Comfort vs. Cry It Out

You can read a hundred articles on sleep training, but you shouldn't do that. It would drive you bonkers. There is no consensus. There are articles written by psychologists about the lasting harm of sleep training, and there are articles written by psychologists refuting them. There are organizations devoted to natural parenting and teaching soothing techniques, and there are pediatricians who offer step by step sleep training instructions. Just like most things with parenting, no one really knows what they're doing. 

In an ideal world, every baby would be rocked to sleep, and if that baby woke up in the middle of the night, he would be rocked back to sleep. Even if it took hours. Even if that baby needed to be held all night. That baby would et all the comfort he wanted. Futhermore, these tasks would not always be the mom's responsibility. Grandparents and aunts and uncles would be around to help. 

But we don't live in that world. We live miles away from our parents. And we have to get up in the morning for work. And our parents are still working. And our aunts and uncles are all working miles away from us. We live as little nuclear families who are utterly worn out from trying to get our babies to go to sleep. 

I'm not going to tell you what's best, because no one knows. I'm just going to tell you what works for my family. 

When the boys started sleeping in the crib, I nursed them to sleep one at a time. This worked most of the time, because I usually had another adult around who could watch Miss Two and the other baby while I was nursing. 

When helpful adults were around less frequently, I had to get creative. I would put one baby in a portacrib and put Miss Two in her room so I could nurse a baby to sleep. Ah but my smart readers, you can already see that this is not the optimal solution. Sure a toddler in her room can't climb on the kitchen counter and play with the knives, but she can still take her panties off and poop on the floor right in front of the door so that when you open said door, poop gets smeared everywhere. Plus whichever baby is in the portacrib waiting for his turn to nurse to sleep is also screaming bloody murder. This means that you are rushing to put the first baby to sleep. And you end up moving him to the crib before he is deeply asleep. And he wakes up crying. But you've already started nursing the second baby. And now no one is sleeping and there's poop on the floor. 

I did that nonsense for months. I really didn't want to give up the sweetness of nursing my babies to sleep. But now we have a better system. 

Now when it is naptime or bedtime, and my boys are rubbing their eyes, I put them both in the crib at the same time. I say, "Good night sweet babies!" or "Take a nice nap!" while I rub their backs for a moment. Then I leave the room and watch them on the camera for ten minutes. Usually they will fuss for a little while and then Little Guy will suck his thumb and go to sleep, and Big Guy will bury his face in his little monkey-blankie-toy-thing and go to sleep. 

I go back into the nursery if: 

• the fussing lasts longer than ten minutes
• the fussing becomes full on crying
• one of them gets a limb stuck between the bars of the crib

When I go back in, if they are both awake, I will tandem nurse them and then put them back in the crib and start over. If only one of them is awake, I might nurse him to sleep, or I might leave him in the crib and rub his back until he goes to sleep. 

You might be thinking to yourself, It makes sense to do this at nap times when you are home alone with the kids, but at bedtime, isn't your husband usually home? Can't he watch two kids while you nurse a baby to sleep? Yes. We did this for a long time. But it is not optimal. You still run the risk of having to listen to one baby cry downstairs while you are nursing his brother to sleep, which leads to the rushing of the first baby's nursing session, and the moving to the crib before he is deeply asleep, and the waking up and crying, etc. Before you know it, you've spent an hour and a half taking turns nursing one baby back to half-sleep while the other baby cries in the crib. 

Plus, consistency is good for kids. Nap times and bedtime should be similar. So I stopped all that nonsense. I put my kids in the crib at the same time. No preferential treatment. No hour and half long bedtimes. No neglecting the toddler in the middle of the day. 

When the boys wake up in the middle of the night, I still nurse them back to sleep. And I soak up all those sweet snuggles.

This is what works for us. It took 8 months for us to figure it out. I hope you and your family figure it out sooner, and I hope you all get some sleep. 

I Can See the Finish Line!

We are two thirds of the way through with the year of three under three! The twins are 8 months old, and my daughter is two-and-a-half. This is the sweet spot. Let me give you a snapshot of life in the McGuire house.

Abilities
The boys can sit up, crawl, and pull up to a standing position. Big Guy can easily transition back and forth between these positions, but Little Guy still needs some help. They love to sit outside in their wagon and just look around or follow me and Husband all over the house.

They also love to pull up on our ottoman. We have a storage ottoman that we use as a toy chest. The tops of the ottoman are cushions on one side and trays on the other (Kind of like this), so we put baby toys on the trays, and the boys enjoy standing there and playing. New abilities and new ways for them to be entertained means everyone is happier.

The only downside to their mobility is that I can no longer load/unload the dishwasher when they are awake. They climb all over that janx.

Miss Two is almost entirely potty trained now. She has accidents maybe twice a week. The most inconvenient ones are in the carseat. I need to get some piddle pads or something. But most of the time she tells us when she needs to use the potty. 

She's also started to dress herself. It's pretty cute. Basically everything is backward. But we should never do for kids what they believe they can do for themselves. So I usually let her dress herself, and I pretend that it is saving us time.

Nursing
We can tandem nurse again! We went through a very sad period of time (~4 to 7 months old) where the boys were too big for the breast friend nursing pillow, and too small to just sit next to me and nurse. I tried a regular boppy pillow, and sometimes they would tandem nurse on that. Usually though, I nursed one while the other cried. It was pitiful. 

But now! At the glorious 8 month mark! The boys can hold themselves up, and we happily tandem nurse on the couch or on the daybed in their nursery at night. It's lovely. I spend much less time nursing. 

Sleeping
Everyone's favorite baby topic. When oh when will they sleep through the night!?!? 

