An Hour in the Life of…

…a mother of a newborn (4 weeks old) and toddler. I know this is a common experience for many mothers but I wanted to record my own unique experience. 

***Disclaimers: I know I am privileged in many ways and a lot of moms have it way harder than this. I know I am privileged to be able to stay home with my children and depend on my husband’s single income to support all of us. I know some women are single moms who have to work multiple jobs and don’t get to see much of their children. I know some moms have more than 2 kids to balance and it is way more chaotic and they’re very burned out and don’t even have time to write down their thoughts and experiences. I know I shouldn’t complain because I conceived these 2 children naturally without having to pay for expensive fertility treatments. I know I “asked for this” because I chose to have 2 children with my husband. 

NEVERTHELESS, this stage of motherhood is still hard and I am still tired and imperfect, and I have the urge to express myself in writing and share it with the world because I want other women to feel seen in our common struggles. I also want men and women who aren’t moms to have more empathy for the daily challenges of stay-at-home-moms.

So imagine this: It’s lunch time. 

I just heated up my 2 and a half year old toddler’s pasta and cut up her pineapple, and am heating up leftovers for my lunch. The 1-month-old baby is in his crib and starts crying.  I go to pick him up and start nursing him. He eats a little then starts fussing and needs to be burped. 

My toddler asks for pineapple juice and starts to get up from her table with cheesy hands. We’ve just started having her in a child-sized table and chair next to our dining table because I’m still healing from giving birth and can’t yet lift her 30-pound body in and out of the high chair everyday. This comes with new challenges of trying to keep her food from spilling everywhere and sticky hands from touching the wall and furniture. I tell her to sit back down for the umpteenth and please wait. 

I unlatch my toddler and I go get the pineapple pieces out of the container to pour her just the juice, while my toddler is screaming and my breastmilk is dripping. I sit back down to nurse the baby trying to get him to re-latch. My toddler pops up and says she needs to go pee and poop in the potty. We have been trying to potty train her gradually for 5 months. 

I unlatch the fussy baby and go to the bathroom with her, trying to balance the baby with one arm while pulling down her pants and underwear with the other arm and helping her get up the step stool to the toilet. I sit down in a chair outside the bathroom that’s very uncomfortable to nurse in and try once again to feed the baby. 

When she says she’s done a couple minutes later, I put the baby on the diaper table and he starts screaming while I wipe her butt and take her to wash her hands which always takes much longer than necessary. I put on her diaper to prepare for naptime and she runs off to play. I finish feeding and burping the baby, then wrap him up in his swaddle to put down in the bassinet in my room. 

I go to her room to put on her sleep sack, read a book, tuck her in bed, sing a song, turn the sound machine on and lights off, then close the door. I go to the dining room to scarf down my cold lunch standing up, wash the dishes, guzzle a bunch of water to replenish my milk supply, and use the bathroom. 

Then I go to my room to charge my phone on my nightstand, put in my ear plugs, lay on my bed, and slip on my eye mask. I try to completely relax my sore muscles and take deep breaths to fall asleep but 20 minutes later, my baby’s grunts wake me up for another feeding and burping session. 

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This is an average hour. The most stressful hectic ones are waking up in the morning, lunch time, dinnertime, and bedtime. The calmest times are after breakfast and after my toddler's naptime when my newborn is in deep sleep and I can just focus on being present with my toddler reading/playing/tickling/cuddling/cooking. Oh how simple those single-child times seem! 

And then of course, I eagerly await my husband's return from work each evening!