Welcome to the second half of my “Day in the Life” with a 18-month-old and a 5-month-old. You can go here to read the first half. When we left off, the girls were both napping while I was enjoying some alone time…

1:45pm: Both girls wake up from their nap at the same time! (This is very unusual.) However, I must note that Aerin did not sleep the whole way through — she woke up a couple of times, but I could tell that she would be able to sleep more if I let her, so I just popped the pacifier back into her mouth, turned on the mobile, and left the room. And both times, she had fallen back asleep after a few minutes of fussing.

(I would also like to say that Claire’s nap usually lasts 1.5 hours. Everyone told me that when your child transitions from 2 to 1 nap per day, he/she will sleep 2.5-3 hours…yeah, that did NOT happen with us. She’s always been a crappy napper, so I can’t say that I didn’t expect it.)

When both girls wake up at the same time, I usually go tend to the one that is crying first. (If both are crying? I go to Claire first, because they say that you should always go to the older child first in cases like these.) This time, Aerin is full-on crying while Claire is just babbling, so I go to the littler one first. I change her diaper and lay her on the playmat while I go to Claire. I change Claire and bring her out to the playmat too. Aerin doesn’t seem that hungry yet, so I leave her on the mat so that she can continue playing with her feet while I start feeding Claire. She finishes half a bowl of the seaweed porridge and a third of the sweet potato.

2:00pm: I sit with Aerin on my lap, encouraging Claire while she plays with some toys. Claire has recently started to show an interest in wooden puzzles (and is starting to get pretty good at them!). We have received many as gifts since she was born, and this one makes the corresponding animal sound when the correct piece is placed into its hole. The sounds are pretty annoying and drive me and J bonkers, but Claire loves it.

2:30pm: Claire suddenly seems to realize that I’ve been holding Aerin this entire time. She makes a devastated face, and comes toward me with her arms out — obviously asking me to hold her instead. I can’t resist. I quickly put Aerin in the Bumbo and place Claire on my lap. I read to both girls. (And because I don’t want Aerin to feel left out, I hold her hand.)

2:45pm: Both girls are starting to get fussy. It is time for our daily walk. I try to go out with them at least once a day so that they can get some fresh air as well as a change of scenery. (This is why I hate rainy and/or extremely cold days.) I am a complete hermit who loves being home — I would be perfectly happy staying in for weeks at a time — so this is a big sacrifice for me. But my girls’ happiness is worth it…and besides, it’s good exercise.

When we go out and it’s just me at the helm, I usually strap Aerin to my chest and push Claire in the stroller. There is a small park a few blocks from our house, but it’s only some grass, benches, and a nice view of Manhattan — nothing too interesting to little kids unless there are lots of people out. (And with 2 little ones, it is difficult for me to physically play with them at this park by myself because it is right beside a busy street.) Since the weather is a bit chilly, I am guessing that there won’t be too many people out at the park so I decide to go to the pharmacy instead (8 blocks away) to pick up a new bottle of St Ives Apricot Scrub. Here is a shot I took of us from a poor reflection off an office building:

We leave Walgreens and although it’s a little cold, the air is crisp and fresh and the girls seem to be enjoying their time outside, so I decide to walk 10 blocks in the direction we came from, passing our street on the way, to our local Dunkin Donuts. I get my favorite drink of the moment — Vanilla Chai Latte — and hang out a bit, chatting with the cashier who knows us well.

On our way back home we pass a construction site and I point it out to Claire as I always do…it is an urban water park, slated to open this summer and only two blocks from our place!!

3:50pm: Our walk has lasted a little over an hour and it is now time for Aerin’s last nap of the day. I give Claire some diluted apple juice and hand her her new Ni Hao Kai-Lan sound book to keep her busy while I put her little sister down to sleep.

4:30pm: Aerin wakes up after only 30 minutes. Normally if this happens I will try to get her to sleep more, but I can see by her eyes that she is wide awake.

…..

The next two hours are pure pandemonium. Okay, so it isn’t that bad. But there is a reason I don’t have any pictures from this time period. I’m not sure what it is, but babies and toddlers always seem to hit their breaking points between the hours of 5 and 7pm (at least mine do). Both girls are fussy and whiny and DEMAND my attention. There are a few tears, but this is expected.

