Weather: children with a small age difference - fears, mistakes, life hacks

My name is Ann. Today I want to talk to you about how to cope with 2 little kids who have a very small age difference.

Anya Eliseeva is the mother of two adorable girls Katrusi and Marusya. We share with you the most useful life hacks:

I want to tell you about my story.

Challenge: work and 2 small children

The difference between my girls is a year and 10 months. When Marusya was a year old, and I just stopped breastfeeding, returned to work, my husband and I began repairs in our apartment, and then the ultrasound revealed that we would have another baby.

I just went to work, and there was no question at all that I could again go on maternity leave for a long time. Therefore, I already thought out this logistics in advance, how I could combine both work and two small children.

The main fears of expecting a second child

I immediately had a few basic fears:

The first fear, and the main one, is that I will not be able to devote the same amount of time to my beloved child, my Marusa, and that I will not be missed to the same extent as there was enough for Marusya for my newborn child.
My second fear was that Marusya would be very jealous, and her world would collapse because she was such a mommy, a very tame girl. And I was very worried that there would be some kind of aggression, stress, that when they grow up, there will be some kind of fights. I read a lot about this (We also read: sibling rivalry).
My next fear was that how I could raise two small children without interrupting production.

All fears came true!

Another problem that I faced, and which I did not think much about during pregnancy, is the diseases of children. When Marusya fell ill for the first time, Katya was only 6 months old.

Naturally, the youngest child caught the virus from the older one, and in general we all had a very terrible illness at Christmas. I felt very sorry for both girls, because both needed a mother, both had to be constantly hugged, stroked, close, and treated. And here at least burst!

How I deal with children's jealousy

1. Prepare Dad

The first is to train dad. Our dad is golden, thank God, in principle, he is a mother in some way. Sometimes even more mom than me! We agreed with him even during pregnancy that he would spend more time with Marusya.

He began to put her to bed, he bathed her, read her fairy tales, walked with her a lot. Therefore, in principle, Marusa's dad, as it were, could always replace mom, or, at least in not the most acute and critical situations, you can always go to dad's arms and be with him.

2. Have fun together

Of course, it is very important to create some of these moments, especially when the little baby is growing up, so that they can play and enjoy the time together. It is very difficult to do this because little children cannot play. They do not know how to explain themselves, they do not know how to communicate, they feel good, just when there is a mother or some favorite toys.

3. Bathing together

But it is nevertheless good to take a bath together. After 2 years, Marusya was wondering that there was some little child who was swimming next to her in the bathroom, lying on her back, humming. It was a great time together.

4. Listen to music together

You can listen to music together, and not necessarily children's music, you don't have to go crazy with the next track by Mozart or Tchaikovsky. You can listen to the music that you listen to with your father. Andrei and I played our favorite videos, relaxed heartily, had fun, and the kids danced, had fun with us. It's very close!

5. Travel together

Great travel always shows whether you can exist together or not. Therefore, our children, traveling together to their grandmothers in Odessa, somewhere just outside the city, also got closer, because the road brings them closer.

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How do I cope with life and work

1. Helpers

The most important thing, # 1, is the assistants. Everything you can afford - nanny, 2 nannies, grandmother, grandfather, girlfriend. I even asked a friend to come on weekends just to exhale and look up at the white ceiling.

2. Online shopping

I transferred all my purchases online. It is very beneficial to do this:

This saves time;
This saves you resources - you don't run, you don't choose. You are precisely focused on what you need to buy;
And, of course, it saves the budget, because it is more profitable and cheaper to buy on most sites.

When you buy clothes on the site, you see the entire collection at once. You can plan what to buy, not just in the store you liked the thing, and you were distracted by it and forgot that you do not need it.

And so you clearly know - yeah, I bought red tights, a red dress, red shoes. And, of course, buy clothes for yourself too. I ordered everything, they brought it to me for fitting, I tried it on right at home. In general, this is on weekends: you feed the child, the courier comes, you measure - fit, did not fit, send the order, and save a lot of time.

3. Distribute work

Do not hesitate to say once again at work that you have small children, that you need to pump your breasts, that you cannot sit and talk at meetings about anything very long.
I came in this status as a “young mother”, constantly told everyone about it, because, unfortunately, we do not have a law or a culture in society that would protect, protect and help a mother who is forced to work and organize breastfeeding ...

And all my meetings, all my schedule, I adjusted specifically for these pumping. I never answered phone calls. I just saved them up and answered autoreplay, which I will answer later, now I cannot. This freed me up time to do something with my hands.

Then I had a pool of time when I answer phone calls, and I also postponed all work meetings either to a fixed time on certain days, or on certain days.

4. All tasks to dictate and send audio files

When there are a lot of tasks in your head, you need to write them down, but even write them down - not always a notebook and a pen at hand, but always a phone at hand. Therefore, you can dictate to yourself everything that you have to do, send an audio file, for example, to your dad or someone else. You do not waste time, all information is saved with you. In the evening or in the morning, you can flip through it and remember what important tasks you have written down.

5. To build the whole schedule from mom

Everything that happens around mom should happen around mom. Therefore, you should not be torn to work, for an older child, for a younger child, but everything should be organized around you. Even a child can be brought to work with mom to feed.

Allow yourself to be imperfect

Again, a very important psychological, moral, spiritual life hack is about the fact that at some point you just need to relax and understand that you cannot be perfect!

There will be no more choice between good and bad. You will no longer be as perfectionist as you were with your first child. Now there are two of them, some other responsibilities - and the world just won't be the same. And all the time you have to choose between worse and better. You still make this choice, but when you accept it internally for yourself, it somehow becomes easier to breathe.

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Because it will be like this: or the children sleep - it's better for the children, if we don't sleep, it's worse for us. Children will take a walk, they will get some pleasure, we will do everything for them, but we will not have time to do some housework.

You have this choice - it is constant. Therefore, here you need to accept this situation that you are not an ideal mother, but you are the way you are. I myself, like mantras, read the same thing all the time:

“Well, that's it, and you can survive it! They will grow up, and will still love each other, and will still live happily, peacefully, because we love them very much. "

And indeed, over time, everything comes to a certain rhythm, the kids grow up - but pasaran, mothers! 🙂

Hold on, believe in yourself and share your life hacks in the comments: