Schedule (Or Lack Thereof)
My husband and I are in kind of an unusual position, with both of us home for now. (I have 3 weeks left of maternity leave, he's here job hunting.) And I think mostly because of this, we are pretty much schedule-free as far as the twins go. (I also kind of like the idea of just tending to their needs as they arise, as they are only two months old, but if we weren't both here to do the work things would have to change.)
Our days go pretty much like this:
7 AM: I wake up and breastfeed a baby, or if they are both asleep, pump. My husband heads off to bed.
7 AM - 1 PM: I feed and entertain babies. We used to try to have them on the same feeding schedule (which is what the twins books recommend), but if just one person is taking care of them, it's actually easier to have them staggered. Usually they'll ask to eat at different times, but if I need to feed them together I have that down (one breastfed one bottle...I have yet to master tandem breastfeeding). They may or may not take a nap. One of them is usually in the swing, which often puts them to sleep (we only have one swing). If I can I try to eat breakfast, take a shower, pick up around the house, start on chores, but often there's very little I can manage that's not baby-related.
1 PM - 10 PM: My husband and I take care of the twins together, and all spend time together as a family. We do our daily chores (we have tasks assigned for every day of the week...today is the day to wash the dogs and weed the flower beds, and for "Laundry Part 1," which is my husband washing the laundry after I go to bed. "Laundry Part 2" is me putting everything away in the morning). We cook dinner together, or maybe walk downtown and eat outside with the babies (they are still in that stage where it's fairly easy to bring them to restaurants. I hear that won't last.) Also sometimes in the afternoons one of us will go out on our own while the other watches the babies (like the other day when I went out and got a pedicure. Or I'm starting to take the dogs on short hikes...good for me and for them.) The kids may or may not nap...they seem to have days when they are awake the whole time and days when they sleep almost the whole day.
10 PM - 7 AM: 10 PM I pump and get ready for bed and wind down...try to be asleep by 11 PM. My husband watches the kids through the night, feeding them on demand (as we do throughout the day.) They each eat about twice during the night, which is fine now but isn't going to be so great once my husband goes back to work. I get up once at 3 AM to pump but other than that, I get a really good night's sleep, for which I am sooooooo grateful.
So things are pretty loose and flexible around here and that's working for us for now, and will probably be OK once I go back to work (I'm planning on working part time from home, probably in the afternoons it's looking like. I'm hoping I'll be flexible enough to still nurse on demand but we'll see). But once my husband is working full-time as well, things are going to have to change...somehow we're going to have to get the kids sleeping through longer stretches at night at the very least. And I'm going to need some help for some portion of the day so I can work.
Anyway, this is what's working today...and it's working great. I'm a little worried that the kids are going to get too used to this sort of schedule and have trouble when we have to move into something more structured, but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Our pediatrician said that at about 12 lbs. things start to get easier as far as sleeping through the night etc., and we're not too far from that.
Any thoughts on having kids on a schedule (or not)? I know this is such a personal thing...
Hope everyone's having a lovely Tuesday. :)
XOXO
