that is my actual washing line - I've been taking advantage of the warmer weather to get 80% of the drying done outside although my natural lazy instinct is to throw all of the clothes into the tumble dryer.laundry
Since the babies came home, I've done more laundry than ever before.
I used to do laundry once a week for D and me. Now I'm doing at least one load every second day. The babies pee a lot, and they pee through their blankets and clothes, so it piles up quickly.
I mentioned in one post that Connor was peeing through everything and Rachel told me to make sure he was pointing down :) Did that and it worked a little bit. I mentioned it to my friend, C, with the twin girls, who said it would improve the minute they were big enough to "graduate" from the Huggies preemie nappies (diapers) to Pampers.
And it has.
Oh my word, what a difference. Connor's probably around 3 kg now - he weighed 2,57 kg two weeks ago - so on Saturday I put him in a Pampers Newborn nappy (2,5 - 5kg it says) and NO MORE SOAKED CLOTHES. That nappy keeps all the pee and doesn't leak. Amazing - I am loving it. Seriously. (D says I'm a marketer's dream - he can laugh all he wants but when I love something, I seriously LOVE IT :))
So now we need to get Kendra bigger so we can move her to the Pampers too and hopefully my laundry situation can get back to normal.
I actually counted the other day - they have a total of 14 babygrows and 13 vests - all preemie - and I refuse to buy any more of the tiny baby stuff. Hence all the laundry.
Connor has just about outgrown the preemie babygrows from Edgars. I have babygrows from 3 places and the Edgars ones are the smallest so have fitted them the best