.)
And one of my biggest worries… how will E do when we actually go in to have the baby??
I know it’s a short period of time, but I don’t want her to feel left out.
One thing that is making me feel better about this part: I actually have very vivid memories of going to meet my baby sister when I was 3.5 – the excitement!
The hospitals around us are actually letting moms leave after 24 hours, mostly to keep people unnecessarily out of the hospital. While it means there won’t be an exciting in-hospital visit for the new big sister, it does make me feel a little better knowing we could be back home all together sooner than pre-covid!
Moms of more than 1… any advice for me??
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