Juggling with 4 kids - Motherhood Journey

Tuesday, March 06, 2018 Pooi Yee 2 Comments A⁺ a^-

Feeling great when I am blessed with 4 lovely kids which I never thought I could have so many kids and I just think it still feels like a dream each time I refresh back my memory of giving birth and the precious 9 months of pregnancy. Each of my children gives me a different moments of labour but all of them giving me less pain and smooth delivery. I was lucky enough to have my 4th child when my dilation is just 3cm!

When I went to a massage center recently, the lady will look at me with her shocked face when I told her I have 4 kids. So do other friends or people I met. at this age of 34 years old, I have 4 children with my eldest already 8 years old. That's the advantage of getting myself married early..never imagine that I can go to this far that me and hubby need to handle 4 kids.

My second girl is 6 years old and my third child (boy) is 5 years old. We have a hard time too when both are just 1 year old gap. Lots of attention and care for them but as soon they grow up, it seems like very fast and they get along quite good together.

After 4 years of gap, my baby girl is born. It is never been easy to go through again the sleepless night, breastfeeding challenge and getting to baby crying attention.

The challenges I faced, how I handle it : -

1. Different sleeping time and Difficulty to Make them sleep.
This will be the stressful part for some parents to handle their little one. I have few situation whereby me and hubby feel lots of pressure dealing with my kids sleeping time when they are in 1-3 years old. One have too much nap time in the afternoon / evening, while the other addicted to the TV before going to bed. They will cry a while and taking hard time to go to bed. Hubby play an important role to make them sleep. He will make the room dark with small dim lights to let them know is sleeping time. Sometime, he need to scold them and hold them tight to sleep. I still remember how my baby boy struggle follow by loud cry coz he refuse to sleep on his baby cot. And my second girl who sleep too much on the cradle and refuse to sleep on our bed at night.

When they begin schooling, things are getting better and we have a right sleeping schedule. As for my 3 children, I will set the timing for them to sleep usually before 9pm, they must go to bed already. My eldest girl need to wake up at 6am preparing herself, and while the second and third child need to drink milk at 6.15am. So all three of them will go to school leaving home at 7.10am. They need to get enough sleep for at least more than 8 hours. It has been the routine for them to finish up the homework and go to bed by 9pm.

Right now, by having my little one at 2months old, her sleeping time is still bit challenging for me. Sometime she can sleep from 11pm to 3am. Sleep and wake up again at 6am. But there are few occasions where she wakes up at 1am or 2am and refuse to go to sleep, finding people to talk to her, follow by milk time and crying for getting herself to sleep again. I have to put her to sleep and at the same time worry that her loud voice will disturb her siblings who are sleeping. Lucky, most of the time, the siblings are too tired and usually they won't wake up and sleep through nite even though my baby girl sometime scream and cry very loud.

2. Different Preference of Meals and Feeding time
Each kids are different in their way, even their food intake and preference are so much different! HEADACHE! As a mum, I want to give my best to them. Make sure they take healthy food, have proper meals and drinking lots of water. But it seems like things out of my control all the time.

Eldest girl love to eat eggs, noodles, sausages,pork, fried chicken, nuggets and those crispy food usually. While second girl prefer milk all the time. She don't like to eat rice. Sometime when she in good mood, I will be able to feed her few spoon of rice, noodles or porridge. She prefer biscuits, snacks and milk. My son loves rice and soup. Sometime I will alternate with porridge or noodles. So in my daily routine, I will have to ensure i cook for their food preference and I will prefer to feed them all. People will said why can't you let them feed themselves. Sometime they will sit on the dining table to eat properly. But most of the time, I will feed them individually. Reduce messy floor and they will quickly finished up their food.

It will be taking turns to feed them.I will ensure my baby girl well feed first and put her to sleep. Once three elder children come back from school, they get their bath and I will start to feed them lunch. Start with making milk for my second girl, follow by feeding my boy with rice and soup. Next will be my eldest girl having her chicken rice / noodles. Sometimes, my mum in law will advise me to cook chicken/pork with dark sauce. Three of them loves this dish and it can go with rice. They will tend to eat more with rice and I am a happy mum .I will take turns to feed them too on the same dish.

3. Siblings Fight and Crying

Mummy with 2 kids and more will understand how this situation and how worst it can be. Tension and stressful moments among all. Kids just love to fight among themselves. Fight for toys, books and etc. Pulling shirts, throwing things on the floor, hands and legs fight, and even mouth keep talking and fighting to win. End up with loud cry and seeking for attention. I can't handle much on this because I didn't beat them hard. Hubby is the devil who is going around with the cane and they are scare of him coz when he said beat..he meant it. So they are more behave if he is around. The solutions to it? Wow this is the most challenging part. Using soft voice to solve the fights? Or harsh way to make them cry more louder? Always the headache part. Sometime, will just throw the toys away so no body gets it. To be fair, who get into the fight will also get the same punishment. Also we need to educate them to share the toys among siblings ( but I know it never happens and they don't like the word 'sharing').

