Life With Twins - The First Two Weeks

Warning - if you are expecting twins, you may not want to read this right now... if you do, it will give you a dose of what life will be like when you bring your bundles of joy home!

Wow. Life has changed a lot. We no longer have time to do things that we want. Our lives literally revolve around the girls. Not that this came as a surprise to us -- we knew it would be like this. Taking care of two little helpless babies at once is so much harder than I ever could imagine. So, to give you an idea of how the past couple of weeks has been, here is our schedule (and I use the term schedule very loosely):

9:00 to 11:00 pm - Feed the girls. Once they are done eating we make sure they sit upright for at least 20 minutes. Abby has more of a problem with reflux then Emily does. If we don't sit them upright they will spit up. It seems that no matter what we do with Abby, she still spits up a bit -- but it is definitely worse if she doesn't sit up.

11:00 to 11:15 - Make night bottles. I make bottles for the 1:00 am, 5:00 am, 9:00 am and 1:00 pm feedings.

11:15 to whenever - I move the girls from their pack n' play downstairs to their bassinets upstairs. I pray that I can do it without making them cry. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If they cry, I try to put them in the bassinet anyway to see if they will fall back asleep; if they don't then I will pick them up and hold/soothe them until they fall asleep. A couple of times this didn't work and I realized they were hungry, so I will feed them a little until they fall asleep, hold them for 20 minutes, then put them into their bassinet and pray that they will stay asleep.

Once I get them into their bassinets, I pump before I go to bed myself.


1:00 to 3:00 am - Feed the girls. Geoff is doing this shift right now.

5:00 to 7:00 am - Feed the girls. I do this shift, since Geoff is already up and getting ready for work by this time. Sometime before or after this shift, I go downstairs to eat breakfast.

7:00 to 7:30 am - Pump

7:30 to 9:00 am - I try to go back to sleep right now after I am done with the 5 am feeding. I know that when I go back to work, this is a luxury I will have to learn to do without.

9:00 to 11:00 am - Bathe, dress and feed the girls. We are doing sponge baths right now every other day. On the non-bath day, this feeding goes a little quicker.

11 to 11:30 am - Pump

11:30 to 11:40 am - If I can, I sneak in a shower for myself. I roll their bassinets as close to the bathroom door as I can (they no longer will both fit in one bassinet), and then I poke my head out to check on them a few times during my shower.

11:40 to 12:00 pm - Get dressed, dry my hair, if I can check email (basically do things for myself while the girls sleep).

12:00 to 12:30 pm - Sneak downstairs quickly to wash bottles and quickly get lunch. I bring my lunch upstairs and eat it in the bedroom so I can be close to the girls (we don't have a baby monitor yet, so once we get one I can stay downstairs and rely on my monitor to tell me if they need me).

12:30 to 1:00 - Free time for me. Geoff tells me to nap, but 30 minutes of nap time -- is it worth it? I usually check email or scope the open jobs on Mon.ster or Car.eer Bui.lder.

1:00 to 3:00 pm - Feed the girls.

3:00 to 3:30 pm - Pump

3:30 pm - I move the girls downstairs to their pack n' play and get ready for the evening feedings. Geoff usually comes home around 3:30.

4:30 to 5:30 pm - Feed the girls. With both of us home, this feeding doesn't take as long as the others since we can both take a girl.

5:30 pm - Figure out what I'm making for dinner, then make it.

6:30-ish - Eat dinner and clean up. Oh-so fun.

7:30 pm - Pump

8:00 - Geoff gets ready for bed. I get ready for the 9:00 feeding and the cycle starts again.

So, this is my life right now. I don't have much time for much of anything else, so if you wonder where I am or why you aren't hearing from me as often as you used to -- I'm not ignoring you; I'm just a little busy. I know things will get easier, and I will learn to utilize my time a little better. Like today -- I tried for the first time to feed both girls at the same time. It got a little interesting when it came time to burp them, but I figured it out. There has to be a way to do it, and I'm determined to figure it out. Also, once we can get the girls to graduate to a faster nipple on their bottles, it won't take as long to feed them. I have tried a level 2 nipple on Abby a couple of times, but most of it ends up down her front -- so she's not quite ready for that yet. Plus, once we buy our bouncy seats, we won't have to hold them upright after feeding -- we can just put them in their bouncy seats. Since we didn't have a shower, there are quite a few things we still need to buy and now, we have a limited amount of money to get it all. But, we do need those bouncy seats, so they are next on our list.

I know I could gain back a little bit of time if I were actually breastfeeding the girls rather than pumping and feeding them by bottle. I tried to breastfeed them, but Abby didn't want to latch on (she was spoiled too much with bottles in the NICU and the milk from the breast came too slow for her). Emily latches well, but she tires out quicker, so it is easier and quicker to feed her by bottle too. Plus, if I breastfed, then Geoff would not be able to be included in the feedings, and I would never get any sleep. I am satisfied with the fact that they are still getting the benefits of my breast milk even though they are not getting it directly from the breast. I promised myself that I would attempt breastfeeding later once things settled down -- I'm not exactly sure when that will be...

So, if you are expecting twins and you actually read this whole post -- here is a tip. Do get help for your first few weeks at home with your twins. Everyone told us we needed to get help -- we didn't listen and didn't really try hard enough to get help. But unfortunately, we don't have a lot of resources to tap into since we don't have family who lives close to us. You will greatly benefit from having someone who can spend the night for a week or so to help you with night feedings. If you can't get overnight help have someone come to help during the day so you can sleep.

Again, don't get me wrong -- I am absolutely not complaining. These girls are still amazing and wonderful and I cannot stop thanking God for finally giving us a family -- but being a mommy to twins is definitely the hardest job I have ever held.