Family

11 Things I Wish Someone Told Me About Having 3 Under 2 - The First Three Months

11:58 AM

Coffee IS Essential & Sleep Isn't an Option 

Where do I begin with this? I mean honestly, you will find out that you don't NEED as much sleep as you once thought you did to stay alive.

You will most likely drink several cups of coffee a day; morning, noon, and night, but rest assured this phase will end in 3-4 months and you will start feeling more rested. In the meantime refer back to the previous sentence or get someone to come watch the kids while you take a little snooze.




Showers + Makeup are Almost Non-Existent 

That semi long five-minute shower you once used to enjoy, yeah it will no longer exist. (for the most part.) Unless you have someone there to watch the kids for a few minutes or dad is home. 

Otherwise, you can pretty much count taking a shower out of the equation and even if you do squeeze one in I can guarantee you will not get lucky enough to do your makeup or hair. Just make a point to shower and throw your hair in a bun once a day.


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Organization Is Key

Organization is so important. Seriously if things are organized it will make your life that much easier. I promise. If you are lucky and are reading this BEFORE your newest little one has arrived, go through and organize your entire life. 

Get a cleaning schedule in place and get used to it, get caught up on laundry and don't fall behind, plan + prep your meals before baby arrives (seriously I didn't and found myself wishing I did every night at dinner time.)  You will not have any energy left for cooking so prepare for this.

If you don't or can't do this; I highly suggest investing in a crockpot* if you don't yet have one. It will be your new best friend. (This is how I survived because I didn't prepare, and we still eat out of a crockpot a couple times a week.) 

Another alternative is to have family make some freezer meals and bring them over. Whatever you do prepare to not be cooking for at least 6 weeks if not longer. Life will be tough and you are going to be tired and cooking will be the last thing you want to do. 

Keep Your Expectations Low 

You will have all these expectations on how your house should look and when you should return to work, but don't shoot for the moon! Go with the flow, while still keeping some order if you can. 

Your house will probably turn into an absolute mess at times and sleep will be so much more important, so do that just sleep. You can catch up later on housework! Better yet see if there is a family member who can stop in and help.



Quick Tip: Prioritize the most important things in your house that keep you sane. For us it's dishes and laundry we NEED to keep up with those two things or our entire lives just feel like chaos so those are the two things that I do every day no matter what, but even after little miss was born I will admit I struggled here, but I survived and my house is usually pretty decent.


The House WILL be a mess for awhile

Don't stress over the house or at least try not to. I know I said organization is key, but there is a happy medium. Realistically you probably won't be able to keep up ALL the time. Accept this as your new normal. Having a cleaning schedule in place before the baby arrives really will help tremendously to keep the mess under control as long as someone, even dad, can stick to it. 

Things started to get better for us at about 4.5 months. It may seem like an eternity but it's really not and one day you will be able to keep up again. 


Baby Wearing

If you haven't yet get a Moby wrap* for your new baby. Babies love to be worn and will usually sleep the whole time they are. 

It will take a few times of wearing your baby and putting it on to get used to how tight you need to tie it and how to maneuver with a baby on you, but you will get it and become a pro at baby wearing. 

I was able to do chores, change the twins, make meals, and get the important things done when I wore little miss. It was kinda like being pregnant again but I could set the baby down once I needed a break from wearing her. 


Accept Help

Accept help and even seek out help! You need something don't be scared to ask. If someone offers to help you take it. You can only do so much and with three children under two with one or two of them being a newborn, you will need all the help you can get.

We had Amber  our amazing sitter come in at least once a week for the first few months just so I could shower, eat or sleep. She was awesome and I loved seeing her face walk through my door. It was like a weight was lifted from me everytime she left. I would feel refreshed and like I could once again take on the world. 

You would be surprised how much help it will be for someone to come just once every week for four hours and take care of the kids while you take care of yourself. 

Constant Crying & High Noise Levels

Oh, the crying. Some days will feel like you haven't heard peace and quite in weeks. You will feel like the noise level has been ten fold and it is never quite from sun up to sun down.Then every few hours in between when you are up with the new baby(ies). The sooner you accept this as your new life and don't stress over it the better. 

