What is the hardest transition with kids?

Going from 0 to 1 was very hard for us. We were stable, financially comfortable, and the baby was planned, but parenthood hit us hard. We're both perfectionistic firstborns, and all our uptightness didn't serve us well with all the life altering changes of becoming parents. Having the second one was way easier since we had adjusted to life as we now know it.

Having your first child shakes your world to the core. Not only is it an obviously beautiful and momentous experience, but it upends nearly every single facet of your life as you’ve always known it. You’re no longer your first priority and you no longer have the free time you were once entitled to, and you have the surmounting responsibility of keeping another human alive, not to mention one that can’t do anything for themselves for the bulk of their first year of life. For some community members, zero to one was the hardest transition because finding time for themselves felt impossible. Even basic human hygiene are not guaranteed for most new moms. One member went as far as comparing having that first child as an existential crisis. Going from one to two is no easy feat either, as every baby is so different and you have to split your time, love, energy and care in two. Your older child may also go through some temperamental changes, which is understandable seeing as their life, too, has been totally shifted by their new sibling. Whatever progress your first has made, developmentally, might be paused or even backtrack a little, and they might start acting like a baby because they think it will get your attention, or they might start acting out/throwing fits for the same reason. The baby’s feeding and sleep schedule is completely separate from the toddlers and it took me a while to be ok with prioritizing one child’s needs over the other.

For me, the transition to becoming a mother for the first time was so much harder than adding a second child. It was such a huge adjustment for me to get used to taking care of someone and having them depend on me every minute of every day. But by the second time, I’m used to it - for me, having a second child has been easier than having the first because I simply have more experience. I’m used to being needed all the time, as I said above. 0-1 is such a big existential change and challenge that I don’t think you can ever really be prepared for, and for someone who feels deeply uncomfortable “learning on the fly,” it was a lot for me. I often felt like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing sometimes when my first was a baby, and I wasn’t used to feeling so out of my depth at something. So in my experience, the transition to that first child was harder than going from 1-2.