My family and I are nearing the one-month mark of having our new child, Bishop.
So if you’re reading this: SEND HELP.
I had always heard from my friends who’d already had kids that when you have two kids it feels more like having three. Well let me tell you, if you’re self-employed like I am and don’t get a paternity leave, it can feel more like twenty-three. You are working so hard to manage you feel outnumbered.
Another friend, who more recently had his second child said it another way and a bit less hyperbolic.
“When you have the first kid, it’s kind of like you and your wife still, but now you just have this other little person thrown into your lives as a couple. When you have the second kid, you have to move and operate as a family — as a whole unit.”
That is probably the most accurate perspective. And if you don’t operate like that, you’ll quickly be back to feeling like there’s 23 kids running around your house and life.
But throughout all the new strategies and tactics, you have to keep yourself on track and while we are still figuring it out, I’ve learned a few key pointers that are helping.
I think they may even translate to life lessons, too.
- Communicate plans and needs very clearly with the whole family.
This one is a challenge for me because I’m very used to operating without asking permission from anyone. I’ve been self-employed my whole career and it creates a strong sense of independence. But, if I just come and go as I please now, it will make things increasingly more challenging on my wife. Even if I’m just running to the grocery store, letting her know that in advance is going to be helpful so she can be prepared by knowing she’ll be managing the kids alone for that amount of time. Maybe she’d like to send our 3-year-old daughter with me. Maybe we need more diapers and this grocery run is a perfect chance to get them.
Or, like this morning at my house.: My wife had decided to take the baby downstairs, unbeknownst to me, during the night because he wasn’t sleeping. She tapped on my foot at 4:30am and said she needed me to take over (which of course I did) and wake her up in three hours when he was ready to eat again. But that meant that I somehow had to watch him, wake up my daughter and get her ready for school, write this article, and still get to the tire shop early enough to get my tire replaced. I didn’t know of her plan in the middle of the night, and she didn’t know all that I needed to do this morning.
Communicate. And do it clearly.
- Get your stuff done immediately. No more dawdling.
All that being said, when the windows of time and opportunity do arise, now we have to take action on them immediately. Normally when I wake up early, I may spend some time reading, or scrolling on social media, or (if I have the energy) getting in a quick workout. But today, knowing that my son could wake up at any point and drastically impact any of the other tasks, I started writing my article super early. I went out in the garage to throw the tire in my truck. When my daughter woke up, I got her moving fast and did her hair, fed her, and had her brush her teeth and get dressed quickly.
In a way, we can benefit from this new life dynamic. Nothing teaches you time management like having four people’s schedules to consider and two of those people needing the other two’s help for almost everything. I now consider that at any moment my children or my wife could need my help and because of this, I must not waste the time that I have when my name is not being called.
Get your tasks done quickly. Rest and relaxation time is not guaranteed
- Have no expectations and know that plans can change quickly.
Even though this morning got a little unexpectedly hectic, having a newborn in the house
(especially when you have another child) means that things will get unexpectedly hectic… often. So the best way to handle that so it doesn’t drive you insane, or compromise the things that you were hoping to accomplish is to plan for the unplanned. Build it into your schedule. No longer can you allocate 30 minutes for that 30 minute task, or 11 minutes for that 11 minute drive, and expect that you’ll be ready, right on schedule, for the next task a minute later. Give yourself at least an hour for that 30 minute task. And also go ahead and accept the fact that the 30 minute task may have to just be put on hold until tomorrow (and communicate that to whomever else is involved with that task).
If I wanted to spend today working on my new book, but my baby was in pain and I had to go to the doctor with him instead, there’s no discussion. The baby wins. But this isn’t just something that needs to be considered for baby life and family life. Emergencies can happen at any time. See? These are life lessons!
Expect nothing, except the unexpected. Life can change instantly and you have to roll with it.
- Consider all people in the family, not just the baby.
This one is the culmination of all the tips above. If there’s a new baby in the house, it will get almost almost all of the spotlight for the foreseeable future. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t three ever-evolving, complex, and emotional humans sharing that household, too. And none of them should be discarded or discounted. The first of which needs to be considered is the older sibling. They often don’t handle the family’s new addition well because all the shine was on them for a period of time (three years, in my daughter’s case) and now almost all energy is dedicated to this new baby who can’t even play Paw Patrol with his sister yet. So it’s important to make sure the other sibling is still shown love and attended to with the same care, even if you’re at your wits ends and they are throwing a tantrum. Fortunately, my daughter has been great — super sweet and helpful and not jealous. But I still want her to know that she’s important. So I’ll often “tell” her baby brother that I have to do something with her, just like I tell her sometimes, “Sorry, I have to change baby brother’s diaper.” We are all in this together and we call count.
But guess what? It’s not just the babies that count. We all do. So that means your partner and their needs should be considered as well. I don’t always succeed, but I ALWAYS think about what I could do to make my wife’s life easier. Is it grabbing her dinner on my way home? Is it filling up her water cup while she’s breastfeeding? Is it reminding her that I am in love with her so she knows we are still intimate partners and not just business partners getting their asses kicked by their new job?
A family is a group, but it’s also a group of individual people. Sometimes you need to consider and cater to the group as a whole. Sometimes you need to consider and cater to the individual.
Life is tough, y’all. And raising a family can make it tougher. But it makes it a whole hell of a lot more enjoyable, too.
Just remember to stay calm, communicate, and consider others and I think we’ll all be fine.
Rain Bennett is a two-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker, writer, and competitive storyteller with over a decade of experience producing documentary films that focus on health and wellness. His mission is simple: to make the world happier and healthier by sharing stories of change.
You can read the rest of “Right as Rain” here, and check back every Wednesday on Chapelboro for a new column!