Remember you are doing the best you can to take care of three little people who ALL need you for what seems like ALL the time. If that means that someone has to cry while you change someone else or fix a meal for their sibling it's okay. They will survive it! It will happen just work as quickly as you can and then move onto the next child who has a need. I always prioritized the needs and whoever had the highest need was who I tended to first.

 Laundry Sucks

You will be buried in the laundry so getting a laundry system in place before the new baby arrives will do wonders for you. 

There is nothing worse than running around digging through baskets of clothes to find an outfit for your toddler, while the baby screams and you needed to be out the door like 20 minutes ago. 

If you get a system in place do your best to stick to it you will thank yourself when this doesn't happen because I did and it sucks. Whatever you do try to keep up with this. Whether that means dad is in charge of laundry or your older kids try to keep up with a laundry system so you don't fall behind. 

Running Errands & Getting Out

There is no efficient way to go anywhere, so just don't do it unless absolutely necessary or get help. I mean maybe if we had a singleton and then twins it would be easier since I would only have one mobile toddler and two babies who would stay wherever I set them down at. I would assume you would still have the problem of how to get two infant seats + a toddler in on your own, though. 

But for real, I'm five months into this and if they don't have carts I don't go with all the babies. It simply waits until Josh is home. Like all grocery shopping for the week is done on Sunday's when I know Josh doesn't have to work.

The doctors office is the worst. They have absolutely no place to contain so many little people and when there is one of you and three of them there is no efficient way handle it. Either don't go unless you have to and bring a stroller, get help, or get someone to sit with all or a couple of the younger kids while you go. (The best solution if possible).

Accept that life is going to be challenging for now...


Once you come to terms that life is going to be rough and there is no easy way around it, for now, you will find peace. I can't explain the peace you will find once you stop thinking my life should be like so and so or why can they do such and such.Chances are they don't have as many babies as you do so, therefore, your troubles are going to be nothing like so and so's.

You are simply getting through each day however you can. You will be survival mode those first few months so just go with it. Don't put to much pressure on yourself. Do what you can and know that soon you will be in a routine and have this mom to three under two thing down like a pro! 



Family

Our Family Trip To The Beach

10:54 AM

This last weekend Sunday to be exact Josh and I had this great idea that we would take ALL the kids to the beach. 

I mean we knew it wouldn't exactly be that relaxing afternoon you expect pre-twins plus one but they are almost two and life is starting to get easier so how bad can it be right?


Sunday morning I slept in and woke up to a breakfast in bed (thank you babe your the best *insert kiss face emoji here). Josh and I then discussed how maybe we should go to the beach and we checked the weather for the day we saw that it was supposed to be in the 80's later in the afternoon around 2ish. Perfect, the twins would be able to get their nap in because no one not even us their parents wants to be around when they haven't napped. 


Naptime rolled around we pinned the twins down to change them because frankly they hate diaper changes anymore and attempt to run, kick, climb, and army crawl away at the very site of a diaper and some wipes. This process takes about 5-10 minutes. 

Once we laid them down they fell asleep quick and I hopped in the shower got ready and then logged onto Pinterest to search for a beach packing list.  

While I was packing Josh and Jadyn were blowing up 50,000 beach floaties (is that what they are called?...oh well). 

Finally, two hours later we were ready or at least as ready as we were going to be. I told Josh we should probably bring a pack n play or something to contain them but he insisted nope we don't need that and it's just one extra thing to carry and he didn't want to deal with it. 

We woke the twins and little miss put them all in the car and we were off. I  was feeling success at this point. 

We get to the beach and it's packed no place to park so we had to park a 1,000,000,000 miles out. Hopefully, the twins will walk because we already had 1,000,000,000,000 things to carry. Oh and those floaties Josh and Jadyn spent all afternoon blowing up, we left in the car because we realized we brought more than we could carry and it was so windy they would probably just blow away anyway. What a waste of air ha. 

