Newborn Versus Toddler
Who is My Favorite Child?
February 2025
Table of Contents
Favorite Child???
Let’s face it, there’s bound to be a favorite child. In my immediate family, we refer to this person as “the chosen one”. And equally as truthful, this title is likely to be bestowed upon first one sibling and then another as the winds of favor change… or as one of them wrecks their parent’s car.
I currently have a 2.75 year old (Grey) and a 3 week old (Thresher), so no one is stealing my keys (yet). I can’t help but wonder how each of these two boys are going to grow and change as time goes on. Will one of them love all the outdoorsy activities that I do while the other enjoys other hobbies like basketball or even (god forbid!) video gaming?
It'll be hard to claim I don't have a favorite then!
Until their personalities start to shine through a little clearer, I will simply have to make my judgements based on the information I have now.
Lots of friends in my moms group are having their second child. Those who are pregnant or trying are anxiously watching those who have recently had their seconds. Inevitably, the questions get asked and the comparisons begin about first pregnancy versus the second, first birth experience versus the second, and the older child versus the younger.
No one is throwing around the term "favorite", we're mostly discussing who is easier.
With that in mind, let the competition begin!
Waking Up
It seems like the best way to organize this comparison will be to take a typical day in chronological order and see who comes out on top by the end of the day. I assume you, dear reader, are like me and your day begins with waking up. But I hope, dear reader, that you are unlike me in that your day doesn’t begin with a sight seeing tour of all the hours of the night between midnight and sun up as your nocturnal newborn insists on breastfeeding at 12:01 am, 1:03 am, 2:08 am, 3:14 am, 4:27 am, and 5:32 am.
Meanwhile my toddler is sleeping soundly in his big boy boat bed in his room across the hall.
Each time I feed Thresher, I also get to spin The Wheel of Wetness to land on either a sweat mark under his head from where I was overheating him under too many blankets, a patch of pee under his butt from a leaky diaper, cottage cheese-like spit up dribbling down my shoulder and into my hair, or (the absolute worst) the distinctly yellow smear of breastfed poop against the soft purple of my sheets. It makes for quite the contrast.
And as we toss and turn, breastfeeding on first one side and then the other, I will inevitably end up catching my 1 hour and 13 minutes of sleep in one (or all!) of these little puddles. (John, who had to take over laundry for a couple of weeks postpartum and was tired of washing sheets every day, told me to “just lay in it, it’s fine!”)
Across the hall, Grey is keeping his bodily fluids off my sheets.
Juuuuussst as the sky is beginning to lighten, I am awoken once more to the whiniest voice you’ve ever heard demanding “DOWNSTAIRS!” as my toddler makes his wishes known before the sun has quite risen in the sky. He’s normally a very reasonable kid, but something about that wake up time turns him into this pouty mess who demands to be carried downstairs, even though he can walk down on his own perfectly fine. He will barely tolerate waiting a moment for me to go pee or put on some clothes before fulfilling His Majesty’s command.
Through this whine-fest, the newborn is either sleeping or is casually looking around and wiggling his limbs in just the cutest fashion.
Getting Dressed
According to Grey’s demand, we must first head “DOWNSTAIRS!” before getting dressed. Where he will then continue in his whiney voice to refuse to cooperate while I relieve him of his engorged diaper of (hopefully just) overnight pee and try to get him into clothes for the day. I usually resort to coercion…
"Okay, I guess that means you don't get to go with us to _______."
He reluctantly caves.
Thresher usually has no complaints about diaper or clothing changes, although he will occassionally grunt in dissatisfaction when his wipe is really cold.
Breakfast
Grey usually shakes his morning funk when I ask him to help make breakfast. He is the king of stirring ingredients for scrambled eggs or pancake mix and always advocates for chocolate chips in yogurt parfaits. He’s pretty handy over a hot stove too, often stirring simmering pans of sauces or boiling pots of pasta without injury. He can cut mushrooms for omelets with a butter knife and pour out measuring cups and spoons of flour and such into the bread maker.
It's super endearing and is actually one of the few times that a toddler "helping" doesn't make a job twice as hard.
While we make breakfast, Thresher is hopefully laying on his tummy on a mat watching us and practicing his gross motor skills. He is likely strapped to my chest in the carrier, making me wonder if I can “stand the heat” or if I should “get out of the kitchen”.
As breakfast (or really food for any meal) makes its move from the kitchen to the dining room table, a series of comparisons can be made about the eating (or non-eating) habits of my two children…
It never fails that Thresher gets fussy and wants to nurse the instant I sit down to enjoy my meal. On the other hand, meal planning and prep for a newborn is pretty minimal, just pull out a boob. The newborn also doesn’t require any sort of power struggle, game, or begging to get him to eat, like my toddler sometimes does.
