You wanted this baby, and you still find yourself grieving the way it used to be with your first. The undivided afternoons. The version of you that had two hands for one child. Now you are splitting yourself into pieces and feeling like no one gets a whole one of you, least of all you. That guilt is one of the quietest, heaviest parts of a second baby, and almost no one says it out loud. Loving the new one does not erase the missing of how it was.
Missing the one-on-one closeness you had with your first is not ingratitude toward your second. Two true things at once again: joy at the new baby, grief for the old rhythm. Naming it quietly, even just to yourself, takes some of the weight off it.
Potty accidents, baby talk, extra clinginess, new defiance. Regression is how a young child says this is a lot. It is common, it is part of how young children adjust, and it usually eases as they find their footing in the new shape of the family.
Wanting the baby gone, even saying they hate the baby, is normal for an older child to feel. Feelings allowed out loud tend to do less damage than feelings pushed down. You can hold the limit, we are gentle with the baby, while welcoming the feeling, you wish he would go back, and I get it.
Even ten minutes of undivided attention, where the older one has you all to themselves, refills something the new baby has been draining. It does not have to be elaborate. It just has to be theirs.
Trying to be perfectly equal exhausts you and convinces no one. Children feel more secure loved uniquely, each for who they are, than measured against each other. You can put down the scorekeeping.
You will not give either child your undivided best every day, and that is simply the math of more than one. Good enough, spread thin, returned to with tenderness, is what raises secure kids. Try to be as gentle with yourself as you are trying to be with them.
A little rough handling is common, but a young child should not be left alone with the baby, even for a minute, until you are sure. If an older child's aggression toward the baby is intense or constant, or a usually-steady child becomes withdrawn, stops eating or sleeping, or talks about hurting themselves or the baby, check in with your pediatrician. And if you feel your own anger spike in the chaos in a way that scares you, that is worth a call too, to your doctor or the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-852-6262 (call or text). Stretched thin is normal. Frightened of your own reactions is a signal to reach for support.
Splitting yourself between children wears on your own sense of self, so the identity and how-are-you-doing pages are close by. And other mothers of more than one are some of the best company there is, which is what finding your people is for.