Best Of Luck Kate I Know How Hard It Is Having Two Babies Under Two

Mother Nature is a cunning old vixen, and never more so than when it comes to having babies. 
After the chaos of the birth and the first few months, somewhere around the six-month mark things start to pick up.
There are smiles, gurgles, sleeping and eating. Fewer unexpected explosions, more textbook magic. A routine, even.
Suddenly this parenting lark doesn't seem so impossible after all.

Might even be quite fun. Rewarding, too. As for the former pain, the mess and the swollen ankles, well … they weren't so bad, were they?
Of course not, coos Mother Nature, as she wipes your brow with the blessed sponge of amnesia.
‘Why not have another one?' she whispers in your ear. ‘How hard can it be?'
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Royalty: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who are already parents to Prince George, are soon to find out how difficult second babies are.

They are even harder than an armoured tank full of Marines doing chin-ups
The answer is, as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are soon to find out, very. Harder than an armoured tank full of Marines doing chin-ups.
Harder than quantum physics. Harder than bonfire-night toffee. Harder than all those things put together.
Of course it's tremendous news that the royal couple are once again expecting. If Master George is anything to go by, he or she will be another little drop of sunlight brightening up an otherwise gloomy national landscape.
Who knows, the announcement might even help avert disaster in Scotland.

After all, you can't fault the timing.
RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share I can just picture the Queen, a betting woman herself, sipping her whisky nightcap at Balmoral in front of the 10 o'clock news.

‘Ha ha. I see your poll lead, Mr Salmond; and I raise you one royal infant. Run that up your Saltire, why don't you.'
Yet the thing about second babies - and I defy any mother who has had two or more children to disagree - is that they are more than twice the trouble.

And if the first child is still in nappies, you're in for a seriously lively time.
I should know. I was 35 when I had my first - in medical terms a borderline ‘geriatric mother'.

If I wanted more than one, the advice was that I'd do well to crack on.
So when my daughter Beatrice entered that eerily calm phase between tiny babyhood and toddlerhood, instead of taking heed of more experienced friends and waiting a year or so, I took the plunge.
When my son Will was born, Beatrice was just 16 months - not much younger than George will be when his sibling joins the family.
Warning: The thing about second babies is that they are more than twice the trouble, says Sarah Vine, pictured with her husband Michael Gove
The curious thing about babies is that you think you'll never be able to love another human being as much as you love your first child - and yet, very quickly and very definitely, you do.
For me, it was as though my heart had grown another chamber.

My son Will was (and is) so completely other from my daughter, both physically and mentally (as a child he even smelled different), that there was simply no competition. I adored them equally yet very differently.
For my daughter, however, it was a shock she has never quite recovered from.
She is 11 now, and to this day she berates me for having ‘ruined her life' by giving birth to her brother.
The problem, I believe, is that at 16 months she was simply too young to share me emotionally.
My husband Michael Gove, who is now Chief Whip, had just been elected as an MP and was up in London a lot of the time (we were living in Surrey then), arriving home after midnight and leaving first thing in the morning.

His weekends were pretty full too, with the result that I loomed rather large in Beatrice's small world.
I was working part-time, so I did have some help (weirdly, though, even that was overwhelming, since I had never employed anyone domestically before, and had no idea how to manage the relationship properly).
Nevertheless, the arrival of a rival clearly affected her.

It can't have helped that my son was hospitalised for three weeks with an infection when he was just a few months old - with me by his side.
Kate and William find themselves in a similar, albeit far more glamorous situation. He is a public figure who is away from home a lot for work; she has a part-time role, smiling and looking lovely on formal and state occasions.
New parents: Both Kate and William juggle work commitments with their family life.

When baby No. 2 comes along, George will have to make some space. And, as we all know, toddlers are notoriously bad at sharing
Both juggle work commitments with their family life. When baby No. 2 comes along, George will have to make some space.
And, as we all know, toddlers are notoriously bad at sharing.
They also have some very effective ways of indicating their displeasure, most of which, in my experience, involve bodily functions.
Unlearning their potty training, for example, or demanding to be breast-fed again or becoming fussy eaters.

