Besides the age gap, I am also blessed and thankful that Dominic is generally a good boy.  He even helps me watch the baby sometimes!  If Dominic is difficult to manage, I would have a harder time.

As for the baby, Damien, *sigh* none of my kids are the easy type at the baby stage.  How I envy those mothers with kids who will sleep through a storm!  My babies are both hard to put to sleep and easy to wake.  Hence, it is not unusual for me to spend hours putting them to sleep, only to have them wake up after 30 minutes.  I can still remember the record time with Damien when he was about 1 month – I started rocking him to sleep at 10 plus in the morning, and only succeeded at really putting him down at 4 plus in the afternoon.  In between, he would cry whenever I put him down in his cot.  Thank God the confinement lady was still around then and took care of Dominic while I was engaged in this marathon.  By the time I put Damien to sleep, I was frustrated to tears, completely exhausted and wondered why I even wanted to have another baby.

Damien is still terrible at nap times.  If he sleeps a total of 3 hours for nap a day, it would be considered a really good day.  Imagine that within that 2-3 hours that he naps, I have to prepare meals, eat my lunch, have a break, do things that I can’t do with him around.

I have since moved him to the sarong cradle.  He is also getting too heavy to be rocked.  For those of you who may not take care of your own babies full time and require the babysitter to not use the sarong cradle, I urge you to consider her ‘hardship’, especially if your baby is like mine and when the babysitter is not strong and young.  It is always easy for one to say not to do this or to do that when one is not the person actually doing it most of the time.  Think of it as doing it for the sake of your baby.  If the babysitter tries to follow your instruction and she has to rock for hours everyday, she is bound to get tired and frustrated and as a result, not be able to care for your baby well.

Coming back to my kids. I must say that I am blessed and thankful that Damien is a wonderful night baby.  In the first few months, he only needed one or two night feeds.  Since I breastfeed him, it was easy.  And after I fed him, I could just put him down in his cot straight away and he would go back to sleep.  By 3 months plus, he was sleeping through the night (about 8-10 hours straight).  So Richard and I were not deprived of a good night sleep.

The older boy, Dominic, goes to half-day childcare (not 3-hour kindergarten).  We sent him to childcare to further relieve my burden.  In any case, he has reached schooling age.  Because he is away at school for half a day, I could concentrate on the baby during this time.

Dominic has been trained from young to be independent.  He is expected to keep his own toys and feed himself.  He is able to bathe himself but still need a bit of help here and there.  Whenever I bathe him, if Damien is not napping, I will let Damien play with some toys outside the bathroom where I can see him.  Most days he will just crawl into the bathroom as well and I have to keep him away from the shower area or else he will be wet too.  Dominic is also taught to be quiet when the baby is sleeping.  I simply tell him that if he disturbs the baby, I will have to spend my time taking care of the baby and won’t have the time for him alone.