What the Patrick Mahomes Baby Taught Me About Surviving Three

Dear Jess from six months ago. You're currently sitting on the floor of our laundry room, crying over a mountain of unmatched tiny socks while your two toddlers use your Etsy shipping boxes as a literal wrestling ring in the next room, but I need you to take a deep breath and listen to me about this whole baby number three thing.

I know you're terrified. I know you're looking at our bank account and our tiny rural Texas house and wondering where we're going to put another human being. You're probably scrolling Instagram right now to disassociate, staring at celebrities with their perfect nurseries, and I'm guessing that's where you saw the news about the new patrick mahomes baby.

I'm just gonna be real with you, I usually roll my eyes so hard at celebrity parenting advice that I pull a muscle. When you're budgeting for store-brand diapers and trying to get a toddler to eat a single green bean, hearing how billionaires manage their households is just annoying. But the weirdest thing happened when Brittany and Patrick welcomed their third baby, Golden Raye. They actually did some things that made me sit up and take notes. I know, I'm as shocked as you're.

The reality check of having enough love (but not enough hands)

When the news broke about the third mahomes baby, Brittany posted this little nugget of advice that said if you've more than one kiddo, you've to still make one-on-one time with each of them. And my first thought was, sure, let me just clone myself while I'm nursing round the clock and running a small business from my kitchen table.

But then I remembered what Dr. Miller at the pediatric clinic told me when I dragged my oldest in for his four-year well-check. He kind of murmured something about how a toddler's brain completely short-circuits when a new baby arrives, and that giving them dedicated, child-led play can supposedly rewire their little neural pathways to reduce jealousy. I'm pretty sure he said it lowers their cortisol or something, but honestly, all I heard was that if I don't give the older kids attention, they'll systematically destroy my house.

He was right. You just have to toss your phone in the laundry basket and stare at your toddler while they explain the entirely nonsensical plot of Paw Patrol for twenty straight minutes while the baby sleeps. That's it. That's the magic trick.

To pull this off without losing your mind, you need a safe place to dump the newborn while you're busy building magnet tiles with the big kids. Do yourself a favor and get the Wooden Baby Gym from Kianao. My mom kept trying to buy us those hideous plastic monstrosities that scream electronic farm animal noises at you, bless her heart. I finally told her no. This wooden one is actually pretty, it's about sixty bucks which is totally reasonable for something you use every single day, and the hanging animal toys give the baby just enough visual stimulation to keep them quiet while I convince the four-year-old that we don't put the dog's toys in the toilet. It's not a magical babysitter, but it buys me ten minutes of peace.

We need to talk about Aunt Linda and Facebook

Let's talk about the internet, because this is where my anxiety really spiraled with baby number three. When Golden was born, everyone was rabidly hunting for the patrick mahomes baby golden photos. You know what the family did? They hid her. Brittany literally posted a video of a covered stroller and said nobody was seeing the baby's face for a while.

Past Jess, please borrow this shiny spine. You don't owe the internet your baby. You don't owe your extended family a daily photo dump.

Dr. Miller was talking to me about internet safety at our last appointment, and he got this really grave look on his face when he mentioned AI and deepfakes and how easy it's for strangers to scrape baby photos off public profiles. I don't totally understand the technology, but it sounded terrifying enough to make me lock down all my accounts.

My grandma threw a massive fit about this. She said I was being ridiculous and that in her day, you showed off your babies. I had to look her dead in the eye and say that in her day, the creepiest thing that could happen was the mailman looking through the screen door, not a global network of weirdos downloading our family moments. Set the boundary now. It's going to cause a fight at Thanksgiving, and you just have to sit there eating your pecan pie while they complain about it.

Stop buying complicated gear for the Texas heat

By the time you get to baby number three, you realize that 90% of the baby industry is a total scam designed to make exhausted parents part with their money. You don't need a wipe warmer. You don't need tiny denim jeans for a newborn.

Do you know what you actually need? Clothes that won't make your kid break out in a heat rash when it's 102 degrees in August. I finally stopped buying those trendy synthetic waffle-knit outfits that look cute on Instagram but feel like wearing a plastic bag.