…..

6:30pm: Daddy is home!!!

6:40pm: After J is settled in, we discuss our “divide and conquer” plans for the girls’ nighttime routine. That night, J takes Claire and I get Aerin. I manage to get this shot of Claire, happily in her bubble bath (her new favorite word is “bubble!”), before going off to prepare Aerin’s bath:

6:50pm: Aerin is especially smiley during her bath. I notice that she’s really starting to resemble her father.

7:30pm: Both girls are bathed, fed, and sleeping!

J almost immediately goes back to work. (The only way that he is able to come home from work so early is because he finishes his work at home. Sometimes he’ll even work until 1 or 2 in the morning.) Since the office has an issue that needs to be taken care of asap, and because I am starving, we decide that it will be better if we eat separately that night. J will eat leftovers from the fridge when he gets a break from work, and I decide to have some jjambbong (Korean noodles and seafood in spicy sauce).

I eat my jjambbong straight from the pot. There is no need to add to the dishes when I am eating alone.

8:30pm: I load, and start the dishwasher. Remember when I said that I don’t trust the dishwasher to properly wash baby bottles? Well, my fatigue and lack of time won over. We use the Munchkin Deluxe Dishwasher Basket for our Dr. Brown bottles and it rocks. Almost the entire top rack of the dishwasher is filled with baby stuff, while the bottom rack — although you can’t tell from this picture — is only about half full. Claire and Aerin’s laundry is always quadruple the size of mine and J’s too. How do two tiny humans create so much work?

8:45pm: I take a bath. I manage to catch up on Draw Something while lying in the tub.

Once I am out of the bath, I finish up, and schedule my blog post for the next day. 

11:00pm: I unload the bottles from the dishwasher and place them on the bottle rack to dry. Although we love our Dr. Brown bottles, they are quite skinny so they do not dry properly in the dishwasher. (Don’t you love these pink Dr. Brown bottles? It’s a BRU-exclusive color.)

This is also when I tend to our home a bit: tidying up all the scattered toys, wiping down the table and countertops, sweep the floors (if needed), take out the garbage, and so forth. I also pre-prepare the girls’ bottles for the night and the next morning (two for Aerin and one for Claire) — filling the bottles with water, assembling the necessary pieces, and measuring out the powdered formula so that all we need to do is pour and mix and not have to worry about these things when we are at our sleepiest and klutziest.

Normally, I would also be preparing Claire’s meals for the next day at this time too. But my mother is supposed to come over the next day to help out, and she has offered to bring us some food, so I am in the clear for the night.

11:30pm: I kiss J goodnight and head to bed. I know that I should sleep, but I can’t resist…I watch the previous night’s episode of Mad Men (Betty got fat!).

12:15am: J comes to bed. We fall asleep sometime between 12:30 and 1:00am.

Aerin gets up twice that night, at around 2am and 5am. I take the first feeding while J gets the second. Our day starts all over at 7:30am, when Aerin wakes up for the day.

#  #  #

Although I had stated at the beginning of the Part 1 of this two-parter post that this was a “typical” day, it was not. This day was a very good one, meaning that it was a fairly easy one for me. I had actually been planning to write a “Day in the Life” post for a while now, but every time that I had started to plan one in the past, things got too hectic and I wasn’t able to continue taking pictures and/or jot down quick notes.

Do I have easier days than this? Yes. But they are rare, and typically my days are a bit more difficult than the one chronicled here.

Sometimes I am so exhausted that when Aerin is down for a nap, I turn on the TV and lie down, while holding Claire tightly (so she can’t cause mischief elsewhere) and take a 5-minute power nap. Sometimes, when both girls are screaming their lungs out, I just cry along with them. And sometimes, I call J at work and beg him to come back home.

But we do have our good days like the one recorded here. And even on the tough days, there are moments that make everything better, even if temporarily. (For instance, when I say “saranghae” — Korean for “I love you” — to Claire, she comes over and gives me a big hug. She only does this to a couple of people in her life, so I know that she knows it should be saved for those she cares about, and makes me feel all speshurr for being one of the privileged few. )

Ever since I became a mother of “two under two,” I have received a few requests for a “Day in the Life” post, detailing what a typical day is like for me.

