How do you get dressed/feed other dc with a baby?

[cupcake78]

Dd is 11days old and just loves a cuddle! In fact she loves it so much she screams a lot of the time she's put down.

Tried the sling but its just to hot for both of us.

Dh goes back to work this week. I have a 5yr old I need to get too and from school on time and dinners to cook.

How?!

I've left her crying when I need the toilet or just long enough to throw on some clothes but I don't know how I'm going to do all the jobs dh has been doing for the last few weeks.

Any help welcome. Dh leaves at 7am and is rarely home before 7pm . I'm going to miss him so much

I think step one is to reassess what jobs need to be done!

Urgent priorities:

Getting to and from school, dressed, with DC1 dressed and breakfasted.

Keeping baby fed during the day.

Having lunch.

Having family tea.

If you draw it right back to just achieving those things, does it seem more manageable?

I get up and shower while DH is still at home. Sometimes DD is still asleep so I leave the en suite door open and keep an eye on her while I do it. Otherwise DH takes her down. He sorts out breakfast for DS. He leaves about 715 and then I start cajoling DS into getting dressed (takes ages!). Sometimes I can put DD down and help, the rest of the time I cart her around.

It works reasonably well for us as DS is always up by 630 so we're used to getting up and it gives us a long lead time to get things sorted in the morning.

Congratulations BTW

I would say that you need to enlist the help of your 5yo to entertain the baby (my DD was quite good at this and was 3yo when DC2 was born). So that the baby knows that they are not alone.

Another thing is to get a bouncy chair where the baby can sit and watch you whilst you go to the toilet/shower, so they know you haven't gone anywhere.

And yes, prioritise getting your DC1 fed, dressed, to school in the mornings. All else can wait. Leave the baby in their pyjamas.

My DC2 became quite adept at having naps timed to coincide with the school runs, which made life a lot easier.

At least it will be the holidays soon!

Congrats BTW.

Dinners wise, we're eating a lot of easy food ATM. Buffets, frozen fish and chips, simple pasta, roast chicken. Not my finest cooking period but we all get fed. Sometimes I can get something slightly more involved prepared in the day, but mostly it's very easy stuff.

I make my own lunch at the first opportunity in the morning when DDs happy to play or watch for a bit. Or I get people to visit and bring me good.

I showered the night before when dc2 was tiny. Even now i get up before Dh leaves and make sure that me and children are dressed and breakfasted before he goes at 7.30.

In the very early days i would make a packed lunch the night before. Or make sure you have healthy snacks. Dinner wise we ate a lot of oven food and salad.

Priorities and drop your standards. There is only 3 weeks till the end of term and come September this will be so much easier. Good luck

Get their midday naps coordinated as soon as possible and then you can either have a nap yourself or catch up on some jobs. That what I did with mine ...

Definitely get up and shower before your DH leaves the house.

Can be painful after a bad night, but you feel soooo much better for it, and you can always go back to bed after the school run or during midday nap time if needed.

Yes I think the shower before dh leaves is a must. I don't feel human unless I've showered on a morning. My freezer is reasonably full but needs a boost I think! Could do this tomorrow.

Holidays not far away so at least the rush will be off. We do bottles on a nighttime and have enough for one days worth of feeds. The weather is helping a lot with the washing as its drying within hours. I know we'll get through it and some days will be better than others!

It'll be a future of hair up, no makeup and vest tops/trousers for a while.

No advice as I just have one child but I often think about how it will work if/when I have another, so found this interesting. You all sound so organised!

My sister freezes her DD's sandwiches for school and makes a big batch up at the weekend. I have tried this with cheese and marmite, it worlds treat! Is this something you could organise when your DH is around in the weekend? It would be one less thing to think about? Salad doesn't freeze BTW!

Could you lay the breakfast table the night before when DH is around too? On the Good Housekeeping thread I have read about mums who keep 5 sets of school uniform/ pants/ socks/ hair bobbles in 5 bags in a drawer in kids bedroom so they can just grab one each day and get on with it! Maybe you could set a timer for your DC getting dressed to make a game of it and get it done quickly? Also I have read that done keep toothbrushes and toothpaste in downstairs loo so you don't all have to trek upstairs again! My second is due in 7 weeks so this is all theory at the mo...