I keep my boys in their crib from 7pm to 6:30 or 7 am. Little Guy usually wakes up twice to nurse. Big Guy usually wakes up once. Some nights it's scattered, and I feel like I'm constantly putting a baby back to sleep. Other nights they wake up at the same time, and we have a pleasant 15 minute nursing session before they go back in the crib. 

I wish I was getting longer chunks of sleep, but I think my boys still need these night time feedings. They are not very good at eating solids, yet.

Solids
I'm not a fan of rice cereal and jar food. As much as possible, I wanted to do baby-led-solids. Essentially, I wanted to give them the same foods we were eating. Sometimes they do really well with this. They can eat green beans and watermelon like little pros. Usually, though, more food ends up on the floor than in their bellies. This is fine when I'm around, because I can just nurse them after meals. 

Husband likes jar food. It's messy and fun and adorable, and it's a sure-fire way to fill their bellies. The boys will take bottles, but they never seem to drink much from a bottle. So when Husband has the kids by himself, he spoon feeds them the mushy stuff. 

The Mom Life
All of the time I'm saving by tandem nursing is now spent cleaning floors and high-chairs. Gotta maintain a safe environment for the little crawlers. Fortunately they enjoy watching me vacuum, and Miss Two likes to swiffer the kitchen floor.

I do find time to exercise. Husband is supportive of this endeavor. He likes a happy wife. It helps that I usually make time to exercise when the kids are sleeping. Jogging during the Saturday morning nap and then coming home to waffles is exactly what I want every weekend to look like. I have another mom friend who goes to the gym in the morning before her husband goes to work. I like the idea of this, but her kids sleep through the night whereas mine do not. Alas. Maybe in 2016 that can be my routine. 

I also find time to write and read and spend time with my lady friends. I even started working part-time (usually only 6 hours per week) as an in-home counselor. All of this is possible because of my supportive husband. He thinks it's only fair, since I watch the kids while he works, and sometimes work sends him out of town. Plus I try not to schedule my things for times when he would rather be watching football. 

I also schedule time for myself and Husband to be alone together. This is essential. If I were out doing my own thing all the time and ignoring him, he would not be happy. So we have a date night just about every other week while my lovely sister watches the kids. 

Life is so beautiful right now. The chaos of the newborn age is a distant memory. There's more chaos in our future, though. I know it. When these boys start walking, my whole life will change. But maybe by then they'll also be sleeping? Pretty please? 

A Few of my Favorite Things

Getting out of the house with no other adult help is tricky if you have a small child. It's near impossible if you have more than one small child. But it's worth it! Think about it. While you are transporting the kids somewhere, no one is climbing on you! When you get to a place, the kids are looking around at all the new interesting things or playing with other kids, and you don't have to be their source of entertainment! Oh and sometimes there are other adults around to talk to. It's pretty great. 

You don't have to be stuck at home. Here are some of the things that helped me get out of the house with Miss Two and the Baby Guys. 

1. The Maxpedition Kodiak Gearslinger 

This is my diaper bag. It's expensive, and it might look like overkill, but this bag is the single best purchase I ever made. It won't slide off your shoulders when you're bending down to pick up kids or tie shoes, because it only has the one across-your-chest strap. In fact, it's made so that you don't even have to take the bag off to access all your stuff. You can sling the bag around to the front of your body to get a wipe for that snot bubble that's about to pop. And no more fishing around for keys! There's a convenient hook on the strap for that. 

This bag has more awesome features than I could possibly list. And I know it's going to last me a long time, because my husband bought one four years ago for wearing while he rides his motorcycle. He doesn't ride the motorcycle everyday, but he does use the bag everyday, and his still looks brand new. 

2. The Triple Wagon 

My daughter never was particularly fond of the stroller. She would sometimes tolerate it, but many trips to the park ended with me pushing an empty stroller while carrying a toddler. What she did love to ride in, and what it seems to me that all children want to ride in, was a red wagon that her grandparents had. She would sit in that wagon as long as they would let her, and she was happy to ride around the neighborhood in it. 

So when I found out I was pregnant with the twins, I knew a double or triple stroller was not for us. I asked for a triple wagon instead. (Thanks Babo and Dado!) The boys weren't able to use it until they could sit up on their own, of course, but now we use it just about every day. The kids pass toys around, Miss Two gives her brothers kisses, and they generally are entertained by each other and their surroundings while they are safely strapped in to the wagon. I can also fold the handle underneath the body and toss it into the bag of my van easy peasy. 

One last anecdote about the wagon: The boys are so happy to just sit in it, that we were able to do a spontaneous ice-cream trip as a family. Miss Two does not eat ice-cream quickly. We sat at a picnic table with the boys playing happily in the wagon next to us for an hour. My husband was in shock. 

3. A Picnic Blanket

Before the boys were mobile, the picnic blanket was my favorite baby item. The guys did tummy time in the shade while Miss Two played on the playground. It was peaceful and lovely and not at all something I thought about when I only had one kid. One baby can be picked up and carried around easily. When you have two babies, you need a home base for baby placement. Hence, picnic blanket. 

4. ARCpark 

This isn't a baby gear item. This is a huge, wonderful, entirely wheelchair accessible park. Wheelchair accessible means wagon accessible, my friends! I can follow Miss Two anywhere she wants to go, even to the top of the treehouse, pulling the boys along behind me in the wagon. ARCpark is my new happy place.

I know it will get trickier when all of my kids want to run in different directions. I'll probably spend a lot of time in the backyard until I figure out the logistics of taking three toddlers somewhere. Until then, I'm making the most of this phase of my life and getting out of the house with the kids as often as I can. 

3 Under 3 and an Appendectomy

We had good rhythm going. The twins were taking two naps a day, and we usually made it out of the house in between. Dinner was at 5, bath time at 6, twin bed time at 7, and toddler bedtime at 8. My mom was about to visit, and I was eager for her to see how well we were doing. 

