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. 

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. 

Get Those Twins on the Same Schedule

With twins, the most often repeated advice is to get them on the same schedule. Yes, absolutely! Definitely do this! And once you have done it, come show me how you did it, you sage, you magician, you baby whisperer!

They say, "If one of them wakes up, wake the other one up also." Ah of course, it's the only way to keep them together. But here's the problem: One of them is always awake. And pooping, I might add.

I exaggerate. It's not as bad as all that. One glorious night they woke up together for all three of the night time feedings. And they fell back to sleep together within an hour after each feeding. Yes a most glorious night it was! And I woke up refreshed the next day with my six hours of broken sleep! And I took my daughter to the park!

Last night, however, was not a glorious night. It was the kind of night where you lay down only to get back up ten minutes later, where you and your spouse sigh at each other grumpily, where your toddler is awake for a solid hour just saying, "Lay down mommy" over and over again. I want to, Darling. I want to so bad.

The sunrise brought with it a raging headache that caffeine is powerless against. It is noon as I write this post. My boys have been asleep at the same time for exactly 13 minutes so far today.