October 16, 2024

On Relatability, Twins, Planning and Doing Stuff

Today I went to a baby class with the twins.

In case you are curious, this is the first baby class I have attended with them.  I have been to three play groups with them, and I have taken them to soft play twice.  

For comparison, Isaac had two baby classes a week.  

The babies loved the class.  I was the only parent of twins there.  At the end of the class one of the mums asked me how the twins sleep.

"great" I said.  "because they have to"

Sleep is the number one twin question I get.  A colleague recently told me that he is so exhausted because his 18 month old and 3 year old get up multiple times a night each, and that they both need parents in their room to fall asleep.

I would be exhausted too.

I think, often, when people ask me "how do you do it" they are extrapolating from their situation.  "how do you get up 3 times a night for twins?" is a legit question. The answer is that I don't get up three times a night for twins.

Today a mom asked me how I got them to sleep well and I said "because I had so many kids, I couldn't always always attend to the twins, and sometimes there was crying, and sometimes there was longer crying than I would have liked, and now everyone sleeps really well.  I know that sort of sleep training went out of fashion in the early 2000's but without sleep I wouldn't be able to function"

Anyways, the conversation didn't go on much from there. Because how could it.

I started thinking that one thing which bothers me sometimes is that my current life is so unrelatable.  I have so many small children.  I have a decently big job, and I'm trying to move up quite quickly at the time when most people I know are taking it easy.  I am trying to keep my fitness up and enjoy my job and enjoy my kids.

We self catered a birthday party for 26 four year olds when the twins were 9 months old.

We went to the pumpkin patch with 4 kids.

We cook all our meals at home.

We recently redecorated and moved 4 of the 5 bedrooms in our house around.

We have a 5 bedroom house

Everything on this list isn't rocket science.  I am not a rocket scientist.  But I am also more and more aware that this is not how many people live, and especially not in my suburban enclave of South Wales.  I've found a small community of awesome blogging and podcasting people doing awesome blogging things which make me feel like it's OK to continue trying to be awesome.  But the more I do, the more I realize how disjointed I am from the local people I spend time with on a daily basis.

And also, my goal is not to make other people feel bad about their lives.  Having kids is hard! Having two kids is hard! Having a job is hard! Having a less flexible job than mine is hard! Trying to do sport is hard.  Working from home is hard.  Working in an office is hard.

And then there are things we don't do.  We live by our routines.  We don't stay out late. We don't go out in the evenings.  We don't do kids activities in the evenings.  We don't travel.

Even these decisions can be unrelatable.  Everyone in the UK travels.  This is a tiny rainy island and people were not meant to stay here 365 days of the year.  There's no reason we would have 5 weeks of holiday if it wasn't intended for us to leave this small rainy island.

I don't really have a great answer to this.  My life is ridiculous now.  The amount of planning it takes to function well is... a lot.  I also don't think there's an option for us to do less or take it easier.  We can either plan every meal... or we can not eat? There isn't any moderate parenting with so many young kids.  There is only 100% attention, 100% of the time.  I can see why even people with four kids often don't have them in five years.  

I don't have some grand point to end this, except that I guess it's okay to not be relatable, and I probably shouldn't worry about it.  And maybe I should try and figure out a better way to answer people when I'm asked about baby sleep habits.

14 comments:

  1. Rachael, sending hugs from your reader in the U.S. You are doing amazing! Your life will be getting easier by the day as the kids are getting older :) YOu are an amazing momma :)

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    1. Thank you Irena! I really appreciate the comment and support :-)

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  2. Hi Rachel! I relate so well to your post. I only have 2 kids but I work 40+ hrs a week (in an office) and my husband is a teacher who does a lot of coaching. Without very intentional planning, I would not do everything I want to do! I also know almost no one in real life that lives like I do so I have really found comfort/support in virtual friends. We also sleep trained early on because like you said, I NEED to sleep and cannot just take it easy after a bad night. A few rough nights are well worth the YEARS of good sleep my whole family gets (I have seen this play out with family and friends including my 3 year old nephew who will not go to sleep without someone laying next to him) The more you do the better organized you have to be to make it work. I wish you the best of luck getting through this time with small children. You are doing awesome and thank you for sharing your life and helping me feel like I’m the only one living a full life!

