Mom Blog and Baby Blog | Baby Bunching

mastering the art of baby bunching

By Erin Brazofsky

As a momma of a 20-month old and 4-month old, I get a lot of strange, appalled and pitying looks when I go out in public. I bet you, since are reading this, get a lot of those looks, too!

Sometimes, a few brave ones will get up the nerve to approach me and ask me how I “do it.” I can only assume by “do it” they mean “how do I maintain sanity with such small children.” And, perhaps, you too are wondering how on earth you can maintain sanity while caring for two kids 18 months or less apart?

Today is your lucky day! I will impart all the knowledge you need to know to successfully master the art of Baby Bunching. (Well, I’ll try anyway.)

#1. Maintain a sense of humor. This is especially important when your older child vomits during his nap, but you don’t know about it till you get him up. Then you have to clean him and his crib up while the small one wails and your husband is either at work, or teaching a piano lesson in your home downstairs. Oh, and then both of the children have rather, um, interesting diapers that must be changed.

#2. Take some time for yourself. Seriously. I don’t know how it will look for you, but it is so important that you take some time to rejuvenate your spirit. A break is a good thing for everyone.

#3. Stay organized. I have found that if I have a flexible, but fairly regular daily schedule, things generally flow much, much easier and the babies are much more content and happy.

#4. Make sure you and your significant other are on the same page. If my husband and I aren’t communicating about the boys’ needs and what goals we have for the coming months, things tend to go awry.

#5. On the same note, DATE NIGHT, DATE NIGHT, DATE NIGHT. Oh, and did I mention DATE NIGHT?

#6. Find playgroups or mom’s groups to attend. Having a community of other mommas (Baby Bunchers or otherwise) is so important. Your friends can be some of your biggest cheerleaders and offer some of the best support when things just aren’t going right.

Of course, I could go on, and maybe later I will (lucky you), but ultimately, you know what will work for you and your brood. Hopefully some of these (admittedly tongue-in-cheek) tips will help if you’re newer to Baby Bunching (like me!) or just remind you of some things you can do to keep your blood pressure low.

[Editor's note: We agree on all points!]

baby bunching Q/A: bunching alone in a new place

Q:  My husband is active duty military and while I am able to stay at home with my children, his job requires his absence for extended periods of time on a regular basis, not to mention the fact that when he is at home, he regularly works very long hours and  often leaves before my oldest wakes up and comes home right around bedtime. I would like to know if you have any tips that would ease the transition of settling in with the new baby, or bedtime, mealtime etc. with my oldest (and surviving the baby bunching scene alone). The two will be 15 months apart and I should add that we just moved out of the country, so in addition to the already momentous transition, we also are very far from family and don't really know anyone where we live yet.

A:Congrats on your impending arrival, and how fun that you'll be living overseas. I also raised my two kids overseas, and arrived in a new country when my youngest was 7 weeks old and my oldest 17 months. While challenging, it was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything.

You have a few questions here so let me address one at a time. First of all, surviving the early days alone. Settling in alone will be challenging.

We always like to offer a few tips:

• Get your toddler on a bedtime routine now! This will make things SO much easier later if you can count on the fact that he/she will be in bed at 7:30 and you're not still screwing with toddler AND baby at 10 p.m.
• If you can get someone to come help you out, like a grandmother or an aunt for the first few weeks, that would be worth it. Flights are often cheaper in the winter and having extra hands if hubby is not there, will at least help you get the lay of the land of this Baby Bunching lifestyle.
• Don't be afraid to not do it all. If your toddler doesn't get a bath or eats mac and cheese 4 nights a week, don't beat yourself up over it. No one can do it all, especially alone. So cut yourself some slack. (This will be ongoing motto you have to repeat to yourself.) 

Mealtime, bedtime, new baby and toddler will be chaotic no matter how you slice or dice it--with or without help. It's all part of the game.  But in fact, the first few weeks, what we call the quiet period, may be easier than you think when baby is sleeping all the time. Bring in extra troops when hubby is back traveling and baby has suddenly discovered his lungs.

Baby Buncher Michelle wrote a great post about surviving a deployment that might offer up some other great tips.

From what I have learned about overseas life and hubby being gone is the support system often tends to be BETTER overseas than here at home. People are ready to engage and help out when they can. So it might actually be better that you're there with a closer-knit support system. Immediately join whatever mom's group you can now to get your network in place. Having people bring you meals and stop by to help you entertain two kids is a HUGE help. 

We have so many moms on this site with traveling dads, we'd love to hear your stories as well.

delish make-ahead meals for your bunch

Finding great make-ahead recipes (beyond lasagna) that you can freeze, are great treasure finds. They are perfect as welcome gifts for new moms or novice Baby Bunchers. They are nice for afternoons when the activities are so crazy you just don't have time to prep a meal. It's a great meal strategy for working moms who may have the time on the weekend, but not during the week. They are even great packaged for sick grandmas or neighbors who need a little extra TLC. And many times on cool rainy days, like today, I use the time inside to do a little meal prep for a busier day.

