Lara and Rhea have turned one, and I went back to work part-time last week. We’ve started another chapter in their lives and another routine for all of us.
The last six weeks have been hard. Not because I was getting increasingly desperate that we’d find someone, anyone, to look after the babies two afternoons a week after mornings with mum and godmother Margaret (To random stranger on street: ‘You think they’re cute? Would you like to look after them on a part-time basis?’). Or because I was particularly dreading going back to work, although both of these may have contributed somewhat. The main factor has been that winter sicknesses have hit. Again and again. Cold, ear infection, ear infection, cold, cold. One baby, both babies, one baby, both babies. And we’ve been sick when the babies have been, though thankfully not all of us at the same time, allowing at least someone to look after everyone else.
One of my previous posts described a ‘horror night’ and noted rather smugly that in the first six months, we had had less problems with babies waking during the night than many parents in my parent’s group had had with one baby. I ended by saying that things might change with teething. Forget teething, sickness is when it gets really hard. It affects the babies’ feeding: Rhea has developed a swimmer’s breastfeeding technique where she sucks a few times then comes up for air. Lara refused feeds for more than a day, making me wonder whether that was the end of breastfeeding for her, and what would I do about the build-up – I had lent my breast pump to a friend with a newborn.
Worse for us, it affects their sleep (yes, it’s all about me). They are distressed at night, don’t go to bed until 9pm or later, then one or other wakes every ten or fifteen minutes. We have taken to bringing them in to bed with us for a bit of peace, increasingly both of them all night. Last night was restless and we could only doze as they slept with us and awoke and cried, awoke, cried.
We did eventually find a caring, capable nanny to look after them two afternoons a week, passing on some of the less suitable applicants like the young woman we interviewed who looked disconcerted at having two small sets of eyes staring at her unblinkingly and said she thought it would be ‘full on’; and another applicant who said that what had attracted her to the position was the hours – she didn’t want a fulltime job. The nanny we found has experience with twins aged one and bonded with our girls almost straight away.
I think this part-time work thing will be a good balance for me, and I am particularly enjoying having a break from holding a baby almost 24 hours a day. As a friend said who works part-time, you get to have some quiet time when commuting to work, you can dress up and have some adult conversations, and you earn money as well. You can also regain your professional identity and you don’t have to synchronise your trips to the toilet with nappy changes. And while the babies are sick, it gives me a welcome break.
Is their second year going to be hard like this? Are the babies going to regain their relatively settled sleep patterns when they get better? Are we going to end up at the residential sleep school for desperate parents, or will we find another solution? I have one acquaintance with twins who slept through the night from two months and didn’t look back. Another two have said that poor sleep lasted two years and then their twins sorted it out. We have a plan for after they get better: do some research on the internet, ring the parent help line, attend the local seminar for parents of babies this age who sleep badly, and get a referral to sleep school if none of this works.
In the meantime, we’re sharing the load and taking our breaks when we can so that we are more patient with the babies and with each other. And having lots of cuddles with Lara and Rhea, day and night, which isn’t all bad.
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