Which transition was hardest?

There is an internet blog post going around about which transition was the hardest.   Zero to one?  One to two? Two to three?  Three to four?  You get the idea.

For us ... now that I look back at all three with a bit more objectivity ... I'm not entirely sure.  They all had their hard parts.  I would say - and this is what I tell people - 1 to 2 was the hardest.  One was a shock, sure, and it was super hard to become a stay at home mom but that's not the baby's fault.  My hardest baby was David, and it's really not his fault either.


  When Grady was born it was a shock.  And the biggest transition for me, personally.  No more office.  No more co-workers.  I was alone at the house all the time and I felt like if I didn't do something or make something every minute of the day I wasn't being useful and therefore had no value.  I still struggle with that ... but for reasons I'll get to in a minute, much, much, much less.

Grady, for his part, was a good baby.  He never had a newborn, "sleepy" phase.  He came out alert and that is how he stayed.  He was the pin-drop-wakes-him-up, baby.  He slept for two hours at a time through the first part and then got to 3 or 4 and then finally at about six months I was a zombie and we did 10min of CIO and he was a good sleeper from then on.

He spit up constantly.  But he was so happy.  He always smiled.  He was pleasant and when we got him on a good sleep schedule he was amazing.  Happiness is one baby on a schedule.
When David was born ... well he was a model baby.  He slept 4 or 5 hours from the hospital.  They brought him to me that first night after 5 hours and said "you need to wake him to eat!"  He nursed great (but all my babies did - yes I'm proud - though I know that I have no part in it and it is dumb luck).  He was efficient.  Though there was a period at 2wks where he was nursing every. single. hour.  It was ridiculous.  I nursed a lot in public back then.

But at 3 months he got a cold and an ear infection that I missed.  He was cranky, despondent, wouldn't sleep.  I just thought he was a pistol.  I thought he was just being a brat.  And not to mention his dad was having heart surgery.  I was distracted.

Finally, after weeks of this behavior (sleeping 45 min at a time, sleeping in the swing, driving around for naps, etc), I took him to the doctor at my mother's urging.  Surely something was wrong.  Well.  Yes.  Both of his ears were pretty badly infected.  And probably had been a long bit.  Oops.

I would love to tell you that after this he got better.  But no.  David just never liked sleeping alone.  I would go in there to him every four hours or so and at 8mo had had enough and we did some CIO.  He started sleeping better but he always slept better in a pack n play near me than he did alone in his crib, at least initially.  He would sleep fine once asleep, but going to sleep was hard for the poor guy.

This made him my hardest baby.  When he was a newborn he was easy peasy, he would sleep in the ergo and go wherever we dragged him.  He slept in the carseat.  He slept pretty much anywhere.  But as soon as that ended ... having two kids was rough.  Having to manage both schedules and having no downtime ... zero downtime ... that was hard.  I didn't get to leave the house much.  Nap at 9 for D, nap at 12 for G, nap at 2 for D.  Bedtime at 630 for both.  I never. Left the house.  But that is such a short phase.  And once it was over, by about 15mo when I finally got him on one nap, it was easy peasy again.

I tell people he was my hardest transition, but it's not because he was a hard baby.  He was more emotional than G (I say in hindsight) and not as quick to smile.  I missed some of his early smiles because I didn't see that slow grin for what it was.  I see it now, because I recognize his face.

David always made people work for it.  He loved me and only me.  He would go to his Dad of course but strangers he really had no interest in.  He loved my cousin.  Still loves my cousin.  Something about her always clicked with him.  He would sit with her without screaming.  He would read with her.  Play piano with her.  She made an effort with him and he knew it.  And he responded to her.  Still does.

It's really not fair to say he was hard, because he was just a baby, fighting his way into our family.  And we had so much stress on us in his infancy.  Lew's heart surgery and a new job with travel.  I had to adjust to being solo mom for a lot of it.  And that was something we hadn't really discussed prior to having number 2.  Work load.  I didn't realize how exhausted I would be and what that would make the house look like and what that would mean for meals and chores and life.  Add to that, Lewis couldn't even hold him for months 4 and 5 of his life.  He was too heavy.  The first month after the surgery, even sitting on the couch with him the weight on his chest was too much.  I single parented through that phase and I had to take care of Lewis.  We had outside help sometimes.  But the stress on us was very real.  And absolutely zero of that is about David.  But that's why his transition was hardest.

Then there were three.  This was probably the easiest transition.  By this time nothing shocked me anymore.  Not sleeping is the norm.  Tag teaming mommy is a sport for these kids.  If someone isn't waking up hungry someone has an ear ache or someone has a nightmare or someone has thrown up. Or sometimes all of the above.

She wasn't without her own struggles.  She never wanted to be put down.  She hated the carseat.  She screamed immediately anytime she was put in it.  She didn't like the pack n play, her cradle, the rock n play or the swing.  She only ever took quality naps and feel asleep on mommy.  For three months.  I co-slept with this tiny child for three months.  And on the day of her 3month anniversary, I had to pull the plug, because while it worked for me in the short term, long term that would not.

And that transition stunk.  For a few days she was up every 2hours and there was a fair bit of tears.  Hers and mine.  After four weeks of doing a lot of up and down we did some crying for a bit.  That got us to probably 4 or 5hr stretches of sleep.  And then at 5 or 6mo we took a trip to Wisconsin and I didn't have a baby monitor and it was probably the best thing that happened because if she cried after I laid her down I never knew.  And she started sleeping through the night after that.

So I still say going from one to two was hardest.  Never having a break from kid stuff was a big adjustment.  Not being able to do adult things because of kid things (which was more likely with 2 than with one) was an adjustment.  By #3 we were used to all of that.

And by number 3 you know that they are only little for a brief time.  That you will breathe deep, finally start sleeping, and blink and it'll be gone, the infancy phase.  The long hours and the brutal wake ups.  She's sick now and I'm waking up with her again and it's okay.  I'm tired but okay.  And that's how it was her whole infancy.  I was tired ... but okay.  And just so very grateful that all three of my children were handed to me healthy and howling.

I still struggle sometimes with staying home.  But mostly I don't have time to because I have three children and there's always laundry to do or someone needs something or someone has a doctors appointment or someone is screaming.

But I am lucky.  My kids get along and are sweet.  I don't have major behavioral problems.  But - as Lewis would say - that's a result of parenting.  So far so good.

But this whole conversation is kind of funny ... because I think the later periods of transition are tougher as parents.  Because the stakes get a lot higher.  And the problems a lot bigger than who took a nap when for how long.