I’m in the never ending process of raising 3 children and I noticed a pattern in their care when they were infants. When we had our first child, if we were to leave the house with them we took 2 diaper bags with various other supplies left in the car. We could be out of the house for days and not run out of supplies. When our second child arrived, we still left the house with at least 1 diaper bag and it was reasonably supplied and there “might be stuff” in the minivan. Then after the third child arrived, times would come when we would have the need to be out and about. When a need would arise for this child the search would commence throughout the minivan. All in the usually vain hope of finding at least one diaper or something to drink that may have been left in the minivan from the time of the first two children (my minivan is a mess). By this point we had only brought the child with us.

I remember once going to Kmart to buy them a new winter jacket after they had got car sick and had thrown up on the old one and I had nothing else to put on them and the old one was well “gross”. Also for some reason that day they had on 2 pairs of pants? Which worked out, I took off the dirty pants and they then had clean(ish) ones on. Our parent preparedness level dropped a lot over the span of three children.