Grey brings makes any meal into an emotional roller coaster as I get frustrated with him eating only the carbs, but my heart melts when I refill his water and he says, "thanks mom!"
Hmmm, after all that, I think the scoreboard might look something like this…
Going Somewhere (ANYwhere!)
As Thresher’s due date approached, I tried to stack Grey’s calendar with activities that would force John to get him out of the house, like preschool, gymnastics, and swim lessons. John ended up throwing in a curve ball on his own when he took Grey on the bike to go watch the sunrise over our local lake and take photos of the wildlife through the spotting scope. John also took Grey on almost daily walks where Grey would ride his strider bike through the neighborhood, over the speed bumps, and to the spot where the cattails grow to explode their fluff all over the street. John fully understood the need to get the toddler out of the house and doing something active.
Lately, getting Grey out of the house has been my task again. Usually this means I have to threaten Grey to make him go potty and then un-distract him from the toy he found to put on his jacket and head towards the garage. Meanwhile, a newborn doesn’t even require this little outing to keep him entertained, and no power struggle to get out the door either. In fact, Thresher has been ready and patiently waiting in his car seat for ten minutes already.
On the other hand, at least Grey can walk himself to the car and even carry his own water bottle and snack for the car ride.
Thresher makes any trip to the car into two trips as I have to carry him and his gear out first and then go back for whatever else I am bringing for this outing.
While We're Out
This is where Grey really shines. It’s so fun to watch him or engage with him on our outings. At our local library, Grey often will bring me dishes he made in the play kitchen, warning me to blow on it because it’s still hot. At gymnastics class, I can clearly see the pride on his face as he accomplishes some new skill each week. Out on a walk or bike ride, he points out things he notices and we have such fun conversations together.
Thresher is basically a boring sack of potatoes that forces me to expose myself in public to feed.
Lunch
Lunch entails many of the same events that I highlighted above in breakfast, but I did think of a couple other things unique to the meal-time experience with children…
Grey CAN feed himself, although he doesn’t always. So it’s POSSIBLE that when eating with a toddler, I can just focus on actually eating. When eating with a newborn, I’m going to have to nurse/bounce him and try to save a hand to feed myself.
Of course, when a toddler is feeding himself, there will also be crumbs and spills left everywhere that require cleaning up and sometimes and outfit change. When eating with a newborn, it’s actually me who makes the mess as I one handedly spill crumbs and liquids onto him.
I definitely found salsa in Thresher's hair yesterday.
While Grey is CAPABLE of feeding himself, it doesn’t mean he is actually going to focus on eating. We often have to “drive through” feeding as he runs or rides his scooter around the table.
We're just lucky we haven't stabbed him in the eye with a fork yet...
Thresher keeps himself and his environment pretty clean while he eats and stays pretty focused on the task at boob, I mean hand!
I think that leaves the scoreboard looking something like this…
Nap
Usually, Thresher falls into a pretty long afternoon sleep, which I would love if he would do during the actual nighttime! But it is an opportunity for me to get other things done like meal prep or picking up around the house or my own projects like writing this article! Sometimes, when the night was just too rough, I catch some winks too.
Grey hasn’t napped in the past 3 months or so, so there’s no break when that afternoon crash hits.
Pumping
Thresher’s nap is also my opportunity to pump for the day.
John is a superstar at work and was awarded a free trip to Mexico from his company at the end of April. To an adults only resort. Which is great for the two of us, but leaves me in a bit of a pickle in terms of timing. Thresher will be juuuuuust shy of three months old when I leave for a week. It’s a little young to leave a breastfeeding baby for so long and my midwives are mentally preparing me to the thought that he might not latch again when I get back to him. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
For now, I need to pump and freeze 224 ounces (1.75 gallons) of milk for my in-laws to feed him while I'm gone.
Which is 3.5 ounces a day, EVERY DAY, until we leave.
Now, I don't mind breastfeeding my adorable son who gazes up at me lovingly while he nurses and sometimes holds my finger in just the cutest fashion... but pumping... makes me sympathize with all dairy cows.
There’s nothing cute or sweet about it. My deepest admiration to any mother who has exclusively pumped to feed their child, I could never.
Meanwhile, my toddler no longer requires this of me and can be left behind with whoever and will eat whatever.
Getting Help
That leads me to another huge advantage for having a toddler over a newborn. Someone (please anyone!) else is able to help with a toddler. We have neighbors and babysitters and friends and part-time preschool that can occupy some of Grey’s week. A newborn is pretty much stuck with mama. Even dada can only help for a short amount of time until the bottle runs out. (Here’s my sister who visited to meet Thresher and entertain Grey so I could eat my breakfast in peace.)