About two years ago, a Baby Bunching friend of mine--who also happens to be a caterer--passed along her collection of make-ahead recipes. I was looking for something beyond the normal 'cassaroley' type things that I could take to a new mom in town or to my own mom (who is ill) and doesn't have the desire to cook. Since then, many of these awesome recipes have been incorporated into my weekly menu. These recipes have been tested and tweaked by my friend's cooking group--and me--so I promise they are delish! Some of these are so yum, like the Fish Veracruz, you could make them to serve later on for company. My family's personal favorites from this line up include: Chicken Pot Pie, Turkey Meatloaf with Cranberry Relish (perfect for fall), Beef Strognaoff, Mexican Manicotti and Crab Quiche. They all come with directions on how to store in the freezer.

Check out the complete collection of what I like to call Leslie's Make Ahead Recipes. If you have a few of other favorites that you enjoy, let us know. We love to recipe swap. Leslie, if you're reading, let us know if you have any new favs to add to this list.  

(Note: These recipes are posted with permission from my Baby Bunching friend who generously put them together for people to use to help with meal preparation. Please do not take this collection and pretend it is yours. That would be mean.)

baby bunching Q/A: teething, no sleep, traveling husband

Q: HELP! Need some support from those who understand! My husband is traveling (again!), my seven-month old is teething, and my 25 month old has decided that he no longer wants to sleep at night and as a result is throwing HORRIBLE tantrums... any tantrum advice? Love my little and my big but think I am going to lose my marbles!

A: This is difficult when everything comes to a head at once. Let us address each of these individually. Probably the easiest is the teething. Teething at any age and during any circumstance, sucks. Give him some Tylenol/Motrin so he's not in total pain. Some other remedies that might help are Hyland's Teething Tablets (which came highly recommended by both Cara's pediatrician and dentist when #2 was teething and DID help),  the Fresh Food Feeder from Munchkin (put in some cold frozen food and let them go to town) or even a wet washcloth or pacifier put into the freezer for awhile works well.  Sadly, there's not much you can do other than make your baby feel comfortable.

Husband traveling is unfortunate. Both Cara and Linda endured periods where husband was rarely around, even if they were in town. Again, it's kind of the way the cards fall and you have to make the best of of it. Bedtime can be the hardest to cope with solo since you only have so many hands. Getting the easiest one to bed first is always a must.

Your biggest challenge is the "not sleeping." If your husband is traveling, you need the sleep as much as your kids since you're doing double duty during the day (and probably night). Sleep issues start a vicious cycle of whining, hunger, tantrums and myriad of other fun activities. Sleep training is critical at this point, especially if you're doing this alone. Perhaps he's not taking a long enough nap or maybe it's too long. You might have to play with nap schedule and bedtime to get it. But the main thing with bedtime is consistency, which of course, is the hardest thing to do when everyone's tired.

If your current routine is no longer working, change it up a bit to help you when hubby's away and try to stick with it even when he's home. The main thing is not backing down. You have to expect there may be some tears for a few nights if you're holding your ground. It's OK. By age 2, your son knows what's expected of him at bedtime. Be strong.

labor day

We're not talking that kind of labor day, we're talking the kind where baby(ies) come shooting out of you or better yet are lifted out by some medical professional. Everyone likes a good labor story (centimeters, contractions, etc.), but this time we want to hear about the one that brought you into the Baby Bunching world. The one where you had to beg a neighbor to take Big Baby because Little Baby was arriving earlier than expected or the one where Big Baby had to be stashed with Nana (away from you for the first time) while you dealt with this labor game all over again.

Everyone loves a good birth story so we want to hear yours. Hope you all had a fabulous Labor Day weekend.

baby bunching pep talk

Up until now, one of the wackiest Baby Bunching stories I'd heard of was a friend of mine who was in the process of adopting a baby after years of infertility, when she suddenly found herself pregnant - making her two daughters 6 months apart (and I know we have at least one reader who shares this unique situation).  Yesterday, my mom called to tell me of an acquaintance she had recently made whose biological children are 5 months apart.  Yep - you read that right.  In this case, after years of infertility, the parents were preparing to welcome a child via surrogate when the mom got pregnant.  It's so crazy that despite all of our plotting and planning, Mother Nature still manages to keep us on our toes when determining who gets a visit from the stork and when.  Baby Bunching is sometimes planned, sometimes not, but almost always really, really hard for those first couple of years.  