And then I had to have emergency surgery. UGH! 

Life was chaos again. I was bedridden, and my mother was bringing the babies to me when they needed to nurse. No one was sleeping. We had to call in all the reinforcements. It was like the weeks after the twins were born except worse because I lacked the joy (and oxytocin) of having newborns. 

I'm still trying to look back on the mess and decipher what I was supposed to learn from it all, but here are a few things I can say:

1. Surgeons are bad at recovery estimates. 

We've all seen Grey's Anatomy. Surgeons think appendectomies are routine, run of the mill, surgeries that will keep you from doing your normal thing for at most 3 days. Maybe for a young, healthy person, that's true. For a nursing mother of twins who never sleeps more than 4 hours at a time, that's utter nonsense. When your body has to divide resources between healing you and producing milk, it's going to take more than 3 days to recover from abdominal surgery. When you get kicked in the stomach while you're nursing every couple of hours, it's going to take longer than 3 days to recover from abdominal surgery. 

Twelve days is how long it actually took. I thought I was better on day eight, so I went to the grocery store. That was a mistake. I was in agony after an hour of slowly browsing the store. So surgeons and other care providers, take note. Give better recovery estimates! My mom had to stay with me for two weeks. Not everyone has a mom that can do that. 

2. Build yourself a village.

I'm so grateful for all the help I received. People brought us food and held my babies and played with my toddler and sat by my bed and made me laugh. One generous friend even donated breastmilk, because I was having a supply issue. (I love you forever!) But no one would have known how to help me if I hadn't asked them for specific things. Don't be afraid to ask! People like to be helpful.

I also wouldn't have had anyone to ask if I hadn't already been building relationships with other moms. When I was a new mom, I was terrified of other moms. I thought everyone would judge me for being so young. (I was in college when I got pregnant with my first. Yes, she was planned.) I thought all the other moms would have lost all their baby weight already, and their hair would always be perfect. I isolated myself, and I was lonely. 

Now I am part of a mom group, and I can't recommend it enough. (Shout out to RAMOM!) No one has ever commented about my age or my weight or my hair. We all just support each other. It's beautiful. 

3. Keep a stash of breastmilk! 

Right before this appendectomy, one of the Ramoms was talking about her overflowing freezer. Another mom responded, "Keep it! You could get the flu, and it could wipe out your supply." Unfortunately, this little nugget of wisdom came too late for me. I had just donated a hundred ounces to another mom. I only had 8 ounces in the freezer when I went to the ER. 

I'm not saying never donate. I'm just saying don't donate ALL of it. Keep an emergency stash. Because exclusively breastfed babies don't tend to take to formula easily. 

4. Supply issues suck. 

I don't think I've ever been so stressed about anything in my life as I was about my useless, empty boobs. And it didn't happen right away. It was a week after the surgery. I thought I was in the clear, when bam! Measly little milk supply. It was infuriating and gut-wrenching and terrifying. You're trying to nurse, and your baby is just screaming because nothing is coming out. It's a nightmare. It's what every mother dreads. 

So please be sympathetic to moms who have to supplement with formula. Chances are, the events leading to that decision were torture for that mom. 

Now I will leave you with a funny anecdote. When I was in the midst of this wretched time, I called a good friend and whined to her about it. This is her making fun of me: "Does the sun shine? WILL I EVER BE HAPPY AGAIN?!"   

Can We All Stop Hating On Our Spouses, Please?

Moms, I'm talking to you. Every time we hang out, someone's gotta bring up something stupid their spouse did so we can all laugh. Inevitably someone else has a story that can top hers, and before you know it we've spent ten minutes talking about how useless our spouses are.

Look, I get it. Some of these anecdotes are genuinely funny. And we all need to vent to each other about our mom problems. That's why we hang out. But I need to say something about the spouse bashing phenomenon: If you are unhappy about the amount of time your spouse spends on childcare and chores, you are partly to blame.

First time moms, you ladies deserve some leeway here. You're new at this. You didn't know what to expect. You didn't know how much help you would need from your spouse and how often you would have to ask for it.

If you're on your second or third kid with this man, and he's still not the helpful spouse you want him to be, stop trashing him to your mom friends and go have a conversation with him about it. A real conversation, not a series of resentful remarks.

Here’s the thing, we ALL suck at parenting sometimes. We were all pretty clueless when we started on this journey. For example, I knew diddly squat about breastfeeding when I had my first kid. My attitude was that my mom would show me how to do it. I had an oversupply and leaked constantly for months without thinking anything of it. I could’ve been pumping/storing/donating that janx! What a dodo bird I was!

I remember, too, that my husband had his stupid moments. When our first kid was a couple months old, I asked him to do bath-time. His response was, “I don’t know how.” Seriously?  

OK so we’re both dumb sometimes. We’ve established that. Do you know what doesn’t help us become better? Spouse-bashing.

Here are two things you can do instead:

1. Manage your expectations.

Divvy up the chores and childcare tasks. Ask for set times to do your own thing. Recognize that these are goals to strive for rather than demands that must be met. If he came home and asked, “Where’s dinner?”, you’d be livid. What makes you think it’s fair to ask, “Why haven’t you done the dishes?”

There are going to be days when you have to do all of it because he’s working late or he’s happily playing video games all evening with his friends. But there are also going to be days when he has to do all of it because you are recovering from an appendectomy or you’re wedding dress shopping with your bestie.

The only way it works is if you’re being fair to each other. So be clear about what you want, but realize that it won’t always happen for you.

2. Reward the good.

Sometimes Thank You is more important than I Love You. It’s the best defense against resentment. It’s also one of the best ways to reinforce a behavior that you’d like to see more often.