Raising a child truly takes a village and the village is able to help out more with the less dependent toddler.
Hmmm, tie score…
Exercising
Sometime in the afternoon is usually when I try to squeeze in some type of physical activity for myself. A toddler can make that tricky. For two years, he was happy to go along for the ride, in a stroller, in my backpack, in the Chariot behind the bike, and later on the Shotgun ON my bike. The Shotgun is still a pretty safe bet for a good, mom-focused, exercise. But otherwise Grey often wants to walk himself or ride his own bike and can’t go as far or as fast as I would like for an actual workout. Buuuut Grey is old enough to go to the drop in day care at my gym for days I want to take a class or poor weather sends me inside.
Thresher is in the “ride along” stage and brings the added benefit of extra weight for training purposes. Buuuuut he can’t go to the gym day care until he’s 6 months old.
A newborn might take a nap so I can squeeze in a yoga class from an app at home. A toddler might adorably join in!
Around the House
I remember when Grey was younger eagerly awaiting the day that he could just follow me from room to room around the house, instead of always needing carried. Then my hands would be free for doing the actual thing I was trying to accomplish, like carry laundry to put away. Now he can! And it’s pretty convenient… most of the time. There are definitely times when he is following me into the bathroom saying, “hey, whatcha doin’?” that I think maybe it’s not such a great thing that he is so mobile. (Spoiler alert Grey, there’s only a few things that I’m going to be doing in this room…)
Now I have another little one who needs carried everywhere and boy do I appreciate that Grey can move around the house as he pleases! It often leads to him self-entertaining with his toys, always a great thing for a busy mom.
Even better, he might adorably ask me, “do you want to play cars with me?”
And sometimes I do because I have the time, and other times I don't because who the heck has the time???
He might burst into cute spontaneous song… which then he might sing on repeat until my ears feel like they are bleeding. Or he might make up the silliest little game or use his toys in a way you would have never thought of yourself. Just a few minutes ago, he used some magnetic blocks to build “a T for Thresher.”
Cue my heart melting!
Hmmm, the toddler really seems to be pulling ahead here. But let’s point out that all this fun play and cute games and self-entertainment usually leads to a lot of mess and toys scattered everywhere and a heated “conversation” needed to get a certain someone to help clean up.
Thresher hasn’t left a mess anywhere yet. Besides the aforementioned Wheel of Wetness on my sheets.
Dinner
The instant I set down the warm meals, my newborn wakes up in his rocker and wants to nurse. As soon as that’s done and I sit down, my toddler asks for a refill of his drink, or needs a napkin, or spills something and needs help cleaning it up.
My food gets colder.
My newborn told me he wanted to nurse with a fussy kind of cry. I can already translate a couple of different cries for him, one clearly for nursing and one clearly for when he’s in some sort of discomfort (like with a stuck gas bubble). Really those are his only two needs right now, which makes things easy.
I know the day is coming when he will want to express other thoughts or needs and not have language skills yet to communicate. We taught Grey sign language and that did help bridge the gap quite a bit, but it is so nice that he can just clearly ask for what he needs.
So one kid that easily communicates needs, and another kid that just needs less... one point for each.
Chores
As I said in the Breakfast section, when Grey helps to cook it is one of the few times that him “helping” doesn’t actually make the task twice as difficult or take twice as long.
A perfect example is starting the dishwasher after dinner. Grey will actually cry if he doesn’t get to put in the soap tablet and push the buttons. So I hand him the soap and tap tap tap my toe trying to be patient while he tries to identify all of the colors he can see in it. Then he wants to play a cute little game pretending like he doesn’t know which button to push, so he points to each one and says, “this one?” with a little impish smile on his face as I say, “noooooo” until he gets to the right one.
It is a similar experience as he helps start the laundry in the washer or hangs up socks to dry or shovels snow or feeds the fish or waters plants.
Here he is helping shovel out some dirt for a garden project. Mostly that just meant he was in my way and I had to be very careful not to bean him in the head with my shovel.
Someday I know all this practice might actually result in a kid who is helpful and knows how to accomplish household tasks.
For now, I don’t think he actually earns a point for this one. Neither does the newborn who is probably weighing me down in the carrier while I try to check things off the to-do list.
Bath Time
I remember when Grey was really young loving bath time because it was a time in the day when he didn’t need to be ON me to be content. He would just lay there in the warm water and gaze around while wiggling his limbs. But what I forgot about bath time with a newborn is that you actually have to WATCH them! Grey has gotten to the point that you can walk away to do something real quick while he is in the bath. Thresher looks like he could slip down a little and drown at any moment.
The toddler wins again!
Both of them throw a fit when they get out and they are cold.
