Baby Stupid...

I must admit that with all of the crying and squirming and refluxing, I got a little lazy during the day with the babies' schedules. If they wanted to sleep I let them sleep, if they wanted to eat, I fed them, if they wanted to be held I strapped them on and did the dishes while carrying them in a sling. I was just SO tired of hearing screaming babies that I just let them do whatever they wanted and as a result I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off...really like three chickens with three heads cut off. Now some people will tell you that this was not lazy, it was natural and that they were cue based feeding and sleeping and getting all of their needs met on a natural schedule. I actually agree with this to an extent, but it got so bad and unscheduled that even with two people home (me and a helper or Mike) we were ALWAYS holding or feeding someone. And I mean always. Many hours of the day we had crying babies and I started to feel like I could not meet anyones needs let alone everyones needs. And then there was my needs (I have needs?) which were SO not being met that I was crying every evening before bed because I knew that I was going to have to wake up in 4-5 hours and do it all over again by myself for 19-20 hours the next day.

So, I desperately turned to the world of self help/parenting books and now we are trying to "sleep train" the boys using the Baby Wise system. Needless to say there are times during this process where I feel Baby Stupid. Basically, every baby gets woken up at the same time every day, which- in our case- is 6:30am. They get changed, fed and then I force them to stay awake for 30-45 mins and"play" (and let me tell you - it is a bit of a challenge for one person to keep three babies awake and stimulated when they want to sleep). Then after playtime I swaddle the heck out of them and put them in their bed awake so that the can learn to sleep...or something. Either way they have their pacifiers and they are swaddled and they sleep. When someone wakes up and I can't get them to quiet down with a pacifier, I wake everyone up again and we do the whole thing over.

How does one person feed three babies all at the same time you might wonder? Well I'm afraid that we have strayed far from au naturale and very far from breastfeeding...since I don't really want to prop bottle because I am afraid of choking babies, I have started using Podee feeders - which are basically a nipple at the end of flexible tubing attached to the bottle. I feed one baby in my arms and start out the other two with the Podees and then I finish those two off when I am done with the first baby. Then I rotate which baby gets arm fed first for the next feeding.

Each wake, change, feed, play, sleep cycle is 2.5-3 hours. In the evening, at 7:30 or 8pm, we have the final cycle and then we put the babies down for the night. At 10:30 or 11pm, we "dream feed" the babies by feeding them in the dark, without talking and without really waking them up if possible. Then once they are burped, they go right back down to sleep until they wake up by themselves. We usually feed them all again between 1:30 and 2:30am because so far someone always wakes up at around that time. In theory (I said in theory mind you) they should start sleeping 6-8 hours in a row once their bodies get used to this schedule.

I am still not entirely sold on the whole schedule thing, and if I had one baby I am pretty sure that I would have been an au naturale mommy with breastfeeding and babywearing and co-sleeping galore...but I had three babies....So, like the many other things that I had hoped and imagined having a baby would be like that I have had to just deal with and get over - such as working up until 40 weeks, a drug free pregnancy and labor, a natural birth, seeing my baby right as it is born and immediately after, having my husband cut the cord, holding my baby and putting it to breast, having my baby in the hospital room with me, leaving the hospital and going home with my baby, and so much more- I will just have to get over myself and follow a schedule and feed my babies all ot once however I can manage it. And, so far, I have to admit that the boys are actually crying less in the evening and at times I even get a small break to run around doing dishes or laundry. We have yet to see the imaginary, yearned for 6 hours of sleep, but here's hoping...

Mike having his turn with the Podee

Zachary having his turn with the Podee

Enforcing playtime