Navigating the transition to multiple kiddos!
A Journey Church Blog from Shealyn Holbrook - Supermom and Team Jesus Lady extraordinaire!
When you think you’ve got it figured out BAM, the egg meets fertilization once again for round two!
Words cannot prepare you for the transition to multiple kids. However, my whole life, for some reason, I always heard going from 2 to 3 was the hardest, no one ever talked about their adjustment from 1 to 2. So I mean, how hard could that be, especially when you have two parents present? One adult per kid. Simple! HAHAHA
Paxton was 5 days shy of turning 2 when I had Maddox. Take your pick of reasons why going from 1 to 2 is a challenge, but one of the biggest ones for me was that my first baby was no longer my whole world.
I now had TWO whole worlds and how to navigate giving equal attention to both was the real trick. Well spoiler, you can’t. You’ll try and fail many times over again and the best thing you can learn to do is give yourself grace. You thought you mastered that with your first… Well time to double up!
Pax was my little buddy. We did everything together, literally. He usually ended up in bed with me at night, we spent all day together playing and exploring, taking naps together, etc. There was ONE time I was away for more than a few hours in his first two years of life. Now all of a sudden he is expected to SHARE mom’s full attention?! That’s a very rude awakening for a little guy. For us both, truly. I struggled for the first three months.
Trying to find a good routine in the mix of overwhelm and pure exhaustion. Wanting to give my all to everyone, but falling short many many times. This season of hard felt like it would never end.
I ended up with some of the best advice that I hope I can share with many
more mamas along the way because it was the real game changer. Choose your oldest baby first! If baby #2 is fed and changed and both are crying, offer to help your
oldest first. Get him/her feeling better and then soothe the baby. That small act goes a long way. Sometimes it’s simply your attention they need and it made all the difference to occasionally, just choose Pax first.
Another piece; leave the baby with dad(or whoever you have to help) and do something intentional with your oldest. Go for a walk, play outside, or even do an inside activity, but give them your full attention. You don’t have all the time in the world anymore, so you have to make it.
And mama, you will make it! Find your support, and lean into Jesus, it’s just a season.
The bond those two will make is nothing short of a gift from God. On the hardest of days always remember how blessed you are that He created, for you, those two little miracles who call you mama.
I love how different my boys are. Only two years apart, same parents, yet they are night and day. Pax has hazel eyes like dad but looks more like mom. Maddox has blue eyes like mom but looks more like
dad. And their personalities! They both came packaged with their own challenges for mom and dad of course, but Paxton is definitely your typical first child. He is sensitive and nurturing and more likely to
follow the rules. He is so helpful with his little brother, and with chores, he just has the best heart. Maddox is your typical second child. He is sassy and stubborn and won’t back down from a challenge. He was trying to jump off our 5-foot-tall island at age 1, don’t turn your back on that one! “Rules? What are the rules? I make the rules.” And dipping into discipline, don’t ever expect what works for #1 to work for #2 because
it just won’t. In fact, #2 might not respond to a single mom threat or discipline tactic at all! You’re about to reach a whole new level of patience there mama, good luck with that! It’s game time.
It’s a funny thing really. You pray for grace and patience and God gives you tiny humans to help you practice those things daily. You didn’t know you were going to have to work so hard for that did you? Yeah, it’s not just GIVEN, it’s taught. Thanks for lookin’ out Lord. HA!
The most beautiful thing in the mix of all the chaos is that God is in the details. The details of your life, of your children’s lives, who they are, who they help you become, who you are helping them become! It’s the most amazing thing to stop and realize, it is all intentional. The hard, the easy, the fun, the frustrating, the failures and victories… There is a purpose in all of it. Lean in and don’t try to go it alone. If there was any one thing to show me ‘alone’ isn’t even an option, it’s motherhood.
Which was the hardest adjustment for you?
Adjusting to your first child.
Adjusting to the second one.
Adjusting to 3, 4, 5 or 6?
Did you know that The Journey Church is an online church community for people everywhere? We create some pretty awesome travel vlogger-style videos every week to teach the Bible. Think of them as out-of-the-box sermons where we connect the lessons or stories from the Bible with the amazing people and places we encounter along the way!
You can find all of our content on-demand 24/7 at:
And just to make things easy for you, here are a few of our recent videos, hope they bless you and encourage you to keep growing as a follower of Jesus.
Comments