One woman's perspective of (twin) parenting (and other thoughts about things)
So, we are 11 months in.
I write here about my reasons for writing blog posts, crucially including the bit where I try and force my future self to chill out about Things I Want To Write About Before I Forget Them.
Obviously, that is going well, because I have a heckin’ (we’re trialling this as a non-sweary swear in our household of evermore aware little ears) long list of Things To Write About.
And it’s stressing me the heck out.
So I have decided to cut myself some slack (go me) and briefly go through said list as a kind of mind dump. Because, honestly, most of these wouldn’t have made a full post anyway without a lot of padding. And nobody has time for padding. Apart from the kind that arises from cake consumption. That, I have time for.
Right then. In no particular order (other than a general forwards through time kind of vibe):
Developmental stuff with twins is awesome
First off, twin parenting is an amazing lesson in how not to stress about milestones. Because you have two very real examples in front of you showing you how babies will do everything In Their Own Sweet Goddam Time. Secondly, though, and I think this is true for other Twin Smols as well, we have noticed that time and time again, one Smol will pick up a new thing way more quickly because they’ve seen the other one do it. Twins are amazing.
Verbal diarrhoea is a real problem
In the early days, everyone says “talk to your babies! It’s how they learn!” Now, obviously this is true, but it takes a while to get used to doing this without feeling like an actual crazy lady. However, once I’d started? Oh sweet Lordy, I couldn’t stop. I still can’t. I just talk. All the time. Or give “mm-hmm” type responses to anything and everything happening around me. For a house of introverts (all of us apart from Smol T, who is the family spokesperson), this is Hard Work. I also communicate to my husband through the babies, a fact to which he was totally oblivious until I pointed it out the other day. “That’s right, Smol T! Maybe Daddy will get you a cup of water!” I do this, I think, because I’m talking so much all day that I really CBA to expend more energy also asking a direct question of my husband when I could just do more baby chatting and solve the problem that way. But if I’m honest, I realise that probably makes very little sense outside my head. As indicated by the fact that he didn’t have a clue this is what I’ve been doing this whole time.
Parenting is a steep learning curve in being OK with pluralism
My husband introduced me to the concept of pluralism a few years ago. As an idealist, it doesn’t come easily to me - the idea that I can simultaneously believe (and accept) two contrasting ideas. But parenting is all about pluralism - I am simultaneously loving it and also hating it a lot of the time. It is simultaneously really fun and really boring. My experience of parenting is simultaneously totally unique and entirely like everybody else’s. Getting used to dealing with that on a daily basis is a) hard and b) incredibly rewarding (that last bit isn’t an example, incidentally, because I generally believe those two go hand in hand…)
This whole experience is one huge incremental changing landscape
There are no big leaps that make you realise how far you’ve come/how well you’re doing (other than suddenly dropping a feed or a nap et c) - certainly not in the early days. Our first such leap was at 11 months (which, incidentally, is why I felt this was a good time to clear out the “to write” backlog because it felt like the end of an era). Other than that, it’s just tiny tiny changes every day. Which is why, and I mention this elsewhere, it is so infuriating to be told that it gets better. What kind of help is that?! It is simultaneously true and entirely useless. It encourages people to spend far too much precious energy thinking “ok, I’m sure it’s going to get suddenly and magically easier at <insert arbitrary age here>”. That way madness lies. Instead, and it took us a long time to realise this, you just have to take a moment every now and again to step back and go “huh, this is easier than it was last month”. We’ve done that a handful of times and, for me, it makes a huge difference. The addendum to this is that the bubble you find yourselves living in as new parents (made much more literal by the existence of COVID) just gets gradually bigger and you find yourself able and willing to do more and more as time goes on. Then when my husband went back to work, I did all of the same things all over again by myself. First time leaving the house, first time going somewhere in the car, first time taking the dog with us on a walk et c. I guess this just carries on as Smols get bigger, too. The takeaway for me is that Parenting is Constant Learning and Constant Adaptation.
Babies need feeding. All. The. Time. And I still forgot.
OK this is harder with two, for sure, but there is an amazing cartoon I saw, drawn by a dad, where they get given their new baby at hospital and the midwife says “now, they’ll need feeding every three hours” and the dad goes “what, even at night?” I wish I could remember where I saw it - if I do remember, I’ll link back here. Anyway, I, too, had this thought. It’s such an alien concept to eat during the night that it takes some time to get your head round it. And then even when I’d done that, there were many many moments in the first few months where the Smols were crying and I was thinking WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY ARE YOU CRYING and then realised that it had been 2 hours and 58 minutes since they were last fed. It’s like being surprised by PMT. I have had <insert large number here> periods in my life and yet I am still regularly side-swiped by the sweeping waves of depression that hit me at 3am every 28 days and make me convinced that I’m falling back down the well of some of my darker days. And then I go for a wee and the loo paper reminds me that I’m an idiot. But anyway, at some point, we got better at anticipating feeds and then there was less screaming and less self-guilt-tripping and I felt like I was NAILING IT.
Sleep cycles are magic
If there is one thing I wish I’d learnt about earlier (I didn’t really go in for the whole Reading Parenting Books thing), it’s sleep cycles. The second I learnt about sleep cycles, naps were basically Sorted. If you’re reading this and you have a tiny Smol, do yourself a favour, and educate yourself about sleep cycles and how to help your baby knit them together. Game. Changer.
Some days, all you do is survive
I feel like this is one of the most quoted ideas of early parenting, whilst simultaneously being one of the least taken on board. Because who wants to be seen to be just surviving in a world as judgemental as this one?! As new parents, we are simultaneously told that “if everybody is still alive, you are doing amazingly” and “if you are not doing this learning-through-play thing with your 3 month old 5 times a day, you are definitely scarring them for life”. Ugh. But survival is the key in the early days (especially with more than one baby), and I believe it is Truly OK to think that. There have been days (and there still are) where we have literally dragged ourselves through the day, with me counting down the minutes to the next nap (which are inevitably short because the Smols have not been tired out enough to sleep properly) and then bedtime, so that the day can just be over already. There, I’ve said it. If this is also you, know that you are not alone, and I really don’t think we are awful parents.
There are plenty more to add to this list, so I imagine I’m going to keep editing this post as I find/recall more of them…
And that’s it. A whistlestop tour of some of the random thoughts I have had in the last 11 months.
I feel better now. I think. I might treat myself to a biscuit.
xx