My husband is blessed with the ability to fall asleep at a moments notice. I however, am not. In the early weeks of parenting, my inability to just fall asleep added to my torture. I would have about an hour before the girls would be up again and even though I was completely exhausted, it still took me about a half hour to fall asleep leaving me with only a handful of minutes to actually sleep. Once I did, I was woken up by crying babies and that feeling of crap that you get when you've only slept a few minutes. The cycle would feed on itself as I started fearing going to sleep because the moment I did, it meant the next thing I would know was screaming babies and the rush to prepare bottles and make the crying stop. In a way, sleep became very unappealing. It almost became more restful to just stay awake and futz around for those few precious moments of happy, sleeping babies.
Eventually my husband realized what was happening and came to my rescue. He bought me earplugs. We moved the baby monitor to his side of the bed. He started getting up in the middle of the night to tend to babies while I slept through. We had an agreement, if he needed me to help, he would wake me up, but if he could handle it alone, he would let me sleep.
At first, he generally let me sleep through one baby awake cycle per night and after that, I would have to get up when the babies woke up to pump while he did the feedings. That one chunk of sleep gave me some of my brain back. I still had issues, but they slowly started getting a little better. As time went on, the girls would sleep longer and we both got a chunk of sleep.
We still found it unpleasant to wake up to crying babies though. I mean really, who wants to wake up that way? So we started anticipating their wake up times, and we'd set our alarm to wake up about a half hour before we expected them to, prepped bottles, and did a dream feed. During this time, I would take my portable pump and would pump as we did the dream feed to minimize the time we both had to be awake.
I was still having trouble because I was still only getting bits and pieces of sleep. So sometimes, K would get up by himself and do the dream feeds alone. Then he started feeling the effects of all of these night feedings and lack of sleep so he would stop setting his alarm and just let the babies wake him up. As he got more confidant that he could handle it by himself, he stopped waking me up to help and the girls started rewarding him by sleeping longer and longer between feedings.
By allowing me to sleep several hours during the night, this made it almost impossible for me to assist when I did wake up because I was so engorged that the first thing I simply had to do was pump. The portable pump is great, but not as good as the one we rent from the hospital and when I was that full, I really needed to just sit down and use the hospital pump. So as we drifted out of night time wakings and into sleeping through the night and just starting our day early in the morning, K was still in the habit of taking care of the morning care cycle for the girls.
This brings us to now. Life is good and my husband is the reason. Lately, his work schedule is often the midshift so he doesn't get any time with the girls after work. He's often walking in the door a few minutes after I've put the girls down. Sometimes I can keep them awake long enough for him to rock with one for a few minutes, but usually they need to go down before he gets that chance. So he takes the morning shift with them and lets me sleep a bit longer.
Unless he has to leave early to open the store, we've fallen into a morning routine that works really well for us. The girls wake him up somewhere between 7:30-8:30am. Ok, I kind of wake up too, but he gets out of bed and takes the monitor with him so I can fall right back to sleep. He gets them changed and fed and does play time with them. They go down for a nap between 9-10am and he comes to get me up. Depending on his work schedule, if there's time, he'll go back to bed for a quick nap and I'll do a Starbucks run and then come home and do my morning pump. If the girls wake up while I'm stuck at the machine, he gets to work on their second breakfast (we're raising hobbits apparently). Then we'll share in the care duties until he needs to start getting ready for work and I take over.
I just love this. I love that he's cool with this routine and that he enjoys having some time with the girls. I love that I have a husband who found a way to help me and does it simply because he wants me to be happy, not because he wants some sort of credit. I love that letting me sleep a few extra hours is no longer a favor he's doing for me, but rather it's just the routine that works for us and I can count on it. I love that I have a husband who is just as involved in the parenting as I am and doesn't need me to help him do it. Other than a little more familiarity with their daytime schedule, there's really nothing that I know about how to care for them that he doesn't know. I love that I don't have to encourage him to interact with his girls, or to get off the video game and actually DO something, he just does it because it's a part of our lives now.
If I had married one of those jerks who thinks he shouldn't ever be a parent because he goes to work every day, who gets angry when the wife just begs him to take ONE night feeding a week so she can sleep for 4 solid hours, who has to "unwind" with 5 hours of xbox after work, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have survived the early months.
Your husband sounds amazing. SO glad you have a good partner in this crazy process. My husband and I were on that same schedule, too (I was JUST thinking of writing an ode-to-husband post!). I can't imagine life with a husband who feels like taking care of the kids is "babysitting."
ReplyDeleteI have been a lurker of your blog for quite some time. I had my own baby not long after you had the twins, so I've been following you since the wee months of your pregnacy with the girls. I never commented because I have been content with lurking, but this post hits so close to home, I am compelled to respond. My husband has been my partner in the whole parenting game for years now. We have four boys, and I am a teacher. My life would be full of obstacles if it weren't for the many things my husband does to make my life easier. Thank you for recognizing so early on how much your husband supports you. Your girls need to see that compromise and gratitude you both have for one another. I'm sure he appreciates the fine job you are doing, as well.
ReplyDeleteK sounds like an amazing man! I've loved seeing the videos of him playing with the girls. You guys are lucky to have him and he's lucky to have you three pretty ladies. This post made me very very happy when happiness has been very hard to come by lately. ((HUGS))
ReplyDeleteI can't emphasize it enough how parents to be, especially those expecting twins, need to talk about co parenting before the babies arrive. It is CO parenting. Your husband doesn't allow you to sleep, you schedule so you both have equal sleep. I was on from 10-2, he was on from 2-6, period. I did a dream feed at 11 of so before I went to bed, and when they were bigger they could usually make it to 6 without a 2 am feeding. But, if we were having a bad night, with me twins or my daughter, both parents were up and on deck. It is time, I think, to stop thanking our spouses for doing what they should be doing.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. I think people should be thanked for doing what they should be doing from day to day. Being a good person in general gets so little recognition. We all work hard just to function and to keep our little worlds from imploding and for the most part, we're only thanked for the big gestures, when we go above and beyond the hard work we do every day. I don't want K to feel like I'm taking him for granted, or to think I don't notice every day that he's a good guy and makes choices all day, every day, to do the responsible thing, to do what takes care of his family, to make my life better. There's not enough appreciation in the world for people who do that and there should be. In my tiny corner of the universe, I'm going to make sure that the good people in my life know that they are appreciated for being good people.
DeleteI must respectfully disagree, as well. By saying thanks and expressing our appreciation, we are acknowledging that what our spouses do for us is not taken for granted. And by the same token, it is nice to have that appreciation recipricated. Appreciation should certainly go both ways.
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