“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” —Sophia Loren
Motherhood is a blessing that words cannot describe. Which is why I pray that every woman that desires such would experience this indescribable joy. Having one child could be a daunting task. Having more than one surely is not for the faint-hearted. Your patience would be tried. I am not even joking. Considering how I struggled a little bit when I became a mother-of-two, I want to highlight, some helpful tips for moms with more than one toddler. These are listed as follows:
1) Ensure the first one conforms and the other(s) would naturally fall in place and behave properly. Once that one has spent some time in the ‘naughty corner’, the other child would most likely try to avoid doing the same thing that landed the other sibling in trouble. Not necessarily as a ‘scape-goat” but as a perfect example for the other child(children) to follow.
2)Never buy different toys with different colors in the name of variety. To save your own life buy exactly the same toy with exactly the same color. For some reason, a different toy in the hand of another child looks very amazing.
3)Never leave them alone unsupervised, not even for two minutes, you might come back to the greatest shock of your life.
4)When you have toddlers in your house and its not nap time and everything is awfully quiet, they are most likely doing something naughty like unrolling the toilet roll all over the bathroom floor or rubbing the whole content of the vaseline container on each other’s head. True life story! With toddlers, honestly, silence in not golden.
5) Get ready to double up as a referee and judge because you will have to break up fights and your will have to settle cases, and mommy has to be fair!
6) You need to perfect your negotiation skills to ensure all the “parties” involved are happy with sharing the available toy resources. Otherwise, your sanity will be stretched almost beyond elastic limit.
7)Accept that your “me alone time” is gone forever unless you get really creative. Hence, manage what is left of your time well.
8) It is inevitable, your hidden snack bag will be discovered one day and will be looted! Be very forgiving when it happens.
9)You need to be the master of “reversed psychology” of sort. For example, you can say to a picky eater (who obviously has not touched his food) “ I just love my baby, he eats all his breakfast”. You will be amazed at how much the child would eat after saying those words.
10)Accept your fate and know your “me alone time “ is gone forever (Oh, is this a repetition? Yes I said it earlier in number 7). Repetition is for emphasis. Even when you think you are alone, your mind is active with thoughts of your children. So my advise is to deliberately take time out to de-stress and not feel guilty about it. After all if you don’t take care of yourself, who will?