Bed Time
This section really only refers to Grey who actually has a bedtime. While he tries to evade and distract and delay with toys and books and cute conversations, this will eventually end with him tucked in, quiet, and sleeping soundly for the rest of the evening.
Sure, I probably had to go up and down the stairs a couple of times to fill his water bottle and find Blankie, but as I start to close his door I get to hear "I love you too".
Adult Evening
By this I mean John and I are slumped side by side on the couch looking at separate screens and barely acknowledging each other’s presence except to pass Thresher back and forth. He’s chosen this inopportune moment to finally wake up from his afternoon sleep and wants to cluster feed.
Meanwhile Grey isn’t bothering us one bit.
At least Thresher doesn't want to share my "I made it through the day" chocolate...
(As a side note, John and I are working on having 2 evenings a week with less screens and more of an activity that we can do together. This week we hung up a cork board with some printed out photos of our highlights of 2024 on it.)
Speaking of John...
He thought it would be funny if I shared a little insight into what the Husband’s Scoreboard might look like throughout the day, especially as he is wrapping up his paternity leave and is about to switch his attention back to work. Here’s what his day looked like during his time “off”…
He wakes up with Grey and Thresher hopefully at 7, but usually at sometime with a 6 in front of it. He turns on the bathroom fan as my white noise takes them downstairs so I can try to get 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. He gets the whiney Grey to change his diaper and has to change Thresher too. He gives Grey a snack and begins to make breakfast for me when I wake up. Then John entertains Grey while wearing or rocking Thresher who might fall back asleep or might want to watch.
After I wake up, I usually take over with the kids while John cleans up the kitchen, puts away dishes, runs to the grocery store, attempts a load of laundry and then has to fix a broken dryer. In the meantime, he’ll change another diaper or two and help one of the children get properly dressed for a little outside time. Which lately for him has been the added task of shoveling snow.
He’ll pay the mortgage and register our cars just in time to start dinner. Then, he helps Grey write his name on his Valentine’s to pass out at the preschool party. Some days he wows the kids at Grey’s gymnastics class by doing backflips on the trampoline and other days he is the only parent making his son’s boogie board ride rails at the pool during swim lessons.
He gives Thresher his bottle practice…
…then entertains Grey some more.
He catches up on some sleep when he can.
He can see the light at the end of the tunnel when it’s bath time. He’s almost done for the day!
During our evening screen time, he will refill my milk glass when I’m too lazy to get up to do it myself. He takes out the trash and recycling and double checks all the doors are locked before we go to bed.
Then, at some point in the night, I ask him to change Thresher's diaper and he hesitates for about 5 seconds while he is still coming out of sleep...
Which is apparently five seconds too long in my book and just like that he has to start over from scratch again. Welcome to the job of a stay-at-home parent hon. Give, give, give, hustle, hustle, hustle and no credit/award/kudos/appreciation at the end of the day, let alone pay!
P.S. (Potty Sruggles)
It is only after this article is completely written and I am going back to add in photos that I realize how many times Grey appears pantless. As he nears three years old, we are desperately trying to wrap up potty training so that we can all move on with our lives (i.e. only have to change diapers for ONE baby, not two). He’s 10 for 10 when he’s bottomless at home, listening to his body and making it to the potty. The instant he has anything on down there (pull up, underwear, or even going commando in just pants), he just lets it all go. So sometimes it is just easier to let him be half naked around the house. It removes the power struggle of “making” him go and saves me a lot of extra mess to have to clean up. But it doesn’t really help him progress at all, leaving us with regular messages from his preschool to come change a poopy diaper (because they aren’t allowed to do that for us).
Soooo… one extra point for the newborn who at least has an excuse to still be going in his pants.
In Reflection
As this article was coming to a close, I disbelievingly told John that I think Grey was actually going to win this one! Don’t get me wrong, I love him to pieces, but we must remember that essentially this article is about comparing a toddler and a newborn to understand who is EASIER! I did not expect the toddler to end up taking that title. But when all is said and done, sleeping through the night and communication skills does make parenting a whole lot easier. And I think a lot of points came from appreciating the activities that Grey is capable of doing that a newborn just can’t.
This realization is coming at the perfect time as John is wrapping up his paternity leave and I am preparing to be the full time parent and homemaker again. I worried that Grey would just be driving me crazy when I had a dozen things on my plate, no sleep, and had to spend lots of time stuck in a certain spot nursing.
Well, he probably still will.
But after writing this article, I am seeing him a whole different light. Instead of the straw that might break this mama’s back, he might end up being the highlight of my day as we enjoy activities and conversations together.
And don’t worry Thresher, you can’t help it that you’re just an adorable, chunky sack of potatoes right now. Soon enough, you will be doing all the wonderful things that your brother can do and adding your own flair to our family. I can’t wait to get to know you!