Stuff I Wish I Knew With More Kids......by Jess

One kid meant I did everything a certain way. Two kids changed that somewhat. By the time I'm at kid four I just hope to get through each day without getting poop on my hands. 

So I'm sharing stuff I wish I knew when I had more kids. For everyone, this stuff is different, I think, but my life would have been much awesomer had I known any of this. 

1.  Toddler bed. 

Yeah. No. It's just a glorified crib, albeit closer to the floor. Instead of wasting my money on a toddler bed, for Gabe (my second) I just got him a regular twin bed, and kept the box spring and mattress on the floor for a year until I was comfortable with him not falling out. 

2. Crib transition. 

Also no. In this house kids now stay in the crib until they can climb out of it on their own, open the door, walk downstairs and get their own breakfast. Once that happens we do a bed. Because once they realize they are capable of getting out of bed on their own? HAHA. You'll have small people breathing in your face at 2am asking for a snack. Or traveling downstairs on their own to watch tv while eating an entire pint of blueberries. Or getting into your m&m stash and sharing it with the dog. 

3. Regular double stroller. 

I wore Maddie until she was sitting up well enough to go into a double umbrella stroller. I have an SUV, but with all four kids in the car I can't fit any double stroller aside from the umbrella one. (This one is my favorite)

4. Bottles/Pacis. 

I had my first off the bottle months before my second was born. So it wasn't an issue. But my third is very developmentally delayed, so she was still drinking bottles when my fourth came along. Getting her to use a cup exclusively instead? NOT FUN. She still, five months after stopping bottles, will get upset when the baby gets her bottle. Tries to take it away. It sucks. 

5. Bedtime routine. 

When the second kid comes along,  bedtime gets hairy, especially if your husband isn't home at bedtime to help. I changed up the older kid's bedtime routine about three months before the baby came.  Basically, I wanted it so that it wasn't so long, that way if the baby needed me, I could get the older one in bed much more quickly. Otherwise I'd have had two screaming kids. With four this still happens sometimes as the younger two are still on pretty opposite schedules.

6. Nap/Errands/Appointment scheduling.  

Um, the babies will not nap at the same time. Ever. For the first year. So don't expect that you'll be able to have a certain block of time during which you can run errands consistently. Because with two kids, someone will always be missing their nap, or part of it. I schedule all Liv's appointments in the morning, because even though Maddie misses a nap, she's less foul than  if she misses afternoon napping. 

7. Getting dressed. 

If you aren't leaving the house, no one is coming over, AND they're still clean? Just leave the kids in their pajamas from the night before. You'll have to change clothes often enough as it is, and the laundry actually increases exponentially with each additional kid, so clean clothes without good reason just isn't worth the work of all that extra laundry.

Moms of more than one kid, share your thoughts on this. What do you wish you'd known? I'd love to hear your experiences!