What to Expect when You Have Two Children Under Two

Considerations for Having Children Close in Age

When we first started telling friends and family that we were expecting our second child, we got mixed responses. While the announcement drew the inevitable congratulations, we also got comments ranging from "Good luck" to "Was it planned?" You see, our second child would be due just 19 months after the joyful arrival of our first baby, a beautiful little girl. The timing of their births put us into the lucky, or alternatively, dreaded "two under two" category of parenting. If you are considering having two babies under the age of two in your household, there are some things that you can expect.

First, you will be tired - all the time - for the first four years of your children's lives. With one baby, you have the time to clean the house, do the laundry, or pay the bills while your child sleeps. When you have two babies, that luxury disappears. The adjustment is relatively shocking at first. After hearing the mantra "sleep when the baby sleeps" for the last year and a half, suddenly I had no time to sleep because at any given time one baby was always awake. Our infant son ate every two hours for the first six weeks of his life. At a year and a half, my daughter did relatively well sleeping through the night until she started teething, at which point she no longer slept through the night either. Sleep became a faint but pleasant memory.