Just buy a stack of the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuits. They're sleeveless, they breathe, and they don't have those scratchy tags that make the baby scream. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you—they'll get stained. Within three seconds of putting the cream-colored one on, my baby managed to get an explosive diaper situation all the way up the back. But the fabric is so soft and it stretches perfectly over their giant little heads without a struggle. It's the only thing my youngest wore for the first four months of her life.

The pacifier hazard nobody warned us about

There was this photo of the Mahomes family using a WubbaNub—you know, those pacifiers that have a heavy stuffed animal attached to the end of them. Everyone was obsessing over how cute it was.

Look, I get the appeal when you're in the car and you want the pacifier to stay on their chest, but my pediatrician practically gave me a lecture on safe sleep regarding those things. He said that leaving a heavy plush toy attached to a pacifier in a crib is a massive suffocation risk because a tiny infant can't pull a stuffed animal off their own face if it flips over. He made me totally paranoid about it.

Instead of the plushie things, I just use the Panda Silicone Baby Teether when we're out and about. It's one solid piece of silicone, so there's nowhere for mold to hide, and it's completely safe. Is it going to instantly cure their teething pain? No. My oldest son once got mad at a similar teether and chucked it directly into my iced coffee. But it's cheap, it's non-toxic, and it gives them something safe to gnaw on that won't give me a panic attack when I look away for two seconds to check my Etsy dashboard.

Lowering the bar on toddler achievements

The last thing I want to tell you, past Jess, is about the pressure. You did this thing with our oldest where you tried to turn him into a baby genius. You bought the flashcards. You narrated every single trip to the grocery store like an unhinged tour guide. You stressed out when he wasn't stacking blocks by a specific week on an app.

I read an interview with Patrick Mahomes where he was talking about his kids and sports, and this guy—who's literally an elite, world-class athlete—was basically like, I'm just gonna let them be kids and not pressure them.

If the quarterback of the Chiefs isn't sweating his toddler's athletic milestones, why in the world are you crying in the bathroom because your kid won't learn his colors? Let them eat dirt. Let them watch an extra episode of Bluey so you can take a shower. The oldest is a complete cautionary tale of my first-time-mom anxiety. I hovered over him so much that now he expects me to entertain him 24/7. With the third baby, she rolls around on the rug while I pack shipping boxes, and she's hitting her milestones just fine.

You're going to be okay. The house is going to be a disaster for a solid year, your Etsy shop might have to go on vacation mode for a month, and you'll survive it.

Browse Kianao's wooden toys and teethers here when you're ready to stop buying plastic junk that lights up and gives you a headache.

You've got this. Sort of. Drink some water.

Ready to upgrade your baby gear to things that won't ruin your peace of mind or your living room aesthetic? Check out Kianao's full collection of sustainable, parent-approved items.

Messy questions you're probably asking yourself right now

How do you really manage the sibling jealousy with a new baby?

Honestly? Some days you don't. Some days the toddler just cries because the baby looked at their favorite truck. Dr. Miller told me to stop blaming the baby. Instead of saying "I can't pick you up right now, I'm feeding the baby," you're supposed to say "My hands are busy right now, but I'll hold you in five minutes." I forget to do it half the time, but when I remember, it genuinely stops the toddler from viewing the newborn as their mortal enemy.

Is it weird to tell my mother-in-law she can't post my kid on Facebook?

It feels incredibly awkward the first time you do it, but no, it's not weird. Our parents grew up in a totally different world. They think Facebook is just a digital scrapbook for their church friends. You have to be blunt. I literally just blamed our pediatrician and said "Our doctor advised us to keep the kids' faces off public social media for safety reasons." It shifted the blame off me and made it a medical boundary. They'll grumble, but they'll get over it.

Do I really need a baby gym or can I just lay them on a blanket?

You can absolutely just lay them on a blanket! My grandma raised four kids with nothing but a quilt on the floor. But personally, having the wooden gym just gives the baby something to focus on so they don't immediately start crying out of boredom. It buys me exactly enough time to make a cup of coffee and yell at the dog to get out of the trash.

How do you run a business from home with three kids under five?

You embrace the absolute chaos. I pack Etsy orders at 9 PM when everyone is finally asleep. I lowered my own expectations of what "clean" means. There are currently goldfish cracker crumbs embedded in my couch cushions that I've accepted as permanent fixtures of our home. You just survive the day, love your kids, and try again tomorrow.