My husband has a job that changes with the school year and that meant when the Fall semester came along it was time to let go of his work from home days and embrace a few days a week when I’ll do bedtimes on my own.
And by let go I mean pry it out of my white-knuckle grasp.
And by embrace I mean form a 3 cup a day coffee habit and figure out how to solo assembly line feed-bath-cloth-rock-put down two wriggling little squirmballs.
Some might say, just line up a helper for those nights. Ah yes, the helper. The journey to accepting help is a post completely unto itself as is the concept of trying to do bedtime with two babies and a person who they don’t know/hasn’t put them to bed before. Let’s just say that is not a simple answer and it does not solve everything, especially for me.
I remember the first time I had to put both babies down for the night by myself. They were still very young, maybe 4 months old I think? I should back up and preface this by saying I have a little bit of a problem with anxiety when it comes to things I don’t want to do/don’t think I can do/am pretty sure are going to end badly. As soon as I knew I would be on my own I felt that knot in my stomach begin to grow. I had no idea how I was going to get through the evening.
And it was a disaster. There was screaming and crying and throwing up. And the babies were pretty upset, too. HA.
The thing with twins is you just can’t explain to a tiny baby why they have to wait. They don’t know there’s another one that needs her diaper changed, or has to get a bath too, or can’t be left in the other room. From the day they were born there have been these delays between everything we do with one of them because we have to deal with the other and they just don’t know why they keep getting put on hold.
I long for the day when I can say “wait right here, I have to go get your sister” and it communicates the reason why they are being left alone. They still may not like it but at least I won’t always get the sense that they think I am abandoning them right when they need me.
So where was I… oh yes, the first bedtime on my own was terrible. Made only slightly less so by the fact that we had a very consistent bedtime routine even at that young age and as long as I stuck to the script they were going to go to sleep.
Eventually.
Oh the crying. I’m not sure you ever really get used to the sound of two babies screaming over each other. Many times in their early days I would just sit own on the couch in the middle of the wailing and have myself a little cry too. It was the only thing I could do.
That, and text my husband. I remember texting him that they were both crying and wouldn’t drink their bottles and I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t do anything and the world was going to end and we were all going to die of starvation and sleep deprivation because they wouldn’t eat or sleep and where was he and could he please come home. It was not my first nor sadly my last irrational text message to that poor man.
I fed them their bottles simultaneously every morning. I have photographic evidence that this was my method.
It worked perfectly. Until that night. They squirmed and cried and choked and seemed to move further away from sleep by the minute. I just couldn’t make anything work that had always worked and being the only adult in the house just served to increase my panic. Just writing about it brings back that awful, sick, hopeless feeling.
But you know what happened… well, I just tried something else because I had to, didn’t I. I put Marlow in the swing with her pacifier and her blanket and turned it on and let her cry. I gathered up Soren, got him calmed down enough to take his bottle and he fell peacefully asleep. By the time I came back from putting him in bed, Marlow had fallen asleep in the swing! I gave her her bottle and popped her into bed. They had a few more rough moments but before J was home everything was done.
This wasn’t the last time I had to do this, and it wasn’t the worst either. There were nights when J was out of town and I had to do bedtime, bottles throughout the night and morning. There were times when they wouldn’t stop crying and wouldn’t sleep. There were times when my anxiety was so great that I lost my appetite and couldn’t sleep. But the thing I began to realize over time is that 1) it never lasts forever and 2) I can do things that I didn’t think I could.
So does it get easier now that they’re almost a year older? In some ways, yes. But I think what has changed the most is me. I have all these experiences of survival behind me. I have the failed experiments at certain routines. I have all the knowledge of my kids and their little quirks and what works best for each of them. And most of all, I don’t fear that I can’t do because I will do it. I have to. I’ve had to since they were born. I just do it and it’s not always pretty but it never lasts forever.
Today was a fantastic day. My kids napped well and ate well and traveled in the car so well. We skyped with Nana and Grandpa and had baths and bottles and into bed where there were no tears. Not one. Only hiccups.
It took a long time to get to this place, for all of us. And there is no way we ever EVER would have without my husband. But he can’t be here all the time, despite my personal preference. His work is important to him and has value. And I needed to learn how to do things at home on my own. So I can stop sending irrational text messages to my husband and free him up from feeling like he’s leaving me in an impossible situation.
Because believe it or not, I have discovered that solo assembly line feeding-bathing-clothing-rocking-putting down two wriggling little squirmballs is not only possible, but sometimes even very satisfying.