I have a 2yo and a17wo. I always have a bath at night so that I'm literally up and dressed straight away in the morning, makes me feel more able to face the day. When DS was a newborn still I sat and fed him in bed around 6ish while DD was still asleep. Then we all went downstairs for breakfast, DS in a bouncy chair next to the table. He would tend to fall asleep if I rocked it with my foot while I ate breakfast and that'd buy me enough time to nip to the loo, do teeth makeup etc and get bags organised if we were going out.

Now that he is a bit older he's doing a weird sleeping pattern of 9pm-9am so I just make sure DD and I are up, fed, dressed and sorted by the time he wakes up.

Having two does mean he has to cry sometimes. I've found white noise is my friend, I have several different bouncy chairs, the buggy and a playmat so move him around regularly with a big brightly coloured toy to distract him for bit. DD has been taught how to be gentle with him and I can now nip out the room for 5 mins and know that he will be ok. She gives him toys and comes and gets me if he cries.

When DS naps DD helps me with jobs. We roll laundry bags down the stairs, she helps me Hoover and dust. I tidy as we go along during the day, even if I've got a baby hanging off me as it just makes life a lot easier.

Dinner I initially did with DS in a sling but it was a bit dangerous!! I have now ddiscovered that he is rather transfixed by cbeebies so stick them both infront of the tv while I cook. Things like shepherds pie, pasta, sausage casserole with rice etc are all I'm cooking. I've got a huge casserole pot and fill that with whatever dish I've made so that we have enough for tomorrow's meal as well which makes life easier. Lunches are always the same ATM, big lump of crusty bread, hams, salad, fruit, yoghurt. I almost make up packed lunches for us the night before.

Bedtime took a while to come together but I've now got that sorted. If DP is home we do one each. If he isn't then I run bath, put DD in with toys then get DS undressed and quickly bath him, carry him to my bed where I dress him and then leave him with white noise playing. Then I get DD washed, into bed, story and say goodnight. I'm then free to sit on my bed with tv on my iPad and bfeed DS to sleep for the night.

The step up is what's hard, realising you need to do only the important bits and squeeze them in wherever you used to sit down with a cuppa or MN. Once you get into the swing of it it gets easier and the older DS gets the smoother everything is running as well. All the other jobs are DPs responsibility when he gets home and he takes the main role at the weekend so I can recharge a bit.

I don't have to do lunches. Ds is on school dinners for this very reason. Hes not keen but its just tough. I did trial school run this morning which was ok. Hair wasn't brushed, makeup wasn't on, clothes thrown on. Far from yummy mummy but we managed.

Got out of bed and did bottles, washing up/ hang washed clothes on line, jumped in shower (fast). Threw clothes on, chased ds round while feeding dd. Got dressed/hair brushed/dd changed/makeup on when I came home. Dh was here to help but sure we'll find out way.

Dd is only 12 days old so bouncy chairs etc are out for now, she's too floppy and wants physical contact all the time. Hot days are worse than colder days. She's been getting very flustered and grumpy on hot days.

I've also got to remember I've only got 10 days before the summer holidays. Ds goes back when dd will be 10weeks. By the time dd is 10 weeks old the world will be a very different place.

Bouncy chair and big, bouncy conversations about what's on the radio while you have to get stuff done during the day..a fly on the wall would have sectioned me when mine were at their smallest.

You can be having a real snide at the broadcaster on radio 4 while you prep dinners with baby in a bouncer and as long as it's loud, cheerful and with big smiles in their direction they love it.

The occasional cry when you have a shower/go to the loo is nothing to flap about as long as they're safe and as has been said before big brother or sister are fantasic for distraction. I used to have DS1 (5) see how many silly faces he could make at DD1 by the time I came back from the loo if she was feeling clingy and then, when DS2 came along twelve months later she got to play too

Most of all don't fall into the trap of thinking that everyone else is perfect and has it all under control. Most new Mums..be it with number 1,3 or 5 are very 'duck like'..graceful on the surface but paddling like maniacs below water