Maybe I just look frazzled and outnumbered. But people have often helped me with my three. Photo / Getty Images
Maybe I just look frazzled and outnumbered. But people have often helped me with my three. Photo / Getty Images
Lots of people ask what it's like making the move from two to three children. Beck Vass reveals a surprisingly pleasant discovery
Like anything, you'll get different answers from everyone you ask and many factors come into play - most significantly, I think, the kids' age gaps and personalities.
Forus, there is a bit of a gap between our first two children, aged 6 and 4, and our baby, which I think helps.
However, here is my early summary of life with three kids - if I can make one just eight months into life with a third child. (Come back to me when I have one at high school, one at intermediate and the third still at primary school).
I always say the newborn stage is the easiest bit, but that's only because we've been blessed with relatively decent sleepers without any colic-type issues.
I tend to get more stressed from six months, when they're moving around the house. Then they get into mischief, making messes and putting everything in their mouth - which gets increasingly stressful the more children you have because there are more people to leave things lying around that a baby could choke on, or leave doors open in rooms you don't want your little one in.
But despite this, this time around there's something that's really stood out to me. I've noticed everyone's kindness a lot more.
Not just from friends - I'm talking about complete strangers.
For a while there, it felt like every time I went out, someone helped me in some way.
Maybe I just look frazzled and outnumbered. But people would get bottles for me or wipes, or open doors.
At sports over summer, someone always seemed happy to offer to hold the baby or carry a bag or check if I needed help getting to the car, or help one of the older children get changed.
Most recently, during a sudden downpour, a mum at school - who I have only spoken to very briefly as we waited for our 6-year-olds, not even long enough to learn her name - offered me the jacket she was wearing to cover our baby from what became torrential rain. She would have got soaked for us!
Someone always seemed happy to offer to hold the baby or carry a bag. Photo / Getty Images
Someone else asked if I had an umbrella. I can't carry an umbrella and a 10kg baby at the same time in strong winds. I could have put him in a front pack or stroller but the amount of time it takes to get set up in the rain is almost the same as just sucking up a little bit of wet walking to the classroom.
So, there we were waiting for the rain to back off a bit, as yet another random act of kindness was offered to me - and it made me think of all the many people who have helped or offered to help with things since we had our boy – and not just him but the first two children as well.
Strangers have picked up items myself or the kids have dropped and chased after me to hand them to me.
A friend and I even had a couple insist on carrying our strollers up and down the steps that currently stop the trip around Mount Maunganui's Mauao being completely stroller-friendly. We were expecting to do it ourselves, but they insisted.
A woman at the supermarket recently loaded my trolley of items on to the supermarket conveyer belt when she saw it was a bit awkward with my baby in the front pack (he's huge).
Baby number three for me has provided a lesson in accepting help - something I have always declined out of politeness or stubbornness, even if I really needed it.
So, the move from two to three kids? Not too bad, actually, thanks to kindness from others.
