Hi and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on I Heart Radio.

Our first child, our daughter, was three when my middle son was born.

I admit we were largely cruising along. She was

just an insanely good baby, slept through the night at seven weeks old, but really came home from the hospital doing these amazing

four-hour sleep stretches that had us believing that we were like baby experts and

not realizing that we had just gotten lucky.

Then our eldest son was born.

He came home from the hospital sleeping 45 minute stretches.

He was crankier, he cried more, all of it. I remember being such a

walking zombie. It was the first time in my life that I understood how it was possible for a parent to leave a child in a car.

I never did, thank God, but I truly remember this one time getting my daughter out of her car

seat and being like, oh yeah, there's a second one and he's like

sleeping quietly I have to remember to take him I was so out of it and then my mom just

started showing up at my house.

She had come over a lot after I had my daughter too,

but something unspoken happened after I had my son.

She realized I needed her and she started coming every single morning.

We made her a key and she'd let herself in. She'd get my daughter ready for school or take my son for a walk so I could sleep. At the same time my in-laws were

super involved as well. My mother-in-law would have a standing weekly date to take my daughter to a Hebrew music class. She'd take her to the park.

They would do stuff together. Also, my brother was single and my husband's sister was single

and they would babysit all the time.

All of this to say that I had a large amount of family help with my kids

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