Winning@twinning- home alone night time challenge
So with my partner away and 2 poorly babies to look after, I pray for a reasonable night, hoping before I go to sleep that it’s a night that I can manage without too much challenge! Even 14 months on, when I’m home alone, I brace myself for the worse and, needless to say I fear it. In turn making it harder to get to sleep, when in fact you need to get it while you can. Tonight being one of those nights, I’m sitting here writing this blog, at 4.12 am, wide awake , lying in bed with aching arms after 1.5 hours of solid walking & rocking after both babies woke at the same time in the middle of the night. I’m wide awake because I have had to keep my wits about me, trying to manage 2 babies who need comforting, deploying every strategy and when 1 fails, quickly coming up with another.
For me rocking R & N to sleep has always been important, as a twin mommy it’s really challenging to get that precious cuddle time, how do you cuddle 2 babies at once when one wants to be doing one thing and the other, something completely different . The other challenge of course, is that there is no time for cuddles, you simply don’t sit down. So for me, that bedtime rocking process was a must from the start, no doubt it’s made a rod for my own back but personally I wouldn’t change it for the world. The negative is, at night time my babies won’t self settle. Anyway back to tonight, they are ill, so I dose them up with Calpol, then I quickly assess who is the sleepiest and therefore who I can get back to sleep the quickest and guess what, I got it wrong. After an hour of nearly getting my little man off and just as I was getting there, my little girl would start chatting and of course he would respond, or she would wiggle out of her chair. I have the Fisher Price toddlers chairs, my life saver, but unless you have gro bags that allow straps to go through, you can’t fasten them in. I have those gro bags, I have every mod con, however last nights projectile vomitting episode from little man, means that his is in the wash and not yet dry .
I can’t tell you how many times I thought I’d cry, but I kept telling myself that the worse that could happen is we all end up watching to all night. Anyway, I decide to swap over, this strategy isn’t working, let’s try another, beside which, I am guilt ridden rocking my little man in front of little lady, while she just sits there in the dark and of course all sorts of things go through your mind at that time in the morning, will she feel rejected because he’s getting all the rocking, will she think I prefer him to get and any other irrational thoughts you can imagine! I pick little lady up, those few seconds of freedom in my arms, is enough time to get rid of the pins and needles I now have in my hand. Bless her, it takes me 15 mins and she’s fast asleep….why didn’t I start with her ?, then little man only takes another 15 mins, making it seem so easy now.
Me of course I am wired, I have spent an hour and a half using all my wits so that I didn’t break down and cry or get frustrated with them, so I write this blog, knowing that I have less than 2 hours before get up time. So, eventually I drift off to sleep and then I hear a stirring noise from the nursery, I get out of bed like a greyhound out of the traps, I cant let one disturb the other otherwise I’ll be back to square one. No panic needed, I only needed to put a dummy in. All is calm until 15 minutes later there is another noise from the nursey, with my grey hound legs on I fly into the nursery, just another dummy required.
I better close my computer now, its now 4.55am and I’ll be up for the day in just over an hour. Sleep well all you mommies and daddies out there
xx