The Twinkies

How good are your babies at self-entertainment? Do you ever get any moments to yourself? What do you do with those moments?

This is part of Amy’s new Round Robin format which is replacing the old Twinny Questions. (No, you don’t have to do a video.)

PokerPeaker writes: How about a blog entry on how your twins interact with each other at their age now. Do they play together? Do they know each other? Are they anxious when they are apart?

As a picture is worth 1,000 sleep-deprived incoherent words, I offer this to answer you:

Can you stay sane with teething twins?

No.

Not on Fire, responding to Multiples are NOT a Freakshow, asked:

I had two singletons, so I know that people want to acknowledge new babies. I read this and I want to know is there a correct response? Should we ignore new babies, single or otherwise? I mean, what could one say that would be appropriate?

For me, I know that I hate being asked about fertility treatments. Until such time as I can ask someone what position she was in when she conceived her children, I don’t see why it is OK to ask me how I conceived mine. I’m also not a big fan of “double trouble.” I mean, who wants a total stranger to announce that she considers one’s children “trouble”? Touchers bother me; I don’t know where their hands have been and it generally isn’t acceptable in our society to touch people. Finally, blocking the stroller and preventing me from doing whatever it is I am trying to do because someone “just has to see those babies” just infuriates me. I have a small window when I’m out before meltdown happens and it will be me, not the stranger in the mall who crossed over from the other side of the center court at high speed at the mere sight of a double stroller, coping with hysterical babies.

On the good side, no acclamation of cuteness ever goes unappreciated, even though I am sometimes flummoxed why someone thinks a baby in the midst of a meltdown is cute.

The mileage of other multiple mothers may vary. Feel free to weigh in (please) on what you think is an appropriate public response to multiples, or babies in general.

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I’ve turned off comments because of spam problems.

Eva writes:

Do you really keep both of them in the bed all night? Does your husband wake up to help shuffle babies? Do you think they nurse more often because they’re in bed with you? Do you think they sleep as soundly with you as in the crib? Do they ever thrash or hit or kick or scratch each other in the night? Are you worried at all about eventually (say, by the teen years) transitioning them back out?

No, I don’t keep both in bed; we only have a queen and it is much too crowded for two adults, two babies and a cat. Who gets to be in bed alternates depending on who is being the fussiest. When we were on vacation they were both in the bed in the king sized bed in the hotel we stayed at one night, and it was grand. Lots of room made that ideal. However, we aren’t buying a new bed.

B is pretty much useless at night, so I let him sleep most of the time.

I do think that whoever is in bed with me ends up eating more often because I just feed that one at the slightest noise. The “crib baby” has a chance to put him or herself back to sleep on his or her own without any help from me. For example, last night J was up every 90 - 120 minutes, whereas F slept from 9:00 until 6:00. Now, I know that F got up several times because the first few times I got J (and returned him) she was stirring, but she was able to put herself back to sleep. This is, of course, the desired skill. J doesn’t have it yet, which is why after a couple of wakings I brought him into bed with me.

The few times we have had them both in bed at the same time, they have not hit or kicked each other. They do worse in trying to climb over one another to get to me. This is another reason that two in bed at once is hard for me.

I’m not worried about transitioning them back out because they nap in their cribs and, as I mentioned F is already occasionally sleeping through the night in her crib. Basically, I am selfish about my sleep and co-sleeping serves to feed my sleep. When it stops doing that, it stops.