Coping?

"How are you two coping?" "Can you manage the twins?" "Must be tiring righ?" "Getting enough sleep?"

These seem to be the most common questions that people are directly at us at the moment. We have families, friends, neighbours, colleagues, relatives, readers and yes, even strangers asking us these types of questions almost on a daily basis.

According to the Mrs, there are even strangers who either made a slight detour or simply stood there and waited just to find out if they are indeed twins and ask how we are coping. These people are usually more amazed once they see how young Isaac is.

Now for the benefit of those who are followers of this blog, you will be able to have a better understand just how we are coping, struggling even sometimes.

Generally we are still coping fine with them. Ani as usual is still mainly taking care of Isaac with some additional work such as more laundry and of course the occasional helping out with the feeding and coaxing of the twins.

The Mrs and I are still the main caregivers to the twins. While I am at work she will handle them almost singlehandedly unless of course both of them cry or demand to be fed at the same time. Once I am back from work I will take over from the Mrs the main role of feeding, changing and carrying them. This is to give her a break after all she had to endure their crying and demands for most part of the day already.

There are basically 2 periods in a day that are most tiring. The first being the early evenings when we had to take care of Isaac as well since Ani has to prepare dinner and wash up after we are done amongst other things. This window although tiny, usually about 2 hours, is really quite tiring. Isaac is crawling, climbing and throwing things around non-stop and basically tearing the house apart. Once Ani is done with her chores and showered she will come and take over Isaac while we go back to concentrating on the twins.

For those of you who have been reading this blog since Isaac was a baby may recall that Isaac was usually very cranky during the night from about 9pm till about midnight before he will quiet down and go to sleep. I am wondering if it was our lifestyle when we were pregnant because the same is happening with the twins. They like Isaac are crankier during the night and will be better in the early hours of the morning.

The second most taxing part of the day for me is during the nights. For whatever reasons they will not be able to just lie in their cot and sleep after feeding, unlike during the day. They will be unsettled and before long we will have to carry them. Having said that I am grateful that they usually take turns to be cranky instead of both crying at the same time.

I was just commenting to the Mrs last night that it is starting to feel like there is a punishment waiting for me each night and that is to stand (罚站). Most probably due to the lack of exercise my back is starting to ache as well by standing and carrying the twin (sometimes twins).

So far this Wednesday night was the hardest because the twins took turns to be cranky and kept me up till 4am before finally allowing me to go to sleep. Even then I had to carry Hayley to bed and sleep with her in my arms. Whenever possible I will try and attend to the twins alone during the night feeds because I feel the Mrs is a little more impatient with them in the early hours of the morning. Who could blame her right? After all she had to suffer all the screaming from Isaac and wailing from the twins not to mention all the feeding and changing of diapers. Guess all she wanted was a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Besides being taxing on us physically, it is also very taxing on the monetary front. Take the diapers for example. A bag of 48 diapers will usually only last for about 3 days. The twins are fed and changed every 3 hourly so they will normally use about 16 diapers a day. Thankfully they are still on partial breast milk so this at least helps to reduce the consumption of formula milk.

I understand that there are parents who are successful in potty training their babies even at the very young age of about 6 months. Maybe this is what we should do although I know this is easier said than done.