For the second time this week I am home alone with my two girls. LP's low grade fever has returned and I am perplexed as to its cause. Once again, it is not in any way dampening her energy.
There are definitely some positives to having LP home with Dee and me during my maternity leave. At this life stage, LP is more entertaining and interactive than Dee. She also has an amazing ability to keep Dee awake, which I hope ends up working to my advantage this evening. In addition, when LP wants to be, she can be quite helpful, retrieving important things like diaper cream or burp clothes or inconsequential things like the remote.
On the downside I feel as though no person or activity is getting my undivided attention at any point in time. If I am nursing Dee, I am also trying to keep LP from wreaking havoc. If I am reading to LP I am trying to at least pretend to be reading to Dee as well. When making LP's lunch, I am distracted by my stomach's growling; as I attempt to get LP to nap, I am concerned about Dee, last seen sleeping quietly in her car seat on the kitchen floor. And most of the time I am glancing down or feeling myself up to make sure my boobs aren't leaking.
Really, for parents home alone consistently with more than one child, how do you do it? How do you focus your energy? Do you just have to wait until the weekend and the arrival of reinforcements to give undivided attention?
3 comments:
I read this to my mom for you because having just one child, I couldn't possibly answer this. Her response was a resounding laugh. (She was a SAHM with four kids under the age of six.) Hope it helps:
"If she's alone, unless one child is sleeping for a good period of time, there's no such thing as undivided attention - and in fact she's doing one hell of a good job. When Dee is nursing, as far as Dee is concerned she has mommy's full attention, or at least what she needs from mom while LP is also getting what she needs. Amybow is amazing. By working to include both kids, she is giving them both what they need when they need it, which is a heck of a lot more important. I'm sure she'll make time to give them quality one on one time when reinforcements are there or like I said, when the baby or LP takes a nap."
Giving undivded attention to just one baby is SO hard. Recently I started putting Lily to bed for the night at 7pm so I have more enery to play with Mikayla while Daddy fixes dinner and more enjoy to enjoy reading books to Mikayla - before this I was so tired I know Mikayla did not get as much attention as she wants. Just get though this time as best as possible and trust me it does get better.
It's hard...especially when they are close in age. I wish I had some good strategies to offer, but I don't. :-)
You just kind of wind up squeezing it in somehow.
Post a Comment