One woman's perspective of (twin) parenting (and other thoughts about things)
I have written a few things recently about struggling with not having time to write. Specifically, about how that means I’m missing out on documenting Big Important Moments and/or reflecting on personal development and learning opportunities.
So, with that in mind, I thought I’d take this sliver of time (at 9.30pm on a Sunday evening with only half of my face working how it’s meant to) to reflect on what has been a Truly Horrific Week (and a bit), AKA our First Big Cold.
To put this in context, the Smols are 15 months old. This is a ridiculous time to be experiencing our first big cold. COVID has a lot to answer for because we’ve basically been hiding in our house this whole time - I only hope that their immune systems will catch up quickly… (Note to self: let them eat mud.)
Anyway, we knew this day would come, we just didn’t know when.
And then we looked round a couple of nurseries.
BOOM.
Snot everywhere. Nurseries truly are a cesspit of germs (“all good for the immune system!”, she sings merrily to herself…)
Thing is, the snot was the best bit (is that a weird way of putting that? Maybe I should say the least bad bit?). What I hadn’t really thought about was all the other stuff - the lack of appetite, the restless nights, the constant and unwavering sadness as the Smols struggle to get their heads around What The Actual Heck is happening to them. And that’s before you deal with the gunky eyes, the cracked lips from where they’ve been breathing through their mouths all night (nipple cream to the rescue) or the falling asleep at the table.
It’s been…testing.
But there have been positives, and this is my main reason for wanting to write this post. Because I’m a sucker for a silver lining, even if you have to look really hard for it…
First up: food anxiety. Right before this cold hit, we were having a tough time with the Smols. We’ve been on a one-nap schedule for a couple of months and Smol T was still getting used to the idea (tbh, I think I jumped the gun a bit on the transition, but Smol J was bossing it so I definitely wasn’t going back). One of the downsides of this was that I kept getting the timings wrong - they’d be too tired when I tried to feed them lunch, or not hungry when we got to tea because I’d given them a snack too late et c. Add to that the general textbook toddler increase in food fussiness and I was really starting to stress about meal planning. How would I make sure they were eating enough? What should I do if they had a day when they didn’t eat much? Do I keep offering them different things until I hit the jackpot? Do I just take it away and let them be hungry until the next meal? Do I just default to a favourite food so they’ve at least eaten something?
Turns out, they’ll be fine. I now know this because there have been days this week where the grand total consumed by one or other of the Smols has been something like this: three cubes of orange, five bits of pasta and half a (very small) rice cake.
They have not died. They still slept and didn’t wake up starving. They just didn’t want to eat because they felt like crap.
Takeaway no. 1: stop stressing about food.
On a related note, at the start of the cold, I asked some friends about water cups in cots overnight. The Smols were starting to cough a bit and I figured that it made sense to have water available. But I’d not considered it before because of PARALYSING FEAR ABOUT SIDS. Anyway, it turns out, this is a thing loads of people do. And it’s been a revelation. Because they are clever beans - if they have a cough and there is water next to them, they will drink the water, feel better and go back to sleep. They still aren’t drinking half as much as they normally do, of course, on account of all the snot (especially Smol J, who seems to be an opera singer in training with all the water they consume), but they’ve been much more comfortable overnight, and that’s definitely been a big plus.
Takeaway no. 2: water cups in the cot overnight are good.
Then there’s the lack of sleep. This one has been really hard. We’ve been very fortunate because (helped by the water cups) they’ve been amazing at self settling when they wake up - have a good old cough/sniff et c, then concentrate on getting back to sleep. I don’t think we’ve had to actually go in and soothe one of them more than a couple of times, although Smol T and I did have a lovely hour of co-sleeping (well, co-dozing really) one morning after a particularly dramatic early wake up. However, despite this, I have still been Very Awake more than is acceptable on account of being super sensitive to sniffles over the monitor. Also the cold soon brought me crashing down with it, so all of those wake ups resulted in ground-shaking coughing sessions before I could go back to sleep. Anyway, as a result of all of this disturbed sleep, the Smols had a handful of two-nap days because they were just so exhausted, and I kind of shocked myself at how ok with this I was. There was no option but to go with the flow (not something that comes naturally to me, however much I wish it would), and guess what? We all survived.
Takeaway no. 3: sometimes, the routine needs to go out of the window. They (and you) will be fine.
Finally, the sadness. WOW the sadness. I mean, I get it, they must be Really Confused about what on earth is happening - suddenly they can’t breathe through their noses, they don’t want to eat, but they kind of do, but then they don’t, they really want to sleep but they sometimes can’t, and lying down for nappy changes just got a whole lot more uncomfortable (because who wants to be horizontal when you’ve got a face full of snot?). But for a few days, there, they were just Sad. All the time. And OH the noise. This is definitely one of the hardest things about being a parent for me - the noise just doesn’t stop. And that’s on a good day - these were not good days. Not only did the noise not stop, but it was also Really Horrible Noise. Now, normally the Smols are pretty good at sorting themselves out (meltdowns from one Smol whilst I’m changing the other’s nappy are generally over and done with by the time Mummy is available - at which point, Mummy is the last thing they want because OMG LEGO), but this has been on another level, and Mummy cuddles have been more in demand. So I’ve had to be better at putting chores down half way through and that being Okay. Now, I’m not saying that I had a life-changing revelation here - the classic advice of “just leave the washing up for another day, spend an extra five minutes being hit over the head with a piece of giant lego because this time is precious!” never really worked for me…but:
Takeaway no. 4: It’s ok to pause the admin when everybody just needs a cuddle. Sometimes, we all just need a cuddle.
But, yeah, it’s been hard.
I said to my husband yesterday that this is absolutely the hardest it’s been for me since the crazy early days. I have spent most of the week on my knees (metaphorically or literally), I had forgotten how rubbish it is to have multiple nights of interrupted sleep (a nice problem to have, I’ll admit) and I genuinely can’t remember the last time that I felt this awful physically. It must be years.
I really, really hope we are coming out of it as I write this - the Smols have had a really good eating day and there has been noticeably less snot to mop up. I didn’t even feel the need to change their bedsheets today, which I have done every day this week on account of the truly horrendous amount of bodily fluids with which they were decorated (you’re welcome). Mainly, I want us to be over this because I was just getting my head round the idea of Doing More with the Smols, getting out and meeting people, going to soft play et c. All of the stuff that I would have done months ago were it not for COVID/my COVID anxiety.
Of course, the more stuff we do, the more colds we’ll get… Still, one down, a few hundred to go, right?!
And none of them will be the First Big Cold, so there’s that.
xx