When we were first married, we used to argue about the dishes all the time. I was becoming a nag, and I hated it!  But saith Shakespeare, “Your gentleness shall force more than your force move me to gentleness.” So I gave up nagging about the dishes and starting saying thank you instead. I thank him every time he does the dishes. Lo and behold! He does the dishes almost every day now!

As a SAHM, it’s super easy to resent your working spouse. He gets to herp-a-derp on the internet sometimes and use the bathroom alone and eat lunch without sharing with a toddler! Work is a glorious place!! And that resentment can become a boiling rage when your working spouse has to work late. But my sweet husband knows this. When he works late, he shakes off the stress at the door and comes in with nothing but gratitude for me. He says, “Thank you for not being mad at me for working late. Thank you for not blowing up my phone and constantly asking when I’m going to be home. You’re so good to me.” And it makes me want to be the wife he thinks I am.

I’m not trying to say that I’m better than you or that my marriage/spouse is better than yours. I’m trying to say that it’s your marriage, yo. You have some influence over it. If you’re not happy, work toward making it better.

My last piece of advice for today: If you want to tell a story that starts with, “I love my husband, but…” Don’t tell that story. Pick a different story. Because seriously, how hurt would you be if you found out he was telling stories like that about you to his friends?

Spouse-bashing sucks. Can we all please stop doing it?

3 Under 3 FAQs

The twins were born in January, the day before my daughter's second birthday. So 2015 is the year of 3 under 3. July is half over, and that means the year of 3 under 3 is half over!! I can't believe we've all survived this long. How have we survived? That's essentially what everyone is asking, and what I will now attempt to answer with a nice list of FAQs.

Are you getting any sleep?

More than I was before, but still less than I'd prefer. The twins have slept through the night a handful of times, but they have not become consistent about it. Miss Two wakes up in the middle of the night once or twice a week and either gets in bed with us or asks me to get in bed with her. Occasionally I wake up feeling refreshed. Usually, after a night spent putting three kids back to sleep one at a time, I am left wishing someone would tuck me in at 7am. 

Are the twins sharing a crib?

Yes, but not for much longer. Big Guy woke up at 4am the other day and decided it was play time, much to Little Guy's dismay. Crib sharing worked well until now, but it's time to be a two crib household. 

Are the twins on the same schedule?

Some twin moms swear that getting their twins on the same schedule is the only way to stay sane. But the only twin moms I've heard of that were successful at it were moms of identical twins. My fraternal boys have vastly different sleep preferences. BG wants two naps during the day and nighttime sleep from 6 to 6. LG wants three naps a day and nighttime sleep from 9 to 9. This is not easy to reconcile, but we do have a schedule now that accommodates us all pretty well. Wake up at 7am, morning nap at 9am, afternoon nap at 1pm (BG usually sleeps all afternoon. LG usually wakes up before 2pm.), LG's second afternoon nap before 4pm, bedtime at 7pm. I used to really have to work for this routine, but now this is just what happens most of the time without much effort on my part. 

Does your toddler still take a nap?

Nope. Toddler nap time used to be necessary. Miss Two used to become a cranky mess by 5pm if she hadn't had a nap. She also used to fall asleep instantly if you could just get her to sit still at 2pm. But naps became more and more of a battle. The last straw happened on a day that she had taken a long afternoon nap. We struggled with her for more than an hour that night to go to sleep. At around 9pm, we thought she was finally out for the night, so we spent some spouse time on the front porch. We came back inside at 9:30pm to find our toddler happily playing in the kitchen. Her nice long afternoon nap had ruined her bedtime! So I got rid of naps, and I haven't regretted it. She doesn't behave badly in the late afternoon, and she is asleep by 7:30pm every night now. However, I should add that my toddler is not necessarily typical. If you are about to be living the 3 under 3 life, and you are reading this thinking, 'But I NEED that afternoon nap time!' don't lose hope! Maybe your toddler(s) will be the kind that take naps until they are five years old. 

So do you ever have time for yourself? / How do you find time to write, exercise, grocery shop, clean, and generally do anything except be a parent? 

This is the glory of an early bedtime for all the kids. From 7pm until about 10:30pm (when LG usually wants his first feeding of the night), I am my own person. I can read or write or run on the treadmill or go to the store or take a walk with a friend. I can have my sister come over so my husband and I can have a date. The trouble is deciding what to do on any given evening. Date nights are easy, because we just do them whenever my sister is available to come over. But if I don't have a particular task in mind for the evening, I run the risk of spending that precious time dawdling on my phone or daydreaming about all the things I could potentially be accomplishing (I could organize the toys! Or sew up the hole in that old blanket! Or shop for halloween costumes on Etsy!). Don't dawdle that time away! Just pick a task and do it! 

How do you manage all three of them at once?

This is a tricky question, because it's hard to know what you're really asking. If you're asking how I keep them all alive, the answer is that I trap two of them in safe places while I parent the third. If you're asking how I keep them all happy, the answer is that I don't. There is frequently at least one kid crying. I do my best to meet their needs efficiently, but sometimes I fail. For example, one morning I decided to nurse Little Guy while I left Big Guy playing on the floor in front of me. BG didn't like this plan, and he was becoming distressed. I begged Miss Two to sing to him, but she had her baby doll and her nursing pillow, and she was sitting next to me on the couch nursing her baby, too. She was as immobilized as I was. So we nursed our babies while BG cried louder and louder until he finally gave up and went to sleep on the floor. It was pitiful. I didn't leave him there, of course. I finished up with LG and promptly fed BG. Then I put them both to sleep in their crib. But for those few minutes, I felt like a terrible mom. My point is, I can't manage it all. Not all the time. But I also can't succumb to the guilt of those parenting failures. I have to just take it as a learning moment and keep going, because chances are someone just pooped and needs me to wipe their butt. I don't have time to wallow in mom guilt. 

