For over a year, I had a draft article sitting in my WordPress app; “Going from 2 to 3”.
It was an article I kept coming to and going away from just as quick, about the internal debate many go through; trying for Baby #3.
Everyone around me seemed to think we were “done”… maybe my already short tether and endless grievances about motherhood gave that impression🤣
For a long time I thought myself that I might well be done. Having 2 under 2 in a new house, new area, with no support nearby and no job secured is a shock to the system that isn’t quickly forgotten. Throw a couple of years of Covid into the mix and next thing you know, the baby of the house is 4… the thought crossed my mind once or twice during covid, but the more I heard about the experiences of women in hospitals during that rime, the more certain I was that I couldn’t put myself through it.
3 was always my number but equally I never intended to just have 3 for the sake of meeting that goal. 2 was really hard for quite a long time so a third wasn’t even on the radar for a long long time!
When that seed of wonder is planted though, there is no digging it back up.
Come March 2022 we got the news that #3 was indeed on the way, and it was a mix of delight, excitement, and… oh shit🙃 What now?
The second boy was 4.5 years old but still waking and needing attention EVERY. DAMN. NIGHT. There was a not-insignificant portion of my brain telling me that I was about to enter a new level of sleep-deprived misery with a newborn thrown into the mix.
Then there was the fact that we had only recently turned a major corner of parenting in that we had just begun to get back out into the world, going out for lunch with the boys, having stress-free daytrips and overnight visits to family etc. Our boys were then 6 and 4, gone were the nappies, highchairs, bottles and boob paraphernalia. We had gladly seen the back of the nap schedules, the army style packing routines, and most of the tantrums.
What were we thinking bringing ourselves back to square one??
How would we cope with going “backwards” and putting outselves through all those struggles again… voluntarily!!
And a few years older, crankier and creakier on top of that.
But, like I say, there is no shushing that voice once it starts whispering in your ear.
So we embraced the next adventure and began preparing ourselves to be a Party of Five.
The most terrifying part of it all for me was knowingly having to undergo a third c-section. I had had both ends of the c-section spectrum with the last two, racing through the halls on a trolley to theatre with the first, and waddling my way down on foot by appointment with the second.
The third ended up being a mix of the two; I was scheduled to go in on a Tuesday, but bubs decided he wanted to be born the previous Sunday, so on paper his delivery was an emergency, but thankfuly it felt like a sheduled one.
And then there were three.
Being a seasoned Pro at the aul sections I fecked off home after three fairly stressful and sleepless days and nights. No matter how seasoned you are, you can never predict how these creatures will react to being out in the world, so once we had narrowly avoided a jaundice-enforced trip to SCBU, we got outa dodge & headed for home.
Then it was reality time.
That was when going from 2 to 3 really hit home.
It was lovely and amazing and special to be home with all the crew.
It was also overwhelming and exhausting and stressful.
Everything felt too much.
Too much noise. Too much stuff. Too many bodies. Too much talking. Too much mess. Too many things to do. Too many needs to be met.
It was all just too much for a while.
The bigger boys had school which meant the days were quiet, but it also meant the contrast of the afternoons and evenings was even more stark.
The weekends were an endurance task. Torn between wanting to spend time with everyone, but NEEDING peace to keep myself in that zone of barely surviving those early weeks.
Before long I found myself home alone with all 3 and that was definitely too much.
It was a difficult period of pure survival mode and auto-pilot kicking in when my brain just could not function.
I had just had a third baby, and major surgery…
BUT
Lunches had to be made.
Dinners had to be made.
Laundry had to be done.
Homework had to be done.
Meaningful human interactions had to also be done…. Or at least attempted.
The first couple of months just felt like too much in many ways.
There was an almost constant tension in the air, pure exhusation pouring out of our pores. Not to mention the short-temperedness and bad form that goes with that. It wasn’t fun at all for a while.
Everybody was “fine” overall, everyone was fed, looked after, mostly happy, but jesus it was hard work.
The things we worried about before were not the things that we found hard. I suppose that’s often what happens because you don’t actually know what you “should” be worried about until you’re in it.
By the time that infamous Fourth Trimester had passed, everything had changed. For the better.
The Big Bro’s were absolutely revelling in their new roles, and even moreso once Baby Bro began smiling back at them.
The juggle had gotten so much easier for me, I had worked the baby into the routine and worked some shred of routine into the baby so that was a huge help.
We were going places together as 5 because I finally felt able to leave the house with the gang and not be a complete wreck of stress and overwhelm.
Time at home with everyone was easier too as everything had settled and we had learned how to be together in a way that meant none of us were too overstretched, and if we were we knew how to solve it.
Just shy of a year in now and it’s hard to believe how “normal” it feels to have three small humans trotting around the place. The big boys have learned and matured so much since the arrival of #3. They are now 8 and 6 and they take in and enjoy every new thing the baby does. They are fascinated with how he is growing and they are getting even more obsessed with him as time goes by. It’s so lovely to watch them play with him and “mind” him.
And honestly, from a practical point of view it is extremely handy that they are old enough to actually help out! I highly recommend a 5 year age gap😆
The third baby has brought so much joy into our house, it’s impossible to imagine life without him now.
It was suprisingly easy to fall back into the breastfeeding, the nappies, the spewing and winding and rocking to sleep. (I very much doubt my other half would agree with that sentence but it was true for me at least!)
As regards the sleep, well I’m not going to lie, that was an absolute killer until fairly recently…. But as luck would have it, the middle child started sleeping through the night two months before the baby arrived so at least I’ve only been tending to one child in the wee hours….! And the baby does sporadically sleep through the night now so things are on the up.
It’s definitely a rollercoaster adding another child to the mix, regardless of how many you have already, but I would definitely say the jump from 1-2 was harder than 2-3.
And no, I won’t be jumping from 3-4… that niggly whispering voice has been silenced!!
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Millennial Irish Mammy 