For the past few nights we’ve been trying something different to allow Agnes to get a little more sleep. Instead of waking up Agnes to breastfeed every time Eleanor or Miranda wakes up, I said that I would watch the girls until 3:00 AM and change them, soothe them, and give them a bottle as needed. This would give Agnes a solid four hours between 11 and 3 where she could catch up a bit on her sleep.
It’s been a little difficult, but for the first few nights things went okay. Fortunately, when one of them wakes up crying, it usually doesn’t wake up the other one. I’ve been getting by in rushing into the bedroom to scoop up the crying one and take her out of the room before she can wake up her sister or Agnes. Outside of the diapering and feeding, they’ve also wanted to be held and so it’s non-stop activity for the whole four hours.
Last night they ganged up on me. Miranda woke up at 1:00 AM and I changed her diaper and gave her a bottle. She finished most of it, but left behind about half an ounce. I held her for a little bit and she seemed to settle down. I put her back in the cradle. About two minutes later, Eleanor started crying. I picked her up and unwrapped her to check her diaper, when Miranda started crying again. Loudly. I left Eleanor on the changing pad (thank goodness they can’t roll at this age), and went in to grab Miranda. I closed the bedroom door to muffle the amount of crying that reached Agnes and I put Miranda on the sofa. I changed Eleanor and swaddled her up. I put her on the sofa, picked up Miranda, re-wrapped her in the blankets which had come loose and soothed her. At this point, Eleanor was tightly bundled but crying her head off because she was hungry. Miranda stopped crying for a moment so I set her down, picked up Eleanor and went to warm a bottle. I stood outside of the kitchen, holding Eleanor and keeping an eye on Miranda, who started crying again.
The bottle was warm. I sat on the sofa next to Miranda and started feeding Eleanor. Miranda’s partially finished bottle was also in reach, so I tried grabbing that to stick in Miranda’s mouth while I had Eleanor propped up against the side of the sofa with a bottle in her mouth. It wasn’t going well. Both of them were dribbling everywhere and getting frustrated with me. I let Miranda cry and focused on Eleanor for a while, because once she gets something in her, she tends to settle down a bit. We went back and forth giving a bit more to whoever was crying harder. If only I had four arms…
After Miranda finished her bottle, she calmed down. I finished feeding Eleanor and wrapped them both up in their blankets again. I put one, then the other, back into the cradle, and rocked it gently. Both of them burst out crying.
Agnes said, “Do you need some help?”
“Yes.”
We picked them both up and they stopped crying after another couple of minutes. It was 2:00 AM and I had cut off Agnes’ sleep by an hour, but she seems to be okay. If the girls tag-team me again, I’m going to have to figure out another way to deal with them.
Congratulations, guys! Your pregnancy certainly flew by for ME — I could have sworn you were still in your mid-twenty weeks, but clearly not. Anyway, the single best and most useful piece of marriage/baby-parenting advice I ever heard was that nothing said between parents between the hours of 11 PM and 7 AM counts. Really! It doesn’t. Hang in there.
Agnes needs earplugs!
Isn’t it more like “Girls 20, Bernard 0″?
Oh yeah, can the girls drink bottles on the bouncer? That way, maybe you can feed both at the same time. And do you have those Chinese hot water heater thingies? They are so handy for mixing formula.
poor bernard… anyway, next time, try the carseats. put both of them down in the carseat. you don’t even have to buckle them down. you can rock the carseats with your feet. also, prepare the bottles beforehand. i kind of did that for the whole night so i don’t have to fumble throughout the night. (you know how many bottles they need for the night now) i just keep them in the fridge and take them out and put the bottles in a cup with hot water (the chinese hot water dispenser works great). i just make sure the milk is room temperature. it needn’t be warm b/c where are you going to find warm milk (besides from mommy) when you’re out? wait one minute and feed both in the carseat at the same time. trust me, the carseat is your friend. i had to do that once b/c i was so hungry so i fed lucas with my left hand and ate with my right. works great. if you don’t want to premake the formula, just put powder in the bottle and don’t add water until they cry.
also, crying doesn’t always mean they’re hungry. i would suggest that you let them get used to each other crying, ie don’t scoop one up so fast or you’re going to be running to their room for the next 9 mo everytime someone cries.
sophia
Yep. We do have a hot water boiler, and all the bottles are made in advance. We keep track of when each bottle was made (though we rarely need to toss a bottle of formula for not using it in 24 hours — I think it happened once when we made a relatively large bottle and they never seemed hungry enough to justify it). We put the hot water and the bottle in a mug and start a timer that’s been set for the appropriate amount of time to warm a bottle (about 1:35). I think I’ll have to try using the bouncer or carseat next time this happens. The bouncer may be a better option since the cover is more easily washable. On the other hand, it’s a little less stable. We’ll have to experiment.