Better late than never, right?

This post chronicles the first half of Monday, April 2, 2012. Claire had just turned 18 months old, and Aerin 5 months.

(Please excuse the poor quality of some of these pictures as they were all taken with my phone and I usually only had one chance to get a shot!)

6:54am: Aerin wakes up, which means that I must also get up for the day. I keep her sound machine on so that there is less chance of our waking J, and quietly change, feed, and play with her, waiting for the rest of our family to awake.

8:15am: Claire wakes up. She usually wakes up between 7 and 7:30, so she’s slept in a bit today. I leave Aerin in the Bumbo on the floor of our living room while I prepare Claire’s morning bottle (yes, we know we should wean her from this) and go say hi to my firstborn. She giggles when she sees me and throws her arms up so that I will pick her up. I change her while she drinks her milk.

8:20am: J wakes up. He takes over for a bit while I brush my teeth and wash my face. Then I entertain the girls while he gets ready for work.

8:45am: J leaves for work. Claire calls out “Bai!” while waving a hand.

9:00am: It is time for Aerin’s first nap. I turn on Ni Hao Kai-Lan on Amazon Instant Video (we have a computer hooked up to our TV) so that Claire can sit still while I put Aerin down. Luckily, it only takes 5 minutes for Aerin to fall asleep.

9:05am: I prepare breakfast for Claire and I: scrambled eggs and yogurt. I also make a cup of coffee for myself, and we eat — or rather, I eat and feed Claire— while sitting cross-legged on the playmat while watching Kai-Lan solve yet another problem her friends have caused. (Rintoo is a jerk, Tolee is a wuss, and Hoho is just plain annoying.) When we’re finished eating, I continue to keep her entertained with books, toys, and stickers.

9:50am: Aerin wakes up. I give Claire some Korean shrimp-flavored crackers to munch on while I go tend to the youngest member of our family with a diaper change and a bottle.

10:30am: Aerin has taken to cluster-feeding as of late. I am hoping that it is just a phase, because breaking a habit like this can be heartbreaking (i.e., letting your child cry from what they believe to be hunger). Here you can see Claire looking at us with some resentment in her eyes. Also notice that she’s placed her giraffe in the Bumbo. Lately, whatever she sees Aerin doing, she wants to do it herself or have the giraffe do it too.

10:45am: Here’s another example of Claire acting jealous. She started to cry when I placed Aerin in the activity gym so I had to scoop her back up. (We’re working on disciplining our toddler, but it’s a slow process with Aerin in the picture!) And as soon as Aerin was gone? She placed her giraffe there and turned on the lights and music, as you can see below.

11:00am: Ni Hao Kai-Lan is Claire’s favorite show so when I saw these Beanie Babies on Amazon, I immediately ordered them. I know that television is not recommended for toddlers, but mama needs a break sometimes. Claire obviously loves these little guys and has played with them all the time since we got them last week. She will take Rintoo (the tiger) and make him “Rowr!”, throw Hoho (the monkey) into the air because he is always hopping on the show, and even tries to tie a balloon to Lulu (the hippo)’s horns because that’s how she flies on the show.

11:45am: The past hour or so has mostly consisted of me playing with the girls: giving Aerin tummy time, reading to them, singing, playing with Claire’s toys, helping build Claire’s vocabulary by pointing out various objects, etc. Aerin is usually okay for about 10-15 minutes by herself on the Bumbo or on the mat, but after that I will have to carry her. After 15-30 minutes or so of this, she will get fussy and I will put her in the Bjorn. During the times that she is being carried or in the carrier, I try my best to keep Claire from getting jealous by paying extra attention to her and being overly energetic. Needless to say, this is very tiring.

12:00pm: It is time for Aerin’s second nap, and Claire’s only nap of the day. I try to time it so that they overlap, and today I am in luck. I turn on some Pororo music videos to keep Claire entertained, and go put Aerin down for her nap.

