5 Crucial Tips For New Parents Of Twins And Multiples
20 November 2019
PC: RitaE
Congratulations! High fives all around!
Now listen to me: These five tips will save your sanity, your life, your soul, and maybe even your marriage. (You’re welcome.)
1. Sleepy Time
There’s an old Ludacris song called “Stand up,” and the chorus goes “When I move, you move, just like that!” I want you to change that chorus to “When they nap, I nap, just like that!” Say it out loud. A few times. Trust me. There’s no way to avoid feeling tired, and you’re not going to feel truly rested again until, conservatively, the mid 2030’s, but you don’t want to lose your shit and have a total meltdown at CVS at three in the morning standing in front of the locked Enfamil display case uncontrollably weeping in loungewear waiting for the employee who’s outside vaping and talking about the Prison Industrial Complex with a homeless dude to come in and unlock it because you spent all those precious napping minutes scrolling through your Instagram feed liking pictures of other people’s kids.
PC: Stephanie Pratt
2. See The Light
It’s a fine line. One minute you’re bonding with your new babies, and the next minute you look like the Unabomber, you’re giving names to inanimate objects like Tom Hanks in Castaway, and your friends are planning an intervention. Parenting is all the time. There’s not an obvious punch-out time (certainly not in year one with multiples, that is), so you need to create that. Once you accept the hard truth that parenting is never-ending magical relentless beauty then you can give yourself and your partner much needed breaks with other adults at places that don’t allow kids.
PC: Elias Sch.
3. Judgment Day
Everybody has their vision for how they are going to be parents before D-Day. They talk about cloth diapers, lean green amazing grass kiwi strawberry smoothies, infant massages, and Mozart. Then one day you wake up on the couch with jeans and shoes on, miraculously still holding a Taco Bell burrito in one hand (that the dog is now eating), and one of your babies in the other, with some episode of Breaking Bad playing in the background. Shake it off, love yourself, change the baby, and keep it moving. Judgment is for a—holes, judges, and God. And God, as far as I know — which isn’t very far — didn’t have multiples. And most of us don’t have actual judges in our family/friend networks, either. Well, my cousin is a judge, but he handles California Unemployment Insurance Appeals (not parenting), so he doesn’t get to rule on this. I have a great friend who has twins. She has graduated from the top schools and started successful businesses and climbed some of the world’s highest peaks. She said that the hardest, most rewarding thing she’s ever done — no contest — is raising twins. So there you have it. Be kind to yourself.
PC: reneebigelow
4. Present Tense
Look, I really wish I could go back and make some different decisions. I wouldn’t have made fun of Carlos’s mom in the 3rd grade, I wouldn’t have quit piano lessons, and I wouldn’t have drunk-dialed this Greek girl I was really into who looked a little like Marisa Tomei. The past is in the past, though. At the end of every day of parenting, you just need to let it go. You did what you did. There is some benefit to watching the proverbial game tape, so to speak, so you can make adjustments, but only when it’s from a constructive place. Same goes for the future. You have no idea how it’s going to go, so let it be. Worry and regret aren’t good neighborhoods. Stay present. Stay present because you want to soak up every last minute of this exhausting, beautiful, miraculous first year. Having your sleeping baby on your chest is the closest thing to heaven on earth, in my opinion. Be in that moment. I welled up sometimes because of how pure and perfect those love-filled and connected moments were. Having multiple newborn babies in your home is the most amazing present you’ll ever receive. Soak it up.
5. Help, I Need Somebody
Have people lined up who can help (aunts, uncles, neighbors, grandparents, the Amazon delivery driver if you trust her and you’ve sufficiently background-checked her). And of equal importance, receive the help. Some parents have the first part dialed in. They have a lot of people with their hands up saying, “I’m available to help!,” but they are unwilling to receive it. That’s like driving to a bridge, and you ain’t got the toll. Actually, it’s nothing like that. You have the toll, but you have an irrational fear of bridges. Okay, never mind. Just receive. Listen to meditations about being open to receiving. Trust. Can you imagine what The Beatles would have been like if Paul had told John that he didn’t need help with the songwriting? The world would have never gotten “Help!” Can you Imagine that? Even when it’s been a “Hard Day’s Night,” “We Can Work It Out” because “All You Need Is Love” (money) and “Help!”
“Hello, Goodbye.”
PC: skeeze
