Inspired by Birchies “day in the life posts” I present, a night in the life of 7 week old twins:
6:30pm Give babies their final feed. burp, change nappies, put on white noise... settle to sleep.
7:15 - Go downstairs to start cleaning up from dinner and a quick tidy for the day. We had soup, bread and cheese for dinner and found out Isaac likes tomato soup! Yay. Also, I love our dishwasher.
7:30 - Babies are already up again so Andy goes upstairs to settle.
7:45 - I finish downstairs and brush teeth. Check on Andy who has started the evening bottle. Help with nappy changes and burps until babies almost asleep
8:15 - head upstairs to guest bed and fall asleep super quick.
12:30 - Andy comes to get me. Feed babies and burp and rock back to sleep.
1:45 babies are still awake (it’s very hard to settle two babies at once) so I wake up Andy for help. Andy comes to help settle
2:30 Andy puts an asleep Nora in the cot. Audrey is still upset so I continue soothing. Andy goes back to bed
3:00 I get both twins asleep in their cot.
3:30 both babies wake up - it's time for their next feed. Fun fact - baby feeds are timed from the start of one feed to the start of the next and 3 hours is a pretty age appropriate gap but pretty brutal too. I eat a mini cliff peanut bar to keep awake while feeding (and because they are delicious). I have peanut butter ones and macadamia nut ones. Peppermint are my favourite but they have caffeine, which I don't need at 3:30am.
4:15 Finish burps, nappy changes, and settle babies back in their cot. I fall asleep quickly and have weird dreams.
4:45 Audrey is awake. She needs a #2 but can’t make it happen. She is very distressed, and I do understand. It's a rough situation. I eat a natures valley granola bar while soothing her because food is the next best thing to sleep.
5:15 - I get Audrey back to sleep. I have very weird dreams until...
6:00 - Isaac comes in my room and says he had an accident. He climbs in my bed and I say “shhh” hoping he will fall asleep.
6:10 - Lilah comes in my room looking for Isaac. I take them both back to their room. I can’t find any wet oh Isaac’s bed so it may have been a dream? I tell both of them they need to sleep until 6:20 - I can hear Audrey crying again next door
6:30 - I get Audrey settled on me. I don’t seep with babies on me so I watch some ugly betty. I also know Isaac and Lilah will be awake any minute so no point trying to sleep again now/
6:45 - Andy is awake and I give him a rundown of my night and take some aspirin for the headache I unsurprisingly developed overnight.
7:00 - I decide to write a blog post. Audrey is fast asleep on me. Nora is huffing and puffing in the cot. And at 7:30 it’s time to wake up the twins and start our day.
The darkest nights are pretty dark. I keep an phone note called “the night is dark and full of terrors” where I write down nights like last night. That’s not every night for me.. that was worse than recent… but I will be very happy to be on the other side of this baby phase.
Also, how did I not watch Ugly Betty before? That show is great. I love so many of the cast! I know there’s better English than that sentence but forgive me, I am tired.
Here’s the night gremlins looking less gremlin:
Nicole would say There will be a time after this. But, wow, Rachel. This is so intense. They are darling little girls, but you must be exhausted to your very core.
ReplyDeleteSending hugs and wishes for some extra sleep on Christmas <3
You are RIGHT IN IT, Rachel. My goodness. Love your "full of terrors" record keeping. And hooray for Ugly Betty for helping your power through this tough phase -- that WILL end but feels endless.
ReplyDeleteOof. That is rough.
ReplyDeleteThere is a parenting podcast I used to listen to that had a tagline "the days are long but the years are short." When Althea was a baby we would say "the days are long but the years are longer." It's not so bad this time but nights are still just awful in the fourth trimester.
Omg "the days are long but the nights are longer." 🤦🏼♀️ Also pretty tired over here.
DeleteWe used to say “the days are long but the years are 365 times as long” when in this bit with Isaac. I liked both versions of yours.
DeleteHaha I love that! Very accurate!
DeleteWell believe it or not I had a good time getting to hang out with you on your "night of terror", even though I am pretty sure that after just one night I would be cowering under the blankets and sobbing.
ReplyDeleteIt's so weird that my husband and I just sleep alone now without any little people coming to visit us in the middle of the night. It's boring.