You have ‘met’ my son over and over again in my articles and by now you know that he is a fireball of energy, at 22 months now.
I have a friend who has three children who are under three, and I wondered, if I feel so overwhelmed by my soon to be two year old, how in the world does she manage to cope with three, under three??? In her words, here is how she has not been admitted in the crazy mum’s ward.
How do you cope with three children at the same time?
Honestly, I don’t know that I am copingJ. I only get to know that I am ‘coping’ when I am in an interview like this and I get the ‘how do you cope’ question. However, dealing with three children below three is the biggest challenge I have ever embarked on. It’s by far the hardest job I have ever done, but, the most rewarding.
My first-born is 2 and a Half, my second born is one year 4 months, and my last-born is four months.
To be honest, my husband and I made a decision to be very present in the early life of our children and therefore made a drastic decision, where I resigned from employment to be a stay-at-home mum, and he resigned and is currently working from home. Of course that decision has had an equally drastic effect on our finances, but we resolved that the impact the children will have as a result of having two parents at home is worth the pain. It’s not easy at all, but we like our choice and are prepared to live with the consequence of our choice.
Now, I hear that having three young ones dictate how long you will keep a nanny. What do you say about that?
Wow, when I think about a nanny, I think I can write an entire book about that one topic. I remember this verse from the Bible that says ‘…a good wife comes from the Lord’, I have prayed many times and replaced the word ‘wife’ with ‘nanny’. I attribute my having a high turn over of nannies to two things; the age of my children, and my lack of experience in dealing with nannies. (I required a nanny 10 months after getting married. My first- born is a honeymoon baby). With regard to the former, well, there really isn’t anything I can do about that, we just have to nurture the children to grow and become older, and then it will be easier. As to the former, I really had to work on myself in order to retain the nannies for as long as possible. Now some of them didn’t want the headache of changing diapers, weaning, running after children who can barely walk, and no TV, but others taught me a thing or two about having a permanent guest for the long haul who isn’t a relative.
Firstly, I had to deal with the fact that there isn’t any amount of money I can possibly pay a nanny as an exchange for caring for my children. What we have agreed on at the end of the month is just a thank you gift for her work, but payment… I had to throw that notion out of the window, and that helped me appreciate the nannies even more, and allowed me to ‘mother’ them as well, giving them free access to my fridge to eat whatever, whenever, a right to shower with hot water, an off every week, an early night, health insurance cover, bonuses and so on and so forth. Basically, I treat my nannies now with the same respect as I would my sister because I realize, taking care of my children is the number one most valuable thing anyone can do for me.
Do you discipline your children, or do you let the nanny do it sometimes?
We, their parents discipline the children and schedule them because we realized, if the nannie have well behaved children whose days are predictable, it becomes less of a hustle for them to do their job. I don’t require my nannies to discipline my children, and not because I fear ‘they will be abused’ but because that is our job as their parents, and requiring somebody else to do it is simply absconding our duties and running away from our responsibilities. We empower our nannies by letting them know that we trust them, and giving them permission to applaud our kids when they have done something right, and also to report to us when they have done something wrong so that we as the parents can correct that behaviour and in this way, we gain trust from our nannies that we are committed to make their work as easy as possible.
You talked about scheduling, isn’t this restricting the children and supressing their curiosity?
Well, scheduling the children basically means at any one point we can predict what they are doing. This empowers our nannies because they don’t have to guess what to do with the children when. This doesn’t apply to just nannies, but also to people who host our children, i.e. their grand parents. They know what time the children wake up, feed, play, nap, shower etc. A slight deviation of the schedule is allowed, and the children know that obeying the nanny/ caregiver is equal to obeying mummy and daddy, so they don’t take advantage or try to manipulate, and if they do, they are guaranteed that we will sort out the issue.
Lastly, we pray a lot, and teach our children values every season. We have an obey mummy and daddy season, respond to commands season, eat what you are told season, don’t fuss season, be kind to your siblings season, use the three magic words season etc. We have taught them to pray and although none of them is 3 yet, they can pray/ or gesture prayer, they walk to bed when it is bedtime without fussing, and they sleep through the night. Waking up in the middle of the night is a crime worthy of consequences, but more than punishment, we guide them and encourage them to become what we think they should be, and they just follow and become that. The Bible says ‘teach your child in the way that he should go, and when they grow, they will never depart from it’, and that is what we try to do every day.
Back to your question in the beginning how do we cope, in summary we believe God has allowed us to have three young ones at the same time for a reason, and we don’t even claim to be the ‘perfect parents’. Some of it has been touch and go, others from mentors, Internet but a lot what we do is basic prayer, which seem to go like this, Lord, let me not punish my babies out of anger today, help so and so go to potty and not on the clothes, help them to obey today, let them learn not to fuss, let them learn to tidy up after themselves, help so and so hold the spoon properly as they eat, help them that they would not give the nanny a hard time, and the hardest one, give us the grace to discipline our children.
I do hope that this give you courage, that it is possible to ‘cope’ (if there is anything like that anyway) with multiple children-twins, triplets or more than one under 3.
Nahya is also a coach who helps mothers to schedule their children, thus creating a fun environment that both the child and mother thrive in. To inquire about her services just in box her on Nahya Mando Facebook profile.