Extra Help

When we were in the hospital, every nurse asked us if we "had help" once we were home. I nodded and told them that all four grandparents lived nearby, to which they seemed relieved.

Of course, when they said "help", I assumed they meant someone to bring us meals, do a load of laundry, hold the occasional baby. I did not, expect that the "help" the nurses were referring to would need to be nearly round the clock assistance for the first few weeks.

First of all, after the birth I was not physically capable of caring for the boys by myself because of the csection. If my husband was asleep, I couldn't bounce the boys for long periods of time or carry them upstairs to the changing table. Also, emotionally speaking, I needed some company. The "baby blues" was pretty intense and led to hourly bouts of crying and a persistent sensation of helplessness for the first week or more postpartum.

Most difficult in the beginning was that neither baby would sleep in a crib or really anywhere that wasn't a warm chest or lap. Because we refused to cosleep with our babies, this meant we needed at least two people to be awake and holding a baby at any given time. That's completely impossible with two people.

Even once my husband and I figured out how to care for both babies simultaneously while the other parent slept (a combination of swing sleeping and just manning up and holding both babies), we still needed extra hands to prepare and bring us food and to help with chores. Breastfeeding twins requires 3200 calories a day, and it's pretty difficult to get that in your body unless you have someone around to basically hand-feed you.

So, in summary, get help, and I don't mean the "aww!! I wanna hold your baby and chat with you!!" kind of help. Line up friends and family who you know you can be honest and demanding with, and be sure to pay with plenty of thank yous.

If you don't live near family, you can hire help, but that's obviously not cheap. I would encourage you to strongly consider flying a parent out to stay with you for a few weeks or going to stay with them. We stubbornly thought we'd be able to do this as a couple, but the first couple of weeks have really reinforced that it takes a village...especially with multiples.