I have a 1mo and a 22mo, and for the first three weeks my mom was staying with us and my husband was on leave so we had plenty of hands to take care of both kids and everything in the house.

Today is my first day on my own with both girls, and I am really struggling. I am totally ok with getting the bare minimum done in terms of housework (literally making sure we have clean cloth diapers, clean clothes and muslins, and enough clean dishes to feed my toddler), but I don’t know how to balance both kids at once. I don’t think there has been a period longer than 5 minutes so far when one of them wasn’t crying. The baby was nursing when my toddler woke up, I tried to put her back to bed so I could go get my toddler and take her to the bathroom, nurse her, dress her etc, but the baby started screaming in her bassinet. At breakfast I had to nurse the baby again and my toddler kept asking for more and would cry if I asked her to wait, but if I stood up to get her more then the baby would pop off and start screaming. Trying to get the baby down for a nap and my toddler says she has to poop, I put the baby in the carrier but then my toddler refuses to go because the baby is crying and she wants me to make her stop. But when I go to rock the baby and put her down again the toddler frantically starts telling me again that she needs to poop. I feel like I’m running around like a chicken without a head!! I feel like I’m failing both of them! I knew it would be hard, I accept that, but I thought I’d be better than this.

When my mom and husband were here, they’d jump in when I was trying to take care of both girls at once, and I would ask, How am I supposed to do X and Y when you’re not here? And they’d just say, you’ll figure it out. That’s what everyone says, you’ll figure it out. But I am not figuring it out!! I can’t figure anything out! My brain can not find a good solution for any of these situations.

I’m not looking for more generalities, like “It gets easier” or “You’ll find a rhythm”. I seriously need some concrete tips on how to manage two kids. Am I just supposed to be ok with the fact that I have to prioritize one over the other and that someone is always going to be crying?