I remember back when, as a newly minted Baby Buncher, I was taking my second son to the pediatrician for the first time at just 4 days old. Hubby had a "can't miss" work meeting, which left me to take both boys to the doctor's office with my mom's assistance.  It may have been a twinge of post-partum blues, but at one point during the visit I almost had a breakdown when I caught my mom looking at me with a look that just screamed, "How in the hell are you going to do this on your own?"  With a husband who traveled frequently and family who were in town for the birth, but actually lived 4 states away, I really was kind of on my own.  And the birth of #2 pre-dated my super duper mom friend network - I was just beginning to befriend the women that I now consider part of my extended family.

At that moment, I mainly wanted to cry because what I needed to hear was, "You can do it." But with no mom friends who had traveled this path before me, there wasn't anyone to tell me that I could do it.  I have never missed my grandmother (who had 4 children in 27 months) more than in those first few months when I just needed someone to tell me that while lots of babies at once may eat you alive in the moment, it won't last forever (and in retrospect you will think it all went too quickly, in some ways).

Honestly, as much as I appreciated my parents' help in those first few days, I was secretly so relieved when they pulled out of the driveway because I needed to prove to myself that I could do it on my own.  I won't deny that there were times when I wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head, but I survived and emerged with a family that's better for it.  And you will too.

baby bunching Q/A: new baby to the bunch

This question came to us from Baby Buncher Carrie.

Q: How can I help the oldest of the bunch (in my case, she'll be 22 months old) transition to a new baby. She's too young to understand what is going on, but there must be some great tips out there to help!

A: This is one of our most popular questions. Ironically, it's the easiest to answer, yet probably not the easiest to do. One of the best things about Baby Bunching is that Baby #1 will never remember life without Baby #2. We're convinced this is why siblings so close in age really can remain close over a lifetime.  

Before baby comes you can do what you can, when you can, to educate your toddler about the impending arrival. Books and talking about the baby will help. In the end probably nothing will ever prepare your toddler--or you--for the changes that will occur. Many toddlers like to touch mommy's belly and you can tell toddler that a baby is in there. Yeah, they don't "get it," but on some level I'm sure they do. Maybe.

After baby comes it gets a bit trickier since again, there's not much you can do to really prepare a big baby for little baby. She will find out quickly. Their communication skills are limited, and they still need you for everything. Your toddler will learn the art of patience since you can't attend to his needs at that very moment anymore since you have someone else now. (Give yourself that...it's OK for people to cry, including you.)

Rather than repeating what we've said in a few posts, we recommend a few tips for you here:

• Baby Bunching Stages: What to Expect When You're Expecting #2
• Baby Bunching Novice: Infant + Toddler

Hopefully, these past posts will help you mentally prepare for what is yet to come. Your kids pick up on your attitude as well and this can help them transition into their new world. The best advice is to go into this as prepared as you can and have a sense of humor. Everything you can possibly imagine can and will go wrong during the first few months. You will mix things up. Get the timing wrong. Give someone the wrong pacifier. Put the diaper on the wrong kid. Find yourself shoving Cheerios into a 3 week-old's mouth.  Wear your underwear inside out all day long. Laugh it off (and cry later). You will need the laughs to keep you going and so will your kids.

cloth diapering your bunch

By Brenda Massung

When you hear the words - cloth diaper - does it make you cringe? Does it remind you of giant white towels that you watched your mother somehow fold onto your little sibling, or the horrid thought of sticking someone with a pin?  For me, when I first heard about cloth diapers, I thought it was nuts.  I began nannying a set of twin girls who were wearing them, plastic pants and all.  It wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and then they switched over to the world of high connivence cloth diapers.  Where all you had to do was snap a diaper around the child - and they were set.  It felt all too good.

But to be honest, it WAS good.  I learned that one disposable diaper sits in a landfill for about 100 years.  I learned that using cloth really does cut down on costs, and the best part it’s great for the bum of my precious baby.  So when our first little lady “announced” her arrival on the lovely little pee stick, my husband and I decided that we would venture into the cloth diaper world.

Entering the world of cloth diapering can be like walking into a foreign country - where people use words like, prefolds, snappis, one-sized, pocket, the list goes on and on.  So my advice to you is to find a website, such as the very helpful storkwarehouse.com, and look at cloth diapering 101.  There, you will determine what the needs of your family are and how to go about the process of cloth diapering.

I know what you’re thinking - “oh, no I”m going to have to rinse the poo out in the toilet, my husband won’t even touch regular poopy diapers.”  Well with the technology of today’s washers - you don’t even have to let that diaper touch the toilet.  You just toss it into a dry bag designed to hold the diapers, and wash within 3 days. Seriously it’s that easy.  Once your child has started forming solid poos- you just toss the solid into the toilet and put the diaper into the bag waiting to wash.  It really is simple.

The best part about baby bunching and cloth diapering, is for those who used sized diapers, you are most likely to have you children in the same sized diaper within several months after baby #2’s birth. The investment cost can be upfront higher, however you can use the diapers you bought for baby #1, on all your babies to come, and even better, if your diapers are still in usable condition you can pass them on/sell them to a friend!