There are many more questions I could try to answer, but the ones I get asked most frequently relate to sleep and time-management. If you have other questions about the 3 under 3 life, please ask! I'll try to address them in future posts. 

5 Months into the Year of 3 under 3

I'm getting really good at this three under three thing. 

We go places! How? Well it's tricky, but I plan it out. I take them to storytimes in libraries where the storytime happens in a separate room from which Miss Two cannot easily escape. I pick storytimes that do not offer a craft afterward because I can't help Miss Two do a craft while I entertain the twins. I choose parks that are fenced in, and I park near the entrance. When I'm going somewhere with more wide open spaces like Maymont or Lewis Ginter, I bring along my sister or a friend to help wrangle all the kids. Getting out of the house with all the kids takes serious preparation, but now that I've got the hang of it, I am actually early to things!  

We're getting more sleep! Sometimes my little 5-month-old baby guys even sleep through the night! What did I do on those magical nights? Nothing out of the ordinary. The boys share a crib, and we put them to bed between 6pm and 7pm, whenever they start to look tired. Little Guy sweetly sucks his thumb until he falls asleep. Big Guy might fuss for a few minutes, but it usually doesn't take him long to fall asleep either. This is the same thing we do at nap times with the exception that they don't always nap together. It's still difficult to predict exactly when or how long they are going to nap. But bedtime almost always happens together. Anyway, on the magical nights that they both slept all night, I went in to their room and gave them each a dream feed before I went to bed. Then we all slept until 6am! (I know I'm lucky. Please don't hate me.) 

They poop less! As newborns, the twins pooped every single time they ate! It was absurd how many diapers and wipes we were going through. Add in a toddler who was still in diapers and it was just too much poop. Now the boys poop every three days or so. And Miss Two is getting better at pooping in the potty! Granted, Big Guy's poops are almost always poosplosions, but they don't even phase me anymore. I've become quite efficient at cleaning up poosplosions. 

We're about to be in a sweet spot where Miss Two will be totally potty trained, and the twins will be sitting up. I will be able to put them all in the triple wagon and take them to the park. It'll be so great. Then they'll start crawling, and I'll have a whole new host of challenges. But it's all good. Some days I wake up without any patience, and I go to sleep knowing that I could've done better. But those days are fewer and farther between. Most days I go to sleep feeling like I really accomplished something. 

I hope all you other parents reading this are feeling good about your accomplishments, too. Sometimes I read too many parenting articles and mommy war blogs, and I feel like no matter what I do I'm failing. But that's a vicious lie. We're all just doing the best we can. We can't get it right all the time. 

And now, here's a joke I think about all the time:

What it Entails to Leave the Kids for a Weekend

I was recently a bridesmaid in a wedding. When normal people are going to be in a wedding, they think about what to wear (heels or flats?), where to stay (Hilton or Hampton?), how to get there (car or plane?), etc. When a nursing mother of three under three is going to be in a wedding, she thinks about milk.

I had 150 fluid ounces of milk in the freezer for the boys to drink while I was gone. I’d been pumping and storing milk every night for weeks. I also had to take my pump with me that weekend, find a way to pump every three hours, and find a place to store all that milk. I felt pretty prepared for this task. I made sure the hotel had a mini fridge with a freezer section, and I brought a cooler with me.

With my milk concerns resolved, I thought about the kids. I didn’t want to leave all three of them with my husband. That just wouldn’t be fair. Thawing frozen milk and making bottles is not as easy as just whipping out a boob. It’s difficult to be alone with all three of the kids. Plus, he deserved a break just as much as I did. So one kid for one set of grandparents, one kid for the other set, and one kid for my husband. But that meant packing separately for two kids.

The Thursday before the wedding I made three lists in my mind: the things to pack for Little Guy, the things to pack for Miss Two, and the things to pack for myself. It was only then that I realized, I never bought black flats for this wedding. I never figured out how I wanted to do my hair. I don’t even own any decent red lipstick. I laughed about how my priorities have changed since having kids, and I thought, ‘Oh well, I guess I’m wearing my old black pumps.’

The Friday before the wedding I was a total train wreck. I kept thinking I would have time to pack when the kids were napping, but they just wouldn’t nap at the same time! I begged my sister to come over and help with the kids so I could get things done. She was helpful, but there was only so much she could do. I’m still the one who feeds and provides most of the comfort to the twins. But I rushed around in between feedings and got most of the stuff staged in the dining room and ready to be taken to the car. My husband met up with his parents that evening and gave them Miss Two. I didn’t even give her a proper goodbye. I think I said something like, “Do you have your sippy cup?” That night when the boys went to bed, I cried into a cup of tea in part because of the stress of the day and in part because of how badly I didn’t want to be away from my babies.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early and put everything in the car before the babies woke up. Then I nursed them both, said goodbye to Big Guy, and got on the road with Little Guy. I drove an hour and a half north to drop him off with my parents before picking up my friend and fellow bridesmaid and heading four hours southwest to the hotel. On Monday morning I’d have to go back to my parents to get Little Guy again before heading home. So. Much. Driving.

The weekend itself was mostly great. The rehearsal dinner was fun and being alone with my bestie was wonderful and the wedding was beautiful. This is a mommy blog, though, so I want to talk about some mommy-specific issues that arise when you leave your babies all weekend. 

1. You won’t actually get to sleep. You might think you will get some rest because you won’t have the babies to wake you up in the middle of the night, but if you don’t wake up at 3 am to pump, you will be woken up at 5 am by your aching, leaking breasts. 

2. You will actually want that fancy, expensive, hospital-grade pump. My pump is over two years old, and it’s just a middle-of-the-road Lansinoh, so of course it decided to crap out on me the weekend when I most needed it. I ended up hand-expressing a lot of milk and then going to Walmart to get a hand pump (and some decent red lipstick!). The hand pump is slower than the electric pump, but whatever. It works.

