Sleep. What even IS sleep anyways? When you’re in the trenches of newborn multiples, sleep seems to be a thing of the past. It is something you now feel you took for granted all those years as a pimple-faced teen.
Now, your idea of the “perfect night” involves your head hitting the pillow no later than 7:00pm and being able to sleep in until the sound of a neighbor’s lawn mower or sprinklers is the only thing to wake you from your blissful rest.
Oh, what you wouldn’t give to be able to have chirping birds wake you instead of crying babies. The lack of sleep you get with even ONE newborn is troublesome, but with more than one? Forget about it.
It takes a bit of effort, but once you figure it out, night feedings with multiples do NOT have to be a nightmare. Here are some pointers:
1) Be Prepared!
Any MoM will tell you that there’s absolutely NOTHING worse (and unsafe) than being in the middle of something with your babies and not having what you need when you need it.
We’ve all been there. You have just spent the last hour rocking and cooing one baby to sleep. You carefully tuck him in. You haven’t made the slightest peep. The way you are maneuvering around the nursery is straight out of a movie scene where Catherine Zeta-Jones is bending and stretching around the elaborate maze of red laser lines, trying to avoid tripping the alarm and stealing the goods. His eyes close…….
Then it happens: you FORGOT THE PACI! The baby quickly realizes that something very important is missing and HOW DARE YOU deprive him of the all-encompassing comfort of his paci! Then starts the howling. The shatter-your-heart cry starts for him and the shatter-your-plans-of-sleep cry starts for you. Time to start the process all over again.
If you’re lucky, this is baby #1. If it’s #2 or more….go ahead and pour yourself a large glass of wine first, since that cry has now woken the others with the cruelest of domino effects.
But how can you possibly have everything you need all the time? You are almost too tired to function and now you are supposed to somehow remember every little thing in the midst of all of this chaos? For me, I stocked up on Diaper Caddies.
Get a caddy for all the big “events”: mealtime, bathtime, bedtime, and maybe one or two more around the main areas of the house that your babies spend time. (Hell, maybe a wine caddy for yourself!) Then fill them with what you need and try to keep them stocked.
For example, in the bathtime caddy I have 3 towels, soap/shampoo, lotion, q-tips, a brush/comb, diaper cream, bath toys, rinsing cup, 3 diapers, and 3 sets of pajamas. When it was time for baths, all I would have to remember is the caddy! After the soapy, wet, madness was done, I would re-stock the caddy as I cleaned. Simple!
Put the items you need for each event and you won’t have to remember anything again!
Here is what I put in my night-feeding caddy:
1) at least 3 burp clothes
2) a package of wet-wipes. I love these natural saline Boogie Wipes.
3) 3 bottle props (one for each baby). My faves are these Bottle Snugglers.
4) a couple rolled up blankets to help with propping.
5) pacifiers
2) Choose an option: feed all at once? one at a time?
When a baby wakes in the middle of the night hungry, you have 2 different options. 1) wake up all the other babies at the same time, feed them all, put them all back down, or 2) quietly get that baby, feed, put back down, and pray to all that is holy that the others don’t wake up while you are busy feeding. Then you either wake the next baby or wait for them to wake.
I’ve tried all the options and, honestly, it is completely up to you and what works best for you. There are pros and cons to both. If you wake all three, you REALLY wake them and upset them since they are now AWAKE and waiting for you to get situated, make bottles, etc. It’s no fun.
On the other hand, it’s the quickest way to feed them all and get back to SLEEP. If you wait for one to wake and only feed that one, you may get done quickly but you know what happens next: your eyes JUST close and, sure enough, you hear the next baby. That makes sleeping at all very hard to do.
3) Find the perfect feeding area
Whichever option you choose, figure out the best area of your house to do the feedings. This will depend on which option you chose above. For a long while, I woke them all up to feed. In this case, feeding them in their nursery was the best. When the first baby started to stir, I’d go heat up 3 bottles, bring the bottles into their nursery, and turn on a low-lit lamp.
In the nursery I would already have their bouncy chairs or boppies and the caddy ready to go. I then would wake one by one, place them in their boppies, and prop bottles.
Keep in mind that you will want to feed them in a place that you don’t have to go far. Example: you don’t want to feed them downstairs when their nursery is upstairs. This will have you leaving them alone propped in their boppies while you “run” the first, second, etc., up to their nursery to put them back to sleep. Try to find a place to feed that you can see and hear them from wherever you need to go.
In the beginning our nursery was upstairs and the kitchen was downstairs. It took so much time to go downstairs, heat bottles, then back up without everybody loosing their minds. I put two bottle warmers in the nursery as well as one of these Cooluli Mini Fridge.
Each night, I would stock the fridge with enough pre-made bottles for the night. That way, everything I needed was right there in their nursery and I didn’t have to leave at all. Then a feeding session went like this:
– Baby #1 stirs, put 2/3 bottles in the warmer.
– Change Baby #1’s diaper. By then the bottles are done warming.
– Place Baby #1 in Boppy and prop a bottle.
– put the third bottle in the warmer.
– wake Baby #2 and change diaper. (all while keeping an eye on Baby #1)
– Place Baby #2 in a Boppy and prop a bottle. (by then, the third bottle is done warming)
– Wake Baby #3 and change diaper. (all while keeping an eye on Babies 1 and 2)
– Place Baby #3 in a Boppy and prop a bottle.
…sit with babies until they finish. PRO TIP: figure out who your slowest eater is and try to feed them either second or third. This way they wont get done right as the others are finishing. If not, baby #1 might finish right when then the other two are finishing and that can be a problem.
– Burp Baby #1 while the other two are finishing and put to bed.
– Burp Baby #2 while the third is still finishing and put to bed.
– Burp Baby #3 and put back to bed.
Find all the important feeding items to add to your registry here!
4) Don’t get discouraged
You are beyond tired. Maybe you have help, maybe you don’t. It is SO easy to get flustered when you have two or more crying babies in the middle of the night and only two hands to get it done. Any MoM that tells you she has never cried herself to sleep out of pure frustration is LYING to you.
Try out different options. Try out different spaces. Keep in mind that it takes babies a few days to get used to things. So don’t give up right away. Give it a few days and try to keep an open mind to thing that you can do differently. There is no right or wrong way to do things.
Whichever route you go, just remember: soon, they will be sleeping through the night. Just take one day at a time and this time is fleeting.
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