12:05pm: In the 5 minutes or so I had left Claire alone, she has gotten ahold of the baby wipes and pulled out a bunch. I save the ones that are on the floor in a ziplock bag so that I can use them to wipe up minor spills, as well as spot-clean our microfiber couch (apparently, baby wipes are what furniture stores recommend to spot-treat microfiber).

12:07pm: I change Claire’s diaper and put her down for her nap. As always, I enjoy watching her wrestle with her giraffe before falling asleep.

12:15pm: I finally have some alone time to myself. I sit down for a few minutes with my laptop, baby monitor on one side and a cup of instant coffee on the other. (I love Asian instant coffee, because they include creamer and sugar in the powered mix without making it too sweet.) I quickly check email for the first time that day, and start researching and writing my blog post for the next day.

12:20pm: Before I get too comfortable, I start preparing Claire’s lunch: miyukgook (Korean seaweed soup) with chopped clams, boiled with rice so that it has the consistency of jook, or rice porridge. I know that she can have soup with regularly cooked rice, but she likes it better this way.

12:25pm: I also pop a Korean sweet potato into the steamer and set it for 40 minutes. Claire’s a very fickle eater these days, so I try to have as much variety as possible available for her to eat.

I go back to my computer and savor my coffee with a piece of toast. I feel horrible saying this, but sitting here, in the peace and quiet without the girls, seems pretty darn good.

Stay tuned for part two, which will be published this Friday…

The first few weeks without J’s parents weren’t too bad. I really thought that I could do this.

But in the past week, Claire has started to act up.

My parents think that it’s because up until now, Aerin was still a young infant — just kind of there, taking up and room and requiring only the most basic needs met. But now that she is really starting to become interactive, not only demanding more of my attention but also garnering more from others as well with her smiling, cooing demeanor, Claire has begun to take notice.

And she does not like it.

Before, she wouldn’t mind if Aerin would play with her toys or her old baby products. She wouldn’t mind to see Aerin strapped to my chest, just as long as I was still paying attention to her too.

But now, she cries when she sees Aerin lying in her old activity gym. She demands to have Sophie back (even though she has never taken much interest in the popular teething toy). And whenever she sees me with Aerin in the Bjorn? She will whine for me to pick her up too.

She has even begun to hit me and her little sister!

This was what was the most upsetting out of the numerous things that went wrong last week: knowing that Claire — now a year and a half years old and at a stage where she requires much love and attention to thrive and be happy — is not receiving nearly as much care as she deserves.

There is also the fact that Aerin, who is now 5 months of age, needs a lot more from her caretaker(s) as well.

J and I have decided that I need help. But finding a part-time nanny to lend me a hand will also require a lot of work on my part, which I am already reluctant to do because I am so. Damn. Tired. ALL. THE. TIME.

Additionally, J’s parents are returning for three months starting next month. J thinks that we will only need help until then, because when they come they can help out with the girls once more. However, this poses two problems in my eyes: (1) I am reluctant to hire someone to leave only as the girls get used to her; (2) I do not want Claire to have to go through “losing” loved ones again. After all, in the past six months, she has “lost” her aunt & uncle (who moved to Shanghai) as well as her grandparents — all of whom she saw regularly and clearly loved and bonded with.

If anything, I would prefer that Claire’s grandparents do not see the girls too often when they come, because it almost seems cruel to have her see them almost every day for three months, only to have them leave for months again. However, J thinks I’m being silly in this regard.

Children need structure and routine. They crave consistency.

I am at a loss as to what to do.

My mother was talking to my aunt the other day and she told me how my aunt, whose first two children are 15 months apart, says having kids this close in age is harder than twins. She should know, as her own daughter actually has twins so she has seen firsthand how difficult twins can be.

I know that this post calls out as a cry for help, but it isn’t. I just need a place to vent in these minutes before J heads off to work for the day. We are still considering possibilities for childcare and help (believe me when I say that I have looked into all possibilities — we have been doing this since I found out I was pregnant with Aerin), but none of them are great.

I must stop writing now. All I ask for as some prayers for these rough months ahead.