3. You will be asked approximately 72 times if you are allowed to drink alcohol while lactating. Even if you only have two drinks throughout the course of the reception. 

4. You will stay out longer than you intended. Things always take longer than you anticipate. Staying out means staying away from your pump, and that means full, aching, rock-hard breasts. Owwwwwwww.

5. Your spouse will send you adorable pictures of your baby, and when you coo over them you leak all over yourself. For the love of dryness, bring nipple pads and wear something that allows you to quickly change out those pads when they get soggy. I was an idiot and did neither of those things. My dress had a high-collared, lace neckline, and I couldn’t reach my leaky nips without unzipping the stupid thing. I also did not bring nipple pads, so I was just shoving paper towels in my cleavage. I don’t know if you know this, but paper towels are not actually helpful in this situation. They just disintegrate and leave paper towel residue all over you. Super sexy. 

6. The hatch of your minivan will decide that staying open is more fun than being closed. This will happen at night when you just want to go back to the hotel and pump and go to bed. There are a surprisingly large number of reasons why this might happen. You will spend an hour figuring out which of the many things that might have happened is the one that actually happened in this instance. Eventually you will get it fixed, though, because you are a mom, and moms get stuff done.  

So obviously the weekend was a huge success...

Ok in all seriousness, it was a great weekend. It was difficult, but it was worth it. Leaving my babies makes me so anxious, and a bunch of stupid, frustrating things happened. But being with my old friends was so so good. I would definitely do it again. I would just do it better next time.


P.S. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge in this post how utterly grateful I am to my loving, supportive family. It was such a blessing to know that all my kids were getting individual attention and quality bonding time. Thanks guys!

4 Months In

We are a third of the way through with the year of three under three. (Say that sentence three times fast!) To mark the occasion, I thought I'd offer a snapshot of our lives at the moment.

It's not completely chaotic anymore! I was trying to maintain a schedule, but schedules are stupid. I was never able to make it work, mostly because I don't wake up sleeping babies and I do let them comfort nurse. Oh well. We have fallen into a bit of a routine now. The boys take a short morning nap, a longer midday nap, and a short evening nap. I try to use the morning nap to play with Miss Two, the midday nap to make lunch for Miss Two and put her down for a nap, and the evening nap to make dinner. Usually the days do not work out that perfectly, but they aren't utter disasters either.

Nursing 4-month-old twins is both easier and more difficult than nursing newborn twins for different reasons. I definitely can't feed them at the same time anymore. They're too big for the nursing pillow. Often I am nursing one while the other is hungrily crying. It's emotionally draining. I've heard of people nursing one while bottle feeding the other. I might start doing something like that. Still, nursing has gotten easier in the sense that the boys have really gotten the hang of it, and they are efficient now. 

Nursing is also a little easier because Miss Two is not as jealous of the activity. She used to climb all over me while I was trying to nurse. Now she just does her own thing. I'm so glad that phase passed so quickly. 

I'm getting a little more sleep! Big Guy sleeps through the night sometimes. It's amazing. Little Guy not so much, but last night he only woke up twice. That's not so bad. They got too big for the cradle next to my bed, so we moved them to a crib in the nursery. They don't sleep in the crib together every night. Often they both fall asleep in separate swings, and we let them be. 

Leaving the house with the twins is tricky. At home we often nurse on a bed, and if they fall asleep nursing I move them to a crib or a swing. Or if they are tired but not hungry, I let them fuss in the swing for a few minutes until they fall asleep. So when we go places without the swing and the crib and a bed on which to nurse them, I feel completely at a loss as to how to comfort them. Usually other people help me by walking around with a baby until he falls asleep.

I did go to the park with all the kids one day! My sweet sister came along and chased after Miss Two while the boys and I played on a picnic blanket. It was lovely. I hope I can do many more days like that. We all need to get out more, but I think we will now that the first four months of the wildest year of my life are over. 

Your Mom is a Person

Maybe you already knew that. I didn't. I thought my mom existed solely for the sake of her children. I thought she was supposed to be unwaveringly patient with us and give us all of her attention. She should read with us more and pray with us before bed. And how dare she ever get her feelings hurt and lash out at us! She's the mom! She's supposed to remain calm and rational at all times, no matter how hurtful we're being. I listed out all my mom's failures, and I promised myself I'd be better.

Then I had a baby. And I didn't suddenly lose all my emotions and desires and dreams. I didn't suddenly become someone who loves changing diapers and reading Good Night Moon a hundred times in a row. I didn't suddenly master patience and emotion regulation.

If anything, sleep deprivation makes me less patient. And being wallowed on by a toddler for a solid 30 minutes makes me want to play violent video games. And I swear if you put your foot in your baby brother's face one more time I'll...!!

I'll what? I'll give up on this parenting thing because I clearly can't keep my cool. No, that wouldn't be fair to my husband.

I have a vague memory from when I was very young. My little sister was maybe 3 or 4. She was bothering my mom while mom was doing something on the computer. At first mom tried to let my sister sit in her lap, but my sister couldn't sit still. My mom got fed up with the wallowing and put her down. My sister threw a fit. Then she got a whooping. I think it was an, I'll-give-you-something-to-cry-about whooping.

As a kid, I didn't understand this interaction. It seemed horribly unfair. My sister just wanted some attention. Why couldn't mom stop what she was doing and pay attention to her kid?

Now I get it. My mom spent every day, all day long being a mom. She was desperate for the little moments where she could pull weeds or shovel snow or do anything that made her feel like a person again, not only a mother. In that situation, mom just wanted a few minutes to do something on the computer without a kid wallowing on her. Is that too much to ask for? I'm not saying I condone whoopings. I'm saying I now better understand my mother.

