With Little Brother now being 19 month old I think back to when his brother was that age and all the ways my boys are different.
I call Big Brother my easy child. From birth he was sleeping through the night. I remember being so mad at the nurse in the hospital when she woke me up ordering me to wake my child and feed him. I was like seriously woman get out of my room. If the baby was hungry he would be awake.
Bringing him home from the hospital he just fit into our lives. It was as if parenting came easy to me. Nothing changed except now I was responsible for a little human being. He napped on the go and loved checking out the world around him.
At 3 months old Big Brother was in his crib for the night by 8pm. I would watch my TV shows relishing in the fact at how easy this parenting thing was and what a great little boy I had. I remebered hearing horror stories about being a first time mom and would felt sorry for these people.
Everything has always come easy and naturally with Big Brother. Even my pregnancy was easy.
Along came Little Brother. Surely this was just going to be awesome as well. I guess the pregnancy should have been the first sign. I was constantly tired and had morning sickness 24/7. The doctor ended up putting me on medication for the morning sickness. At my baby shower I ended up falling. From protecting my belly I ended up cracking my elbow, spraining my wrist and banging up my knee pretty darn good. I had to leave my own shower early to go to the hospital.
Little Brother for the first too many months of his life did not sleep through the night. He thought night time was party time. We tried all the old wives tales like slipping him and nothing worked. He would not sleep in his crib, only his swing or chair. Tobei who was on parental leave spent many nights with broken sleep on the couch to take care of him so I could sleep. It wasn’t until we worked with a sleep sense consultant that he started sleeping in his crib through the night.
Little Brother needed his sleep schedule that we now had. This meant life was no longer on the go. Even to this day life is very regimented around his nap times and bed time.
Little Brother is the child that will give me the gray hair. From losing his fingertip to dancing on the table to falling off the couch he is always doing something to make my heart race. Lucky for us he is a tough little boy. Even with a missing finger tip he was a happy baby at the hospital. We always confuse the doctors when we show up at the ER as he is always a happy baby. When he had croup they had a hard time believing us because he was so happy. Thankfully they heard it just as they were about to discharge us.
As you can see from just comparing the first 19 months of both my children’s lives they are unique and different in so many ways. I can not wait to see how they each grow in their own individual ways.
Disclosure: This post was brought to you as part of my partnership with the KINDER® Mom program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.