Our family uses sized fuzzi bunz, which come in small, medium, and large - and currently both my girls are in mediums, which is great for the diaper bag.  Now don’t get me wrong, we still use disposable diapers too, when we go on trips, and some nights.  But as you will find with cloth, you aren’t having to run out to the store to do a
diaper run, you are seeing less/NO diaper rashes, and all around know that what you are doing is better for the environment.  Trust me, it’s not as scary as you think.

Brenda is a Des Moines, Iowa - Baby Bunching, part-time “take the kiddos to work with” mom to two girls, 28 month old dolly who arrived 15 weeks before her due date, and a 11 month old dolly who arrived right on time.

baby bunching Q/A: snubbed by little baby

This question comes from Baby Buncher Kelly.

Q: My baby is now 9 months and has terrible seperation anxiety, so I feel like I'm holding/wearing her all the time and I feel like my poor 2 year old is getting the shaft. Any tips on getting through this stage w/ my sanity?

A: First of all, let us assure you, you're doing the right thing. Wearing your baby keeps her happy and you, since you have one less person to keep track of. Your toddler is probably less bothered by this than you think. By the way, this is the life you will come to know.....for a long time. You only have two hands so unless you can produce two more, Baby Bunching means you will become a master in juggling.

Try not to beat yourself up over it. No matter how close in age your kids are they will both come to realize (in their own time) that the world doesn't center around them. A definite pro to siblings.

Kids will learn patience over time, whether they like waiting for you to finish up with little brother or big sister is not really the point. But they will like having a playmate down the road so chances are they'll take the bad with the good.

A few things to consider:

--Your kids, especially when they're small, really just want you around. So even if you're dealing with baby and still talking to your toddler and engaging with him in some way, he's probably OK with you multitaskking.

--Even small amounts of 1:1 time make a difference. Baby is taking a nap and you need to run around doing laundry, cleaning up and getting dinner ready while you only have one kid to manage. Stop and take 10 minutes (yes, even 10 minutes is huge) to read a book or cuddle with your toddler. Chances are after 10 minutes they lose focus anyway.

--It's a short phase. Soon, both your kids--especially since they are so close in age--will be playing together so you'll be able to play with both of them at the same time. Or better yet, they'll take off, shut the door and play together for 30 minutes while you read a magazine. Score!

remembering my mamaversary

Today is the sixth anniversary of the very first time I went into labor and didn't know it (otherwise known as my oldest son's birthday). A good friend wished me a "Happy Mamaversary" this morning, which I loved.

On each of my children's birthdays, I can't help but spend the day periodically reflecting back on what I was doing at this time on this day "x" years ago.  I've also found that the news of a close friend going into labor sends me down this memory lane as well.  It must be some sort of sickness I've inherited because my mom STILL does it, and I am 30-odd years old.  Every year when she calls to wish me happy birthday, the phone conversation always begins with, "X years ago at this time, I was....".  Unfortunately, I was born in a foreign country and her story always involves a lot of shouting in a language she didn't understand, dust bunnies under the hospital bed,lack of appropriate pain medication, and a post-birth infection that prevented her from nursing.  But hey, it's nice to hear how you came into the world and what warm fuzzies it brings your mom year after year after year.

My own Mamaversary story is far less dramatic, featuring only a minor snafu brought on by a rare Atlanta snowstorm (read: 5 flakes of snow) that shut down my OB's office.  Once I actually realized I was in labor and got settled into the hospital, it was all rainbows and roses and actually my most seamless labor of the three.  As a first time mom, I was surprised by how quick (8 hours - all in a day's work) and painless (at least until the epidural wore off and I could barely walk for three weeks) it all was.  I distinctly remember looking at my son about 6 hours after he was born and thinking, "I could do this again."  Which is how I ended up in that same hospital bed just 17 months later. 

When I was pregnant, I also distinctly remember feeling that I knew my life was about to change so profoundly, but knowing that I wouldn't understand how MUCH it would change until it actually happened.  And how true. At 4:45 pm on February 26th, with the arrival of a 7 lb 9 oz, 20 3/4 inch gift from God, I became a whole new person.  Aside from unwittingly bidding goodbye to the last worry-free moment of my life at 4:44 pm, I became capable of loving another human being on a dimension I previously didn't even know was possible.

It was such a positive experience that it would take two more babies before I could drive past the hospital without wishing I was checking in at that moment to deliver another sweet bundle of joy.  Fast forward 6 years and 3 children and the hospital-induced ovary aching has subsided.  But I still enjoy the annual mental replays of three of the most important days of my life.  So this year I'll be raising a glass of champagne to go with my cake.  Happy Birthday to Cade and Happy Mamaversary to me!