Kids are crying to get attention. They want us to be alert and notice them. I can feel they are jealous coz mummy always with baby girl and sometime not spending time with them.I will tell them baby girls are small and need more care from mummy. When baby girl are sleeping, I will spend time with each of them. Some other day, I will arrange with hubby to tag along only one child at a time. I will spend few hours going out short outing with my eldest girl, letting her know that she is getting my love and attention too. We will have a quiet talk together and I telling her that she is a big sister now and she need to help me to take care of her siblings and set good example to them. Same goes my other toddler, I will bring them for dining out together and have playtime together. We still need a close bonding time to each of them to ensure they know they are not being left out.

4. Household chores

I thought I can do all the thing at one time. I wish I could. But ending up the day with tiredness and dullness coz spending too much time on household chores. Cleaning up the house, do laundry (Wash, hang clothes and fold the clothing for 4 kiddos),ironing, cooking, washing milk bottles, and the list goes on.

My advise : Utilize all your resources, teach kids to help out. That's the right thing to do now.

I will ask my kids to help me hang clothing and fold them. They are quite helpful and save up my time so that I can proceed to do the next household chores. They also assist in sweeping the floor and cleaning the dust. I will need to teach them more to be more independent and do more household chores. Mummy is too protective sometime.

5. Preparing for Weekend Outing / Dining Out
You might be feeling fear to bring all 4 kiddos for outing during weekend or just a quick dinner. I have few rounds of training and practices to makes thing perfect. But I also will forget to bring things out which I feel frustrated to myself for not packing up my bag properly and keep nagging to myself why I will forget to bring the baby stuff. I have one incident whereby both me and hubby totally forget to bring our baby bag!. OMG..that's is the worst moment when we only discover as we reach One Utama Shopping Mall parking. We blamed each other and get mad why and who suppose to ensure the bag is in the car.

Some funny moments do happen when we forget to bring my boy shoes and we need to bring him to a shoe shop to buy a new pair of shoes. Tense moment when we forget to bring pampers for him during our staycation at a hotel stay. While the common careless moment when we forget to bring water bottles, wet tissues, milk bottles, extra pants, handkerchief, and etc..After a few rounds of pack and unpack, I will always remind myself to bring all the important stuffs in my baby bag when we going out each time. Nothing is perfect. I can't make myself doing everything perfectly.

The moments I treasure.
Of course I have lots of sweet moments that I treasure so much with my 4 kiddos. They have brighten up my life, giving me so much of laughter and I feel blessed to have them.

Each of them have different characters. They will make me smile and gives me a good Massage when I need it so much, sharing with me their thoughts and I learn alot from them too. I learn to be more patience and listening to their needs. The good thing of having 3 girls, they can share the clothing and reminds me of the moments.

No doubt the most precious time when I watch them silently as they play happily together. They are happy to have more siblings to play with and the bonding moment is just too sweet to describe. Sister will teach brother and small sister on their school homework too.

Kids grow up so fast and I really miss their cheeky baby faces. From time to time, I will sit down with them telling them how they grow in my tummy, how they look like when they are babies by showing them their baby photos, and answering their curious question (they have lots of question to ask and throwing question at the same time).

Moving Forward...
My parenting journey have ups and downs and I learn to become a better person..and now I also still learning and need to adapt to the changes. I learn from my mistake..I try to do it better tomorrow..Anyhow,you can only do what you can do.

Who has no tempers? I will easily get into my hot temper whenever my kids are not behave well and I will get angry to myself why I scold them and feel bad about it. But in the end of the day, I will ensure we cuddle and hug each other saying good night and to let them know how much I love them.

When the times comes you will be able to handle it. You will never know your limit until u try it. I always being positive and push myself forward and telling myself that I can do it. I will able to improve each day and keep learning. I have no choice but to adapt and go with the changes with positive thoughts and determination.

Actually, by having 4 kids is not really a too hard situation for me. I still have my 'Me Time' and some privacy moments to do my blog, going out with friends for a drink, pamper myself with massage session and etc. Thanks to hubby for being a good daddy to help out with some household cores and getting my babies bath, sleep and feed them. Much more appreciate to my mum in law and my dad in law for taking good care of all of them. Stay positive as I know everything happen for a reason.