I'm still a person. I still want an identity separate from motherhood. I still want to be heard and understood and respected. I want to achieve things. I want to be forgiven when I mess up.

So my mother's day request for all you lovely readers is to give up your unrealistic expectations of perfection for your mom. Recognize her personhood and love her for it.

Response to 'Why I Won't Let My Wife Quit Her Job'

I just read this essay by Sean Dunbar entitled Why I Won't Let My Wife Quit Her Job. His reason is that he wants "better" for his wife. He's afraid that staying at home with their two kids would make her "stagnant". He's afraid that she would begin to feel inferior to him and grow to resent him for being the breadwinner. He's afraid that their daughter will grow up thinking that when she has kids, she'll have to stay home with them. 

He says, "I don't want to pay for our daughter's college tuition, just to see her walk away and let a man take care of her." 

Ok I already have a lot of problems with this. Those of you who know me well can probably see where I'm headed. But the thing I have the biggest problem with is the following statement:

"I do wonder a lot whether I'm a bad man for pushing her to [work] even though she says she wants to stay home with the kids." 

In short, Mr.Dunbar, yes. That is a bad thing to do. It's bad to make your spouse feel like they have to work even though they want to stay home. Being married means making decisions together. It means respecting each other's personal and professional desires and dreams. You shouldn't "let" or "not let" her do anything, just as she shouldn't have that much control over you. It's about mutual respect and support. It's about deciding together what's best for you as individuals and for the family as a whole. 

That said, let's move on to three of the flaws in your actual argument about staying at home.

1. You don't get to say, "I respect women who find being a stay-at-home mother to be fulfilling and satisfying," when you are also saying that you want "better" for your own wife and daughter. The former statement is disingenuous. If you truly respected those mothers, you would acknowledge that sometimes staying home is the best choice. I think what you actually mean is that you recognize it's not your place to tell other mothers how to live their lives. That's not respect; it's tolerance. 

2. Staying home with your kids is not equivalent to stagnating. Yes, some employers might view it that way, but that doesn't make it true. That makes it a misconception that we should all be actively fighting to discredit. I could talk about how to stay updated on the current research in your field. I could talk about all the valuable skills I am practicing everyday. I could mention that a college education is broad, and any job I accepted would require me to brush up on certain things I learned anyway, whether I'd been out of the workforce for five weeks or five years. But I think the more important discussion is what does stagnation mean to you? Is a job the only way to combat stagnation? I don't think so. I think most people strive to grow and develop and self-actualize every day, whether they are employed or not. 

3. Staying home with your kids is not setting a bad example of dependency on a man for your daughter. A SAHM does not "let men take care of her". We're a family. We all take care of each other. My husband takes care of the financial needs while I take care of the children. When our daughter was younger and we had two mortgages to worry about, we both worked. I took care of our daughter during the day, while my husband worked. Then he took care of our daughter in the evening while I worked. We also both take care of each other's emotional needs. See how that goes? 

I desperately want to believe that Mr. Dunbar is misrepresenting the situation. I hope he and his wife made the decision together, and I hope that she is happy and fulfilled. I hope that if his daughter finished college and then decided to stay home with her children, he wouldn't be disappointed about all the money he had just wasted on her education. I really truly want to believe that he can learn to be proud of his daughter's decisions and supportive of his wife. But the sad fact is, he might entirely stand by every word he wrote. And the thousands of people who shared his article on Facebook probably agree with him, too. 

To end on a positive note, here is an article entitled Why I Don't Regret Being A Stay-At-Home Mom about a wife, mother, and lawyer who is definitely NOT stagnating, stuck in an unhappy marriage, or setting a bad example for her kids. Enjoy!

How Do You Make Enough Milk for Two Babies?

At my Richmond Area Mom’s of Multiples (Ramom) meeting the other night, a fellow twin mom said, “I wish someone had told me that I might not produce enough milk.” Statements like this are not uncommon, and we spend a solid portion of every meeting talking about nursing. It’s obviously something that every mother is concerned about. I’m not a lactation consultant, but having nursed my daughter for 15 months and nursing twins for more than three months now, I think there is something I can add to the conversation. Plus people have specifically asked me questions about nursing, and if one person is wondering, chances are a bunch of people are wondering. So here it goes.

“How do you make enough milk for two babies?”

Most of the literature on human lactation will tell you that it’s about supply and demand. The more you nurse/pump, the more milk you will produce. They tell you to let your babies nurse whenever they want to. Don’t give them pacifiers. Let them comfort nurse instead. And if you leave your babies for more than a couple hours, bring your pump so you can express your milk every two to three hours.

Ok supply and demand. Simple and sensible, right? Well the reality is more complicated than that. I'm going to break this problem down into some of it's components.

When Your Milk Comes In

When your babies are born, what you have to offer is colostrum, not milk. If you deliver in a hospital, you'll quickly get sick of all the nurses and doctors asking you if your milk has come in, yet. This early stage of lactation is NOT controlled by supply and demand. Rather it is triggered by the birth of the placenta and is driven by hormones. If a mother chooses not to nurse, her milk will still come in. This is important to know. Usually your milk comes in within a couple of days, but if it takes five days for your milk to come in, that is NOT your fault! 

The Biology of Lactation (Get Ready for Some Jargon!)

Once lactation is established it is driven by supply and demand. Prolactin is the hormone that stimulates milk production. In order to do that, it has to attach to receptor sites on milk-producing cells (lactocytes). When these cells are full, the receptor sites get stretched and misshapen, so prolactin can't attach properly (Read: Full boob = less milk production). So the key to stimulating more milk production is to empty those lactocytes often! 

