Having three children is a little like having two children right? When I was pregnant with my third, I was either told ‘Ah, three children is great! You barely notice they’re there. The BIG difference is going from one to two.’ And also, ‘You can just about manage two children, but three… well THREE is quite a different story!’ So far, it’s chaos. I feel slightly better equipped than others I know, because my first two are slightly older – there’s a four year gap between my middle son and this new addition and this helps greatly.
But it doesn’t mean that life is smooth-sailing. Far from it. Every child is different and while Caspian is just an absolute joy, we’ve got some kind of eczema which we started getting at around 5.5 months. At the time of writing this – 8 months – he has horrid flaky skin (doesn’t help that we’re heading towards winter), some redness still on his chest and back, red angry blotches which grow worse and then subside on his neck and face and a lot of night-time unsettledness and itching. We’ve hit it hard with steroids which seem to be doing the trick and are hopefully going to be getting more insight once we’ve seen a dermatologist in a few weeks.
So it’s less thriving and definitely more surviving! It’s worth adding in the collective illnesses, homework demands, constant request for snacks and other curveballs and continuous tasks which can get pretty wearing.
I think I’ve turned a corner though. At 8 months in, I’m feeling like things are a little more manageable, and while nothing has necessarily changed greatly, I’ve come to realise and integrate a few things:
Get to bed early. There’s nothing quite so infuriating as someone giving you the shit advice of ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’. There’s a thousand different reasons why it doesn’t work. However, going to bed super early does! In the early days, I’d bundle off to bed at around 8.30pm, figuring that while actual sleep will be terrible, I’m maximising the amount I can get by being in bed early. I’ve been doing this again recently and its saved my sanity. Granted, this isn’t something I do every night, but once in a while when I really need it.
Surrendering to it. It’s a waste of energy to fight chaos. I know this now. So embrace the things which take too much energy to change. Such as trying to tidy the older kids’ toys away each night (you know it’ll all be undone in an instant), or telling the boys not to ‘battle’ (instead, give them some rules to follow so fewer things get broken / hurt).
Get rid of guilt. I have, for YEARS, been trying to declutter the house. Turns out, I’m terrible at decluttering. But most days, I think to myself ‘OK! Today I’ll declutter the room which no one can actually get into because it’s full of so much random stuff.’ And each time, le bebe (who refuses to be put down and won’t nap anywhere but on me) and my lack of resilience will thwart my plans. So instead of planning to declutter on days where I have the baby, I aim to do other things. Such as just survive – and by this I mean, make sure we’re both fed, kids get to school ok and back again, and to feed them. Anything extra is a win.
Get out and / or see people. It might feel easier just to hunker down at home, especially when you’re knackered, but getting out and doing things, or seeing people is a tonic for the soul. Who cares if you don’t have any chat – either meet up with someone who does, or hang out with a fellow mum and you can both have crap chat together. Ideally over coffee (hot chocolate in my instance) and something to nibble on. Favourite things to do when I need to get out, but don’t want to talk to anyone is Baby Cinema – it’s pretty chilled, and if you go to Screen on the Green, or another Everyman Cinema, there’s cake and coffee (although I usually opt for the popcorn – not because I’m being virtuous, I just don’t like cake that much).
None of these things are life-changing and they won’t suddenly turn a crap day into an amazing one, but it’ll give things a nudge towards a more positive day. If you’ve got any other things to try to help improve the chaos of three children, let me know!
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