Why It’s Not as Stressy Having the Second Child

Just the other day my sister said to me, ‘You’re not as stressy as you were the first time around’ and she is completely right. I’m not. It is very different when you have the second child. Yes, I am exhausted, yes I still lose my shit but I don’t get worked up in the same way as I did as a first time Mum and I certainly don’t over the same things. You see, I have learnt a very important lesson in the (almost) last 5 years, that sometimes you just need to let it go. 

No, I haven’t been watching too much of Frozen (well, I did 4 years ago) I just realised that life can be so much simpler if you don’t stress the little things.

When I had Jake I’d had no experience of being around kids. I assumed he would slot quite nicely into our lives and sleep well (ha, what a joke!) and I would be able to stay the organised bee I always had been. Yeah, I didn’t factor in how sleep deprivation can make you feel!

I hated not being able to clean my entire house from top to bottom in a day, I stressed over the paperwork piling up and not being filed, I got anxious about my garden being in a state and I felt out of control having my life, well, out of control. These things were and are insignificant but at the time I didn’t realise this.

I was a clean freak. I loved a good list and I loved ticking each item off even more! I needed organisation to keep my brain organised.

And then the toys crept further and further across my living room.

The teeny clothes took over my cupboards.

My floors became littered with crumbs.

And my sofa became stained with ketchup.

So, we added another little person into the mix and things just ‘clicked’. There was no way on this earth that I could keep on top of everything and so I made peace with all those organised issues and let. Them. All. Go!

And poof!

My stress levels decreased. I became less bothered by how the house looked, by how the garden looked and even by how I looked because I had a much more important job… keeping 2 little people alive now! It’s taken me a while to adapt but I got there. As I sit here right now the front room is completely covered in toys, there are crumbs all over the floor, baby clothes over the sofa, mucky marks on the patio windows, the dog is well overdue for a bath but I am far too tired to even care. Tomorrow the toys will come out again anyway, so why bother tidying them away? The dog can be bathed over the weekend. The floor can easily be hoovered at some point and one day those boys may actually pick up their clothes and take them upstairs… right?!

Jake is almost 5. I feel as though I blinked and he went from being a baby to being this little boy, it really does go by so fast so why did I waste time stressing over the house? I’m not going to let that happen again. (Also, a cleaner reeeally helps to take that stress from you!) I am finding it all so much easier this time around and that’s even with being twice as tired and run completely ragged. It’s a different type of stress though, isn’t it? It’s a stress that melts away as soon as those little guys beam a smile up at you, it’s a stress that can actually keep you going in the day and it’s a stress that is more enjoyable because they may drive you mad but they also melt your heart and complete your life.

There are plenty of other things to stress over, don’t let the small things take up too much of your brain time.

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