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Newborn twins and a toddler? Forget the advice, this sh*t is all about survival
Wrong. New babies plus older children mean no sleep.
Okay so not many of us ever managed to ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ with our firstborn, but dammit, I wish I bloody had done. There was so much opportunity!
They might not sleep much at night, but they sleep SHIT loads during the day, and I wasted it first time round showing off baby to countless visitors, and trying to prove we were totally in control (which of course, we weren’t). Oh, and watching baby sleep. What a bloody mistake that was!
Second
4am. I shit you not.
4am (I have to keep repeating it, to believe it) was the earliest we managed to get them to sleep for about three weeks. Even for like 10 minutes. It felt like a pain worse than death. How can they even stay awake that long, when in the daytime
This would have all been fine and dandy had we been able to ‘sleep when the baby sleeps”, of course, during the day. Yes alright, effing Gina Ford/Supernanny/Miriam Stoppard, we’ll try that shall we?
Except Toddler wanders in at 6.30am and wants to be full-on entertained. ALL DAY. Slight flaw in the ’expert’s’ advice right there.
Our first night home was pretty horrific if I’m honest with you. We’d done the guilt-ridden ‘birthday celebrations’ (aka a supermarket caterpillar cake) for
The Other Half had even made a card for CBeebies. It went down really well as you can see…
The most unmemorable birthday ever over and done with, normal bedtime resumed for Toddler whilst his new little bros dozed away nicely.
We managed to eat (The Other Half is our chef) and even watch a bit of tele with the newest additions to our family snoozing happily in their bouncers at our feet. It was all going rather too well.
Take them
Dummies. Where the f**k did I put the dummies
12 hours out of hospital and these clearly faulty newborns were being gagged with little bits of sanity-saving rubber. It’s all about survival, right? That’s if you call a total of two hours broken sleep a night survival.
The nights were frustrating as we tried separate moses baskets, both in a cot, in bed with us, rolled up blanket moulds, tilting mattresses, sleeping bags, swaddling blankets, white noise (not that it could be heard over Terry) and letting
Until one night, we went rogue, and brought the bouncers upstairs. The bouncers?! How very dare we? Yes we know babies aren’t supposed to sleep in their bouncers at night. But there was actually a bit of peace and quiet, albeit limited.
Advice and regulations went out the window that night (and still does on a daily basis if I’m honest). Did I mention, it’s all
Night time was one thing, but days with two newborns and a just two-year-old were an absolute haze. I remember a friend with twins telling me she spent the first six months sat on the settee feeding her
So the very next day we sucked it up and just got on with it. No sitting around cooing over babies in this house. Babies? What babies? Oh you mean those two little bundles of blankets and babygrows basically being left to get on with it in their (sanity-saving) bouncers?
Both the health visitor and midwife did
Day four and we had our first ‘fun’ family trip out to Saltram, our local National Trust property where I
I say fun – I sat under a tree feeding The Twins inspecting my ever-increasing swollen feet (WTF??) whilst The Other Half entertained Toddler. That was our first encounter of all the attention twins attract from randoms. But more of that another time.
It was during these first few days that midwives turned up at our house to find us out and about. They’d then phone and ask why I wasn’t home for them to do certain health checks. It was like I was being told off. Why do they just turn
Ah well, it made a change from McDonald’s fries…