The Third Baby Myth (or Sleep is for Suckers)

As my last update was basically two years ago, a couple of things have changed. Shockingly, my children who were 1.5 and 3.5 are now 3.5 and 5.5. Wait, there’s more. My cat, formerly fifteen years old, is now seventeen. Also, I had a baby. Have a baby. She is seven weeks old today. I know what you are thinking, that having a baby has made me even smarter, wittier and more coherent than ever (as that was an actual attempt at humour, you can now cross wittier off the list)(and coherent)(and smarter will be taken care of by the end of this blog post).

In truth, having three kids has been the same as having two kids, but with one third more kid (thus leaving me with one third fewer brain cells) (luckily I had 9 left at the time of her birth, so there was no messy division).

There is this myth that the third baby is going to be an easy one. People with three kids come up to you and tell you things like “my third kid was so easy that we kept forgetting her places and not only did she not mind, she’d hitchhike home and bring dinner”. And frankly, I believed them. I felt like the universe owed me an easy kid after the second one, who was not easy. Not. Easy.

I have always known that my second child’s terrible sleep habits, extremely sensitive disposition and unwillingness to be anywhere other than my arms for the first two years of her life were my punishment for being a smug asshat when I had my first --ridiculously easy-- baby. And frankly, someone who says things like  “Read the Baby Whisperer. It changed my life” deserves a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night until she’s an adult. Just like someone who judges other people’s kids for screaming in public* deserves a kid who has constant, shrill, embarrassing public tantrums. And that’s what I got. And it humbled me. But then I thought we were even-- the Cosmos and me. Apparently I was wrong. So. Wrong.

My new baby will not sleep in her bassinet. She cries whenever I put her down and she is a constant spitter-upper (my second child’s one** redeeming quality as a baby was that she never spit up). Recently I took her to the pediatrician and she started screaming bloody murder when it was time to take off her clothes to be weighed. The doctor, who enjoys a spirited baby, thought this was hilarious, saying things like “you have your work cut out for you with this one!”.  Wait! No! “I thought that I was going to have an easy one after you-know-who” I finally sputtered, in a voice loud enough to be heard over the screaming. Her reply: “Nope. That one was just training you for this one.”

My new theory is that everyone gets one easy baby and you get your easy baby when you need her (or in my case, him) the most. Had I had one of my daughters first, my husband would never have agreed to continue our procreation experiment but as our son was just so easy, we presumed that we were awesome at parenting and kept going. And now I have three beautiful, challenging*** amazing children that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Not even for one of those well-behaved good sleepers you hear about****.

Postscript: If you have had more than one easy baby, I don’t want to hear about it. Really.

*”I bet that child would be much calmer if the parents followed the Baby Whisperer’s nap schedule. That poor, poor overtired baby” is literally something my husband and I would say to one another on a semi-regular basis.

**not including extreme cuteness which is a trait all of my babies tend to possess (objectively speaking)

***easy babies don’t necessarily grow up to be easy five-year-olds
****or for a frozen yogurt franchise

Who needs sleep? How could you not love these little faces?