Immediately upon getting up to the changing area to put the twins little swimmers on I could already feel the stress of trying to have eyes on two little people running in two different directions and we weren't even by the water yet. Everyone was now dressed and ready to go so let's head down to the water. Meanwhile, Trev had other ideas. He ran off in the opposite direction and Jadyn chased him down and held him in one spot until Josh could get to him. Finally 20hrs later we got down to the beach (literally it's like 4:30 at this point)

Immediately upon Trev's feet touching the sand he was not pleased and informed us it was "hot". I mean it was warm but it definitely not hot. 

He was very leery of the stuff and didn't want to walk on it so Josh ended up carrying him, the cooler, and a beach bag in. I at this point had a towel bag + diaper bag and little miss and was holding Keaton's hand who really didn't seem to be phased by the feeling of sand on his feet. 

Finally, we were at the beach and there was a little spot with barely any water in it but just enough for the twins perfect! I thought they could just play there. Ha! Who was I kidding?! Trevyn immediately made a mad dash for the "big water" and was pissed and kicking his feet when I informed him to go back and wait for dad before he tried to go in the "big water". 

Once Josh and the older boys had everything setup at our little "beach spot" he informed me I could go sit with little miss while he watched the twins. I was so nervous, to be honest I mean this is a huge lake of water and there were TWO of them and one of him. 

After sitting for a couple minutes with little miss I got up and just carried her with and went to help because seriously the two of them were all over the place. There were so many people. They were trying to dash for the water, take other kids beach toys, walking on their sand castles, and attempting to invade everyone's towels with their wet, sandy feet. 

At this point, I was over it and truthfully not feeling the love for Josh that he said we should leave the pack n play at home. I mean at least we could have got a five-second breather to chill if we could have contained them. 

We were there for roughly 30-40 min when we came to the conclusion this was zero fun at all actually it was quite miserable and wanted to go home so we packed up while the twins ate some veggie straws that they preferred after they were rolled in the dirt. See below ha! 


Essentially we spent TWO hours packing for 30 minutes of chaos. The older boys were not pleased with all they wanted to stay so meanwhile I had them nagging me to "stick it out". I mean really?! How about not next time I'm just taking them and finding a sitter for the twins OR at the very least bringing a pack n play. 

The best part once we got all packed up and we're ready to leave the twins through a huge screaming fit and would not walk out, so Josh and I ended up carrying them out + all the shit we brought in. My arms felt like jello by the time I got back to the car. Oh, and I had Trevyn who kept screaming and kicking and throwing himself around in my arms while I was trying to carry little miss in her car seat. It took us probably 20 minutes +  to get back to the van.








Sleep Training

Sleep Training Twins - How I Did It

6:00 AM

The twins are now almost two! Wow, time is flying and it seems like just yesterday we brought these two amazing miracles home. I was just in complete awe that my body was capable of growing not just one but TWO little humans at one time.

Never in a million years would I have ever imagined I was going to be a twin mom. I also never imagined what being a twin mom really meant or how little sleep I would get in those first months. 


The first four weeks they were home I was like wow this is pretty easy! I mean wth does everyone make such a fuss about? Boy did I get a reality check after those first four weeks!

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Then they woke up, they started to notice the world. They no longer slept all day every day, and they didn't just fall right back to sleep after a bottle...they stayed awake (say what!?)...and they cried they cried a lot. 

I'm pretty sure some days all I heard was crying from sun up until sun down and every few hours in between. Especially baby k who not only had acid reflux but suffered from a milk allergy that we didn't know existed until he was around six weeks we just thought he was always super fussy. 

One question I always get asked whenever we go anywhere or when friends come over at naptime is how in the world do you get two to take a nap and sleep?! 

Only after many very sleep deprived nights did I do something to try to encourage good sleeping habits. Because frankly sleep is something I need. Maybe not the 16hrs I thought I needed before the twins, but ya know 6hrs minimum was still needed for me to be a happy mom. Happy mom = happy family. I had reached a point when I thought there is no way any human can go on like I was. 

Three Under Two

Life With Twins Plus One at Four Months In

7:56 PM


Wow, little miss is now four months old! Time is flying by and literally, I kid you not, this last week has been like heaven when it comes to the kids. Up until this point, life has been an exhausting stressful blur.