Or just, you know, flinging themselves on the ground in supermarkets and howling until the manager asks you to leave.
Having two babies under two is just overwhelming on every level. At any given point, someone seems to be either filling their nappy or being sick.
The best you can hope for is that they at least take it in turns - in stereo it can really be quite traumatic.
The thing about second babies is that they are more than twice the trouble.

And if the first child is still in nappies, you're in for a seriously lively time Most people can handle this sort of perfect storm for a day or two. But it never stops. Toddlers, it is well documented, are danger-seeking little creatures, inexorably drawn to the empty plug socket or the knife drawer.
At that age, neither child can be left alone for even a second: even going to the loo has to be undertaken as a family outing.
Most hazardous of all, however, is the sleep deprivation. One goes off like an air-raid siren, and the other wakes up, all carefully timed to happen just as you're falling asleep.
Mine were like two tiny North Korean dictators, waiting fiendishly until that moment just before the mind descends into delicious oblivion to jolt me awake with incessant high-pitched wailing.
Sleep deprivation is known as one of the more effective ways of breaking even the toughest spirit.

There were nights - often when the children were ill or teething - when I got no more than one or two hours' sleep. I would arrive for work thoroughly zombified.
Countless studies have shown that, deprived of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep - the deep sleep we achieve after an hour or so of slumber - the human brain starts to seriously malfunction.
The body struggles on, fuelled in my case by slabs of Green & Black's almond milk chocolate and gallons of coffee, but the mind is lost.

After months of sleepless nights, I felt like I was living in a twilight zone. Even the smallest and most straightforward of tasks seemed impossible.
Well-timed: The announcement might even help avert disaster in Scotland.

Above, Alex Salmond and the Queen
I'm sure this was a significant factor in my diagnosis of post-natal depression. Also the fact that I was unable to shift the second lot of baby weight (around three stone).
I became locked in a cycle of exhaustion and carb-loading, far too tired to do any exercise other than lifting a fork to my mouth.
Most of all, though, I think it was the feeling of being out of control that did it.

Until I had two children under the age of two, I'd rarely been defeated in life. My inability to rise to the challenge made me feel like a complete failure. Not only was I a rubbish mother, I was also a fat, grumpy wife, a sub-standard employee - and I couldn't even stay on top of the washing.
(I would, at this point, like to say to women of my mother and grandmother's generation, many of whom had babies in quick succession but without things like washing machines and disposable nappies: a) how on earth did you manage it; and b) whatever you were on, where can I get some?)
Many will say that the Duchess of Cambridge will simply overcome the logistics with armies of staff.

But it doesn't really work like that. Granted, she probably won't have to worry about hanging out the washing, but little children want their mother.
 Kate is entering one of the most important phases of family life - but also one of the toughest.
In years to come she will look back on this time as a truly special one Kate will know this, and she will want to step up to the mark. For the Duchess of Cambridge, it is well known, is something of a perfectionist.
As one Palace insider once told me, she puts an enormous amount of pressure on herself to be good at everything.

She will want to be the best mother she can be, even if it drives her to breaking point.
She also takes her official duties very seriously, which perhaps explains why despite being relatively young (32), she has decided to go for a second baby so quickly.

She knows that having produced an heir, she must now provide the nation with at least one spare.
Boy or girl, it doesn't matter, although a girl might also make life slightly easier, since they tend to be less physically exhausting (although there's no hard and fast rule).

The pair of them will still run her ragged - not out of malice; just because that's the way little children are.
Bearing all that in mind, Kate is entering one of the most important phases of family life - but also one of the toughest.
In years to come she will look back on this time as a truly special one (I certainly do, and when I went through all my baby pictures while writing this, I got a bit teary thinking about when my two were chubby little bundles of mischief).
But in the short term, those close to her need to ensure she doesn't buckle under the pressure of getting everything right.

Because, for all her privilege and https://weareliferuiner.com/korean-chocolate-milk-how-to-make/ status, she is nonetheless a young mother who's about to embark on the greatest challenge of her life. Congratulations, Kate. And best of British.