9 Comical Realities I Now Know About Parenting Newborn Twins
When children are first born, no parent ever “wishes upon a star” for matching blowouts and projectile vomit one magical day. But, sure enough, it’s undoubtedly going to happen when you have twins. It’s in those traumatic moments we start to wonder if pigs truly can fly or whether hell actually did freeze over. At the time, you’re definitely not smiling and you’re definitely not laughing. Instead, you’re probably huddled in a dark corner crying and wondering why the heck you ever decided to have kids in the first place.
Luckily, all of that changes over time and you can (hopefully) look back and laugh about it. As I celebrate my twins turning 3 months old now, I can reflect on these 9 realities I’ve come to accept (and can now laugh about) when parenting twin newborns:
1. “Witching hour” will have you turning into an exorcist.
Start saying prayers and throwing Holy water everywhere, because you’ve got two crying tormentors on your hands! For the first couple of months, every day at 7:00PM my husband and I would look at each other in fear, knowing what was about to happen. The incessant crying of the infamous “witching hour” was fervently upon us. The good news is that it seems one of our multiple exorcisms was finally successful as the relentless evening cries have improved. Amen!
2. Those strait jackets will keep your sanity intact.
And by strait jackets, I mean those sleep sack swaddles that will literally be your best friends. Without a good swaddle, our twins would turn on the waterworks and probably flood the house. Whenever anyone let’s out a peep, the swaddles are only an arm’s length away. In my opinion, they should truly be considered as one of the 7 Wonders of the World.
3. By the first month, you can probably write an entire Dr. Seuss novel about all the things you dislike about having two newborns.
For example, here is an excerpt from my own novel:
I do not like your tears and cries.
I am sick of singing you lullabies.
I do not like them near or far.
I do not like them in a car.
I do not like them as a pair
I do not like them anywhere.
4. It’s possible to feed with your feet. And you’re going to do it.
My husband was the founder of this move in our house. Before you know it, those suckers will be signing autographs and playing the piano, too!
5. Coin tosses will become a common practice.
Oh yes. My husband and I literally flip a coin at night when it comes to deciding who is going to feed our son. While we love him dearly, our son is the slow and more difficult eater and our daughter is the easy and quick one. At night, we flip a coin to see who the super lucky winner is!
6. After twice the bottle prepping, you’ll start to feel like a bartender.
Might as well add a cocktail shaker to your registry for when your twins order “the regular” every 3 hours. And remember, milk drunk is a real thing.
7. You’re going to get a "GREAT" workout holding twins.
Who needs barbells when you’ve got twins? I’ll never forget when I noticed how sore my wrists and neck were in the first 2 weeks after my twins were born. My WOD (or, “workout of the day” for those CrossFit newbies) includes 24 reps of squats and “burpies.” Oh, and if you run around the house TOO much with your babies, watch out for those “twin splints” because they can hurt!
8. You might as well say “Your Royal Highness” when addressing your twins.
Why? Because they’re going to rule your world. You want to take a shower? Oh, not yet because we need to eat RIGHT NOW, MOM! You want to sleep some more? Too bad! It’s time to play! You want to run to the grocery store? Okay, but don’t forget to take 45 minutes to pack up the car with all of our gear! Those twins are going to dictate your every move, so just go ahead and roll out that red carpet. Or, you could just put them in a crown and diaper throne like I did.
9. And finally, you can add "paparazzi" and "hilarious photo expert" to your résumé.
...Hence all of the above pictures of my twins... If anyone ever asks to see a picture of me and my husband on my phone, I first laugh and then stop what I'm doing for 30 minutes in order to scroll back through 36 million baby pictures to get one. Maybe I'm fostering diva attitudes in these babies. OR.. maybe, I'm creating an amazing arsenal of blackmail for the future! Plus, we've got to have something hilariously embarrassing to show on the slideshow at their wedding rehearsal dinners one day, right? :-)
Whether you’re a first-time parent or not, these realities are something we all go through with twins. One of the best ways to get through it is to simply just laugh. I know the next phase of twinhood will bring more comical realities for us, but until then, I’ll just keep smiling about how we’ve made it this far.