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    1. Thank you Kristin! I love hearing from readers that I don't know so well and your life sounds hectic and awesome too. I always find the default to "just do less" is a bit tricky for people who want to do more. I am glad you had good sleep with your kids, I think it's interesting how many people seem to not prioritizing sleep for ourselves and for our kids. I am glad you are also so organized and hopefully getting good sleep too :-)

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  3. One of my kids needed sleep training and the other didn't. I felt awful about it because it is SO hard to hear your baby fuss, but after a few weeks of middle-of-the-night fussing, she became THE BEST sleeper. My son was pretty good from the get-go. I can count on two hands the number of times I generally get woken up in the span of a year and it's exclusively when they're sick. Oddly (knock on wood), neither of my kids has ever had nightmare issues. I had them all the time as a kid and remember my dad getting up and giving me some water and tucking me back in.

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    1. Thank you Elisabeth! I know all babies and kids are so different. Lilah was a truely awful sleeper untill she was about 8 months old and then we had an absolutely awful sleep training experience but in about a week she was sleeping and I was sleeping and everyone was so much happier. The twins didn't have any "formal" sleep training but we just couldn't be as responsive to them and there was just more crying because we had so much on our plates and now they are really great sleepers.

      I am glad you don't have nightmare issues with kids! I used to have nightmares sometimes but I can't remember how old I was so I'm not sure when to expect them.

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  4. I would say that your life is very unrelatable to me, as a (very) part-time freelancer and mom with one middle school aged kid living in the US. Your life is so different than mine! But I LOVE reading about it and I admire you so much and am so impressed by how efficient and structured you are about making sure you fit in all the things that need fitting in. Truly aspirational.

    That's what's so amazing about blogging, right? That you can meet all these people who are living such totally different lives from you and you can still find enough common ground to enjoy one another. I realize that doesn't help you with the people in your offline life who react in a way that makes you feel weird or unrelatable, but it's all I have. You are a rockstar.

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    1. Thank you! I guess your life is rather unrelatable to me but i love reading your blog and everything you do. But I think the way you think about life is relatable to me, so maybe that's the relatability? Also, you love a taco and I love a taco.

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  5. My life is also very different than yours, and I love reading about your life! I live in a 2 bedroom townhouse in California, and we live with our 28 year old daughter. We also did sleep training, because we were barely functioning, we were so tired. She woke up SO MANY times a night. My mom said the solution was to sleep with her in our bed, which is what she did with us. That is fine for people who choose that, but I really needed my own space at night!

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    1. I know co-sleeping is a whole thing and sometimes it's totally necessary but for us cosleeping was not the solution with my daughter. Or actually it was when she was very little but then it made things way worse when she was 7-8 months old. I can count on one hand the number of times one of the twins slept in my bed... I do need my own space as well. We had a cosleeper cot but I sleep so much better without babies in my room. Sleep is very tricky and very personal!

      I really enjoy reading about your so cal life and your family and pet adventures. I think 20's is probably my most unrelatable age at the moment so I love reading about your family.

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  6. Wow I feel like I have a lot to say about this even though I have no kids and have obviously never had to go through what you are going through! I can always relate it back to something though, and in this case it's solo travel! 😁 I often get questions about how I can travel on my own and I get asked don't I want company and have I ever been married or had kids... And I feel like some of the people who ask are curious and others pity me, as if they think that I want to have company but can't find it, or wanted to have kids but can't. In reality I've traveled with others and I end up doing all the work and planning and also then I have to be around people all the time and I don't like it that much! So I've kind of gotten used to people not understanding or even some of them judging or pitying me. C'est la vie.

    People are always going to judge you. You have to just do your thing mama. And I'm so glad that there is this little corner of the world where you can find people who are more understanding or supportive of your journey. I'll be here, whatever you do!

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    1. I love when you have a lot to say! And I totally agree on solo travelling. When I went backpacking I loved being alone because I felt like every couple and friend group was having fights or struggles and having to compromise and I was just free to do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it. It was awesome. When people said "I don't know how you backpack alone" I always wanted to say "I don't know how you backpack not alone!"

      Thanks for your suport from afar, I love how you're able to relate my twin life to other things I enjoy (travel) and intend to do (ultra marathons)... it's nice to not view this stage of my life in isolation!

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  7. Even with 2 kids, I am a stickler for routines. Someone with 2 older children asked me if we were going to trick or treat and I almost laughed in response because good heavens no, that would disrupt the evening routine and it would not be worth the consequences. - Kat

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    1. We are probably doing trick or treating for the first time this year, because Isaac is 6. In previous years people asked if we were going out and I thought "leave the house after 4:30pm? NO thank you!"

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