Talk about hit the ground running. I thought I had a busy life when I had no children and worked a full time job. Then I had a baby. I look back at life with no children and laugh at the way I thought. Then I had another child. Two children, quite close together. Then a big break. Another child, then another. Ok, now I’m understanding busy.  

But then, I had twins. Now parents of triplets, quads, quints and more would read about having twins and scoff. I only know one woman who’s had triplets. They are sixteen now and she looks perfectly normal. Perfectly sane. She assures me it’s taken her sixteen years to master the art of appearing ‘all together’. Parents of multiples change at their babies birth. ‘A new normal’ is how it has to be. 

I knew how to breastfeed one baby. I had to learn to tandem feed. I had to learn about pumping from both breasts, at the same time. I knew all about full term babies. I had to learn about babies born a month early. Mine were healthy, they just didn’t want to feed. I had to wake up every three hours all day and all night, feed them both, then feed them some expressed breast milk via a syringe. Get them back to sleep, get myself back to sleep….. then do it all again three hours from when I had first started. This meant that IF both babies went immediately back to sleep and then they slept, we would get about an hour off before waking to start feeding again. It virtually never happened. This also meant that ‘sleepyhead’ next to me in the bed was awake too. Curse the newborn phase. Times two.   

My husband helped. Tonnes and tonnes. Have I said “Thankyou Geoffrey” lately? I absolutely could have done it on my own, I’m like that. BUT there is NO way I would have wanted too. We had some really tough nights. Where we would literally get no sleep, or maybe half an hour. I remember thinking one day that I was really scared about going down our stairs to the laundry as I was so tired I could not walk straight. I was wobbling so much and my heart was racing and I was just terrified I would fall over, fall down the stairs. No one would know for hours that I had fallen. I had to just be super careful of putting one foot in front of the other. I was also very aware, night after night that my husband had to get up and go to work. While co-workers care that you sleep badly during the first few months of new babies, you are still expected to work properly. It’s unacceptable to lose your temper or cry if you are a man and are just exhausted. Then you walk through the door in the evening and it’s all ahead of you again. Thankyou Geoffrey  

We decided very early on to ‘maintain our sense of humour’. During the endless hours of syringe feeding our tiny babies we would watch tv. Info-mercials or re-runs of goodness knows what are all that are on at those wee small hours. Plus when your hands are both occupied and you are doing whatever it takes to get ‘your’ baby to sleep, that channel stays put regardless of what comes on. There’s no way you’ll chance waking that baby  just to change the channel. We almost became the proud owners of a ‘Versi- Cutter’. An amazing tool that we almost needed so we could make garden ornaments and other various tin snipped products for our home. Like we would ever have the time for handy crafts again anyway. We also almost bought a ‘Flavour Wave Oven’. That Mr T sure knows his way around a kitchen these days. I could hardly resist his manner when he was telling me I had to have one. I guess the only problem he had selling me one was that watching a roast being cooked at 3am was stomach turning at the very least. 

My husband still helps heaps….. and heaps. He’s a wonderful, hands on Dad. He has never shied away form a dirty diaper or a bath or a cuddle or a crazed request from me to please just take the babies for a walk so I can…… cook dinner, fold the washing, shower, watch a movie, do my nails….. I’m joking about the last two, I’d never do that! 

We sleep a whole lot more these days. Our babies go to bed at about 7pm and sleep till about 6.30am. That’s not to say that most nights someone under the age of six comes in for something. Plus now we are starting to have the teens stay out late so we need to collect them or are woken by them being dropped back. Sleep is for the weak right?? 

If you had said to me a year ago that we would have them both sleeping so well I probably wouldn’t have believed you. I’m glad they do. Sleep deprivation is nasty. It creeps up on you and all of a sudden you are snippy and irritated at every little thing. Whoever says ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ has not had children, or a home to run. I don’t have staff. 

Although sometimes I’d quite like a wife. 

When I become a Grandmother, and I hope I do many times over, I plan, in consultation with the parents, of course, to take the baby for walks…. for hours. Have the baby for a sleepover, often. Take the baby to my house to play and it can nap there too so Mummy can recharge. I’ll clean the house, bring in groceries, make a cup of tea. Buy a massage voucher and attach a babysitting voucher to it so she can actually go. I’ll do ALL these things if I’m allowed to… and more. Sleep deprived parents need support.  

I can say categorically I have never been so tired in my life than when those babies were young. There were some hard, hard times. But then day breaks and they are just delightful. So you simply reset your mental clock and get on with your day. Bliss. The “New Normal” is weirdly normal now. I’m exhausted nearly all of the time right now. So is my husband. I crave sleep, I crave quiet times, I crave time with my husband, but neither of us would change what we have going on here. It’s not for everyone but it’s definitely for us. Most of the time