How to Adjust to Being a Single Mum With a 2 Year Old and 4 Month Old After Separation
The coffee pot gurgles at 7:12 a.m. and I’m already standing on a crumpled goldfish cracker, one foot propped against the fridge to hold the 4-month-old against my shoulder while I fish a clean sippy cup out of the dishwasher that didn’t run last night. The 2-year-old is currently trying to climb the bookshelf to get to the dinosaur stickers I hid after she stuck half a sheet to the cat yesterday. Three weeks ago, this apartment was half ours, half his. After four years together, it’s now all mine, and every messy detail, every middle-of-the-night wake-up, every “why can’t I have another cookie” negotiation falls only to me.
I spent the first two weeks trying to keep everything exactly the same. We went to the playground on Wednesdays like we always did, I made homemade puree for the baby like I planned, I vacuumed every other day and folded laundry as soon as it came out of the dryer. That all fell apart on a Tuesday trip to the grocery store, when the 2-year-old dropped to the floor screaming because I wouldn’t buy the rainbow marshmallow cereal, and the 4-month-old had a blowout that leaked through her onesie and onto my shirt. I left a full cart in the middle of the cereal aisle, walked straight to the car, and sat there crying for 10 minutes while the kids screamed in the back. That’s when I realized I was trying to live the life two people built, when I’m only one person now.
The first thing that changed was my standard for what counts as a “good day.” I used to think a good day meant a clean house and home-cooked meals and an hour of outside time. Now a good day is just everyone eating enough, no one gets hurt, and I get to drink my coffee while it’s still hot. To make that happen, I started doing only two 10-minute tidy-up sessions a day: one right after the baby’s morning nap, and one after both kids go to bed at night. I keep a stack of paper plates and plastic cutlery under the sink for nights when I can’t face loading the dishwasher after everyone’s asleep. I used to think this was lazy, but it cuts 20 minutes of work off my night, and that 20 minutes is time I can spend sitting on the couch doing nothing instead of scrubbing plates.
Next, I had to figure out how to handle my 2-year-old’s new acting out. She started hitting the baby’s bassinet and throwing her toys when I was feeding the baby, which I knew came from lost attention and the big change of her dad not being here every day. But all the online articles said to do long, gentle talks about feelings, and I just don’t have the energy for that when the baby’s screaming to eat and I’m already exhausted. What I started doing is simple: when she acts out, I get down to her level, say “I see you’re mad that I’m feeding the baby. I can’t let you hit her. Let’s squeeze this stress ball three times together,” and then after I’m done burping the baby, I give her one full minute of one-on-one snuggle time where we pick out a song to listen to. That’s all I can manage right now, but it’s cut her tantrums in half. It doesn’t fix the big change she’s going through, but it gives her the small bit of attention she’s craving right when she needs it.
Sleep was the biggest problem for the first month. I was trying to keep both kids in their own rooms down the hall, which meant every time the 4-month-old woke up to eat, I had to get up, walk down the hall, feed her, walk back, and then half the time the 2-year-old would wake up and I’d have to walk back down to settle her. I was getting an average of three hours of broken sleep a night, and I was snapping at everyone over nothing. I moved the 4-month-old’s bassinet right next to my bed, and put a thin toddler mattress on the floor on the other side of me for the 2-year-old. Now when she wakes up early, she just crawls over without me getting up, and I can feed the baby without leaving my bed. I get an extra hour and a half of sleep a night now, and that small environmental change made more difference than any parenting trick I’ve ever tried.
When people offer help, I don’t say “I’m fine” anymore. When my sister asked what she could do, I told her to pick up three gallons of milk and a box of goldfish on her way over, then watch the kids while I take a 20-minute shower. When a friend from playgroup offered to take my 2-year-old for an hour once a week, I said yes immediately, even though I felt guilty at first. That hour is when I nap when the baby naps, instead of cleaning the bathroom. I also turned off all the picture-perfect parenting accounts on my Instagram, and only follow a handful of other single mums I met in a local group who post real things, like “my kid ate cereal for dinner three nights in a row and we all survived.” No more comparing my messy new normal to someone else’s curated feed.
This morning, after our 10-minute tidy up, the 2-year-old got half her sticker sheet all over the microwave and the 4-month-old spit up on my only clean sweatshirt. I didn’t cry. I got a wet paper towel, wiped the stickers off the best I could, changed my sweatshirt, and we sat on the porch and ate popsicles for an early snack. Some days are still really hard. I still forget to buy toilet paper some weeks, I still let them watch two episodes of Peppa Pig when I need to fold laundry. It’s not the life I thought I’d have four years ago when we moved in here. But right now, this is working. I don’t know what next month or next year will bring. But for now, that’s enough.
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