Frequent and Effective Expression

Nursing often isn't always enough. If you want to boost your milk production, your babies have to be emptying (or almost emptying) your boobs when they nurse. If you've got a singleton, offer both boobs at each feeding. (If you have twins, you're doing that anyway.) You may want to do some breast compression while you're nursing/pumping to increase the milk transfer. If your babies aren't emptying your breasts during a feeding, you may want to pump immediately afterward. 

Storage Capacity 

No, that's not a euphemism for boob size. A large-chested woman can still have a small milk storage capacity. However, a small storage capacity does not mean an inability to effectively nurse. It just means your boobs will get full more often, and therefore you'll have to nurse/pump more often than your large-storage-capacity sisters. If this applies to you and you want to boost your milk supply, you may want to include pumping sessions between feedings.

What You Eat

Some women eat lactogenic foods or take supplements to increase their milk supply. I've never noticed a change in my milk production after eating anything specific, so I can't vouch for this. If it works for you, then great!

Your Support System

For me, this is the key. It's all well and good to say, "Nurse often, and if that's not working, pump more!" But there are only so many hours in the day. While you're glued to the pump, who is going to take care of your toddler and wash all the burp cloths? When my twins were a week old, I posted this as my Facebook status:

Postpartumly crying about how great it is to have my whole family nearby. I spend so much of my day nursing, but I CAN do that right now because my family is taking care of everything else for me. Clean laundry appears in my room and food is brought to my table.

My mom stayed with me for eight weeks! Some new mothers have to go back to work before eight weeks is up. And then they have to find a way to pump and store breastmilk at work! I can't even imagine.

I have so many feels for women who don't produce enough milk. When I think about my ability to feed my babies, I don't feel superior. I feel lucky. I know too many women who did everything right, but the stars just didn't align for them.

Bottom Line: You might not produce enough milk, but lactation is complicated. Please please please don't feel guilty about it. 

Revised Schedule

So I've been trying to establish a schedule. The schedule I chose was based on a book called What to Do When You're Having Two. It is a somewhat helpful book, but this schedule is not working for me at all, mainly because it calls for two nap times: a morning nap at 9am and an afternoon nap at 1pm. My boys, however, are ready for their morning nap before 9am, and they are ready for their afternoon nap before 1pm. 

I just read a lovely article by Christy Brunton, author of Sleep Training for the Exhausted Mom. In the article, she mentions the two-hour wake rule which is that babies cannot be awake for more than two hours without needing a nap. Ah ha! There is a universal law to describe the phenomenon I've been experiencing! Brunton also mentions that four month old babies should take three naps a day. With that in mind, here is my revised schedule:

6am - Twin Feeding
7am - Breakfast with Miss Two
8am - Twin Feeding and Nap
9am - Morning Snack with Miss Two
10am - Twin Feeding
11am - Lunch with Miss Two
12pm - Twin Feeding and Nap
1pm - Miss Two's Nap
2pm - ME TIME
3pm - Twin Feeding
4pm - Miss Two's Outside Time
5pm - Twin Feeding and Nap
6pm - Family Dinner
7pm - Twin Bathtime
8pm - Twin Feeding and Bedtime for everyone

Altogether that's seven twin feedings. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. The key is flexibility of course. If the twins wake up at 9am then they will want to nap again by 11am, and that's fine. I'm not going to try to keep them awake for more than two hours. That's my new rule. 

Wish me luck with my new schedule!

Establish a Schedule or Embrace the Chaos?

The twins are three months old now, and Big Guy is even sleeping through the night (WOOHOO!) which means it might be possible to get them on a schedule. Up ‘till now, I’ve been embracing the chaos (or at least trying to). I’ve said to myself, this is what my life is right now, and I’ve rolled with it. Newborns should be able to nurse on command. They should be snuggled as much as they want. When you agree with these sentiments and you have twins, it means you are basically constantly nursing and/or snuggling a baby.

A schedule would be nice. A schedule might mean more sleep for everyone at night. It might mean more alone time for me in the afternoons while all the kids are napping. It might mean more chores get done or more puzzles with Miss Two!

Here’s the thing though, I’m not very good at getting babies to adhere to a schedule. Most schedules require sleep training (leaving the baby in the crib to cry it out), and I don’t feel comfortable sleep training my three-month-olds. Most schedules have set feeding times, but when a sweet little baby nuzzles me for some comfort nursing, I always give in. Most schedules for twins assume you’re feeding them at the same time, but Big Guy is getting too big for the nursing pillow. I’ve started feeding them separately.

Still, I really want to give this scheduling thing a shot! So here is what I’m going to attempt:

6am - Wake up and breathe and brush your teeth before you have to feed the twins

7am - Breakfast with Miss Two

8am - Twin Tummy Time

9am - Feed the twins and put them back to sleep

10am - Chores and/or puzzle time with Miss Two

11am - Feed the Twins

12pm - Lunch with Miss Two

1pm - Afternoon nap for all the kids

2 to 4 - ME TIME!!

4pm - Feed the twins

5pm - Family dinner

6pm - Bath Time

7pm - Feed the twins and put them back to sleep

8pm - Miss Two’s bedtime

What do you think? Is it feasible? I started it last night with baths at 6pm, and it worked well for the twins. They were both deeply asleep before Miss Two’s 8pm bedtime. This morning was a different story, though. Little Guy woke up and nursed at 5am, so right off the bat, he and Big Guy were on different feeding schedules. It was a bit chaotic, but I did manage to get both of them to sleep at the same time for a little while. It allowed Miss Two and I to play with her alphabet puzzle.

Miss Two was also very generous and cooperative with nap time. She got in bed all by herself at 12:30 and was asleep by 1. It was pretty great. Big Guy fell asleep around 12:15, and Little Guy fell asleep around 1:15. So the kids are not quite on the same afternoon nap schedule yet, but we’re getting there.

It’ll be interesting to see if I can get this schedule to work or if I’ll have to make adjustments. I’ll keep you guys posted.