Feeding Twins, Feeding Ourselves, & Working Full-Time

Working from home

Once Matt got home, I started work again. I'm really thankful for our employer. He was extraordinarily gracious to us, accepting our last-minute notice that I needed some time off. Later, he would also increase my hours/pay as our other part-time opportunities ended.

Priorities

Anyone who has tried to work from home with kids can imagine what those first couple months looked like. Cooking and cleaning took a back burner to feeding and changing babies. And when I wasn't doing either of those, I was focused on meeting my work deadlines. Well, until I was distracted by a cute baby. Here, you can see work on the table while my husband and I "ooh" and "aah" over cute baby faces.

Feeding ourselves

We ate one main meal per day and that was either cheap local food, a meal that someone brought us (one friend actually ordered us home-cooked dinners for a week!), or quick dishes I could pull together.

Even though babies, especially preemies, sleep a lot, they instinctively seem to know when it's time for mom and dad to eat :) It felt like we ate every meal with a baby in our arms. One time a friend came over and let us take our dinner downstairs while she watched the twins.

Dinner, hands-free!

Making plans

I like plans, so I tried to keep the babies on a regular sleeping/eating schedule. Most of the time, I found that the schedule changed weekly based on their needs and even when one kept to the timeline, the other wouldn't. Still, having that goal gave us something to work towards.

Colic ... "Witching" hours ... sickness ...

Those three phrases are enough to make any parent cringe.

With preemie babies, it seemed like "colic" or gassy tummies lasted a lot longer than usual. It wasn't until they were eight months old, or six months corrected age, that we finally noticed a difference. The "witching hours" (right around dusk when babies, in general, seem to get cranky) were tough. It was near the end of the day when we were tired and hungry and just before they were supposed to fall asleep.

Feeding the twins

We tried lots of solutions for colic and surviving the witching hours. And we looked for better, easier ways to feed the girls. Having the right "gear" was the most helpful way to handle all of it, I think.

Two of the big-ticket items that we bought were pre-loved vibrating rockers and strollers. As the girls started to move around more, it became harder to double-feed on my lap. I could feed them in the stroller and then walk them around our house to lull them to sleep.

Or I could double-feed in the rockers, and the vibrators usually soothed them.

When they were fussy, I preferred to hold them. But eventually they'd get frustrated with each other.

We also experimented with ways to be more efficient. We attempted pre-making formula for the day to just warm up at feeding time. We tried pre-scooped formula containers. But at the end of the day, there was no getting around the fact that 8 hours of our day was taken up with feeding the babies.

Next up ... month 2

Feeding the babies and feeding ourselves pretty well summarizes our first month :) In the second month, we take the babies out for the first time!

Going back:

See you every Sunday 7pm EST and Wednesday 7pm EST!

P.S. Thanks to healthy-home, homescoolkids, opti-mrs, and carlgnash for the upvotes and all the encouragement! You're challenging me to be better and persevere through the slow times :)