As stated in my last post, this past week has been a whirlwind of sh*tstorms. Suffice it to say that the past few days have probably have been my most trying as a mother of two. Maybe I’ll write about the events that transpired in a future post, but there is a chance that I may need to erase from my memory banks these occurrences and my resulting feelings and reactions from them — and leaving them written out on a public blog may not be the best way to go about accomplishing this goal.

I have recently re-read Tina Fey’s Bossypants because it is a quick and funny read that does not require much thinking. I laughed out loud as I read the below passage:

I learned how long a morning can be. If you’re at work at 5:30 A.M., five hours go by and it is 10:30 in the morning. (I didn’t experience that again until I had a newborn baby. It does make you feel like an asshat for all those college years when you slept until 12:45.)

My mother told me yesterday that my life will never be as comfortable as it was when I was in college. I disagree, because I hated school and I hate being dependent on others — even my own parents at that young age — for money. For me, it was better when we were DINKs (double income, no kids), because at least we could sleep in on weekends and our combined income which supported two people was more than what J’s single income now supports for four.

But having less (in time, money, and other luxuries) does make me so much more appreciative of the little things; I am so much more thankful for what I do have, as well as what I had. For instance, I can’t believe I used to b*tch about getting “only” 5 hours of sleep the night before. Or spending $700 for a wallet and not batting an eye when a $100 handbag seems like such a luxury now.

I am grateful that I was once able to live such a life, am at times wistful of the life we once led, but am now more aware of each little blessing in my life and can’t believe that I never noticed them before.

So yes, I do feel like an asshat. Thank you for pointing that out to me, Ms. Fey.

True love is being reduced to a blubbery mess of tears and snot after having just one goofy smile shot your way. The kind that says, “You may not be the perfect mom, but you are my mom and for that, you are perfect to me.”

The kind that out-trumps an entire week of injuries, blood, poop, and tears. (I’m not revealing which came from who. You’d be surprised. )

I am by no means an expert on baby sleep, but the (very) general sleep pattern that my girls seemed to have followed is:

• 0 to 2 months old: sleeps most of the day, but also wakes up often. She is still getting used to being outside of the womb.
• 2 to 4 months old: the sleepy newborn stage. She is finally used to the outside world and is “resting” from the trauma of birth. (Did you know that oftentimes, being born is much more difficult than giving birth? Think about how traumatizing it must be for the little guys!)
• 4 months onward: sleep goes to crap again, otherwise known as the 4-month sleep regression. She is starting to discover the world and is simply overwhelmed.

We sleep-trained Claire at 4.5 months because not only were we, as her parents, dead-tired and cranky, she was also miserable from the lack of sleep. Getting her from waking up 5-6x per night to 3x a night took about a week, and getting her to nap more than 20-30 minutes at a time took about two months. I used Dr. Weissbluth’s extinction method in both cases, and while sleep-training was one of the toughest things I did as a parent, I also believe that it was also one of the most worthwhile — Claire is such a happier child when she is well-rested!

With Aerin being a more laid-back, happier baby who slept better than Claire from the get-go, we had been hoping that we wouldn’t need to sleep-train her. And as she neared 4 months of age, I kept my fingers crossed that she would skip the dreaded 4-month sleep regression (as some babies do)…

But no such luck. Aerin’s sleep regression hit a couple of weeks before she turned 4 months old, and it progressively got worse. At one point, she was waking up every hour! She also seemed to have the same trouble that Claire had with naps, waking up just 20-30 minutes into her nap just as the deeper, more restful sleep cycle begins.

I had read that some babies just naturally grow out of their sleep regressions (often after just a couple of weeks) so we decided to wait it out a bit. I was petrified of sleep-training Aerin, you see. We live in a small 2-bedroom condo with two babies. And with Aerin still sleeping in our room, how were we, the parents, supposed to make a baby just mere two feet away from us CIO? And what about Claire? If Aerin cries half as much as Claire did when we were sleep-training her, Claire was SURE to be disturbed from her sleep and wake up crying herself.

Two weeks passed. The situation did not improve. We needed to sleep-train.

We decided to keep Aerin in our room for the duration of the sleep-training process because I would rather deal with one cranky baby than two. Aerin had been sleeping in our bed, her bassinet, or the swing — and we decided that with sleep-training, we should just kill two birds with one stone and start having her sleep in a crib. A full-sized crib in our room is a very tight fit (I have trouble reaching my nightstand), but we manage. Besides, this is only until Aerin starts sleeping better through the night, and then we will move her into Claire’s room to share.

(I should also note that we purchased the same exact crib and crib bedding as Claire so that there would be little chance for jealousy and they could share the extra fitted sheet that we had purchased with Claire. The crib bedding set was actually discontinued, so I got it for $80 cheaper than we had paid for with Claire. Score!)

We also purchased a duplicate sound machine so that she would get used to that exact sound. And while we were at it, we decided to stop swaddling and move onto our beloved Magic Sleepsuit. (Claire’s old ones have held up well.)

And, going against most sleep-training advice, I began to sleep-train her NAPS ONLY.

Our little Aerin, napping peacefully

Call me chicken, but I was still terrified of making her CIO at night, knowing that J has work the next day and Claire was sleeping in the next room.

I also took it a step further by making her pre-sleep routine as short as possible. Some may even say that there isn’t a routine in the first place — it is literally just turn off the lights, turn on the sound machine, put her in her Magic Sleepsuit, turn on the mobile (I know that the Infant Stim-Mobile is a popular choice, but both our girls seemed bored by it and like the Fisher-Price Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile with its lightshow much better), pop a pacifier in her mouth, and leave.

When we were nap-training Claire, we would do a shortened version of her night bedtime routine: play quiet games in a dim room, read her a book or two, then all of the above. But when I am by myself watching both kids, I honestly can’t leave Claire alone for that long while I put Aerin down for her naps. Do I feel bad about it? Yes. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

On the very nap with which I began sleep training, Aerin fussed (but did not cry) for about 5 minutes before falling asleep, and woke up just 30 minutes into her nap. And I ignored her. To clarify: I knew she was crying, but I did not rush in as I usually did. As for Claire — so that she does not get upset by the sounds of her little sister crying — I calmly took her into her room and closed the door behind us so that the sounds of crying will be muffled, and played some loud games with her. (I did go check on Aerin every 5 minutes or so, just to make sure she wasn’t somehow strangled or had a limb stuck somewhere.)

Aerin cried on and off 20 minutes that day, then went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. And for her next and final nap of the day? She slept a full hour straight!

On the second day, she fussed another 5 minutes before falling asleep, and cried 15 minutes mid-nap. And on the next, she cried a little over 10.

Within just ONE WEEK, she seemed to be nap-trained! She would maybe fuss for a minute as soon as I put her down in the crib, but then fall asleep almost right away. And if she does wake up mid-nap, it’s usually because her pacifier got stuck under her neck or something like that and she will fall back asleep as soon as the problem was fixed.

She also seemed to develop a nap schedule by herself. Her first nap, usually at about 9:30am, will last about 45 minutes. The second, at about 12 noon, will last about an hour and a half. And the last, at about 3:30pm, will last about an hour.

Want to know the most amazing part? She naturally started sleeping better during the night too, within just a couple of days! After giving her a bath, we will do the same exact routine as with her naps, and she would fall asleep almost right away. She wakes up three times a night — which is perfectly healthy for her age — and the first time is almost always when we are still awake, so we do not lose out on any sleep ourselves. And for the second and third times? All we do is feed her, change her diaper, and she falls right back asleep!

And that, my friends, is how my 4.5 month-old second daughter was sleep-trained in just one week. 

I am sure that we will hit hiccups along the road — just as we did with Claire — as Aerin begins teething, as she goes through growth spurts and additional sleep regressions, and so forth, but I did it! And having two sleep-trained babies has been a lifesaver, especially since I can coincide Claire’s nap with Aerin’s second, and longest nap of the day.

I know that we got EXTREMELY lucky with Aerin, and I know that many parents will be reading this with envy or even disbelief. But as mentioned previously on this blog, Aerin is our easy baby…and we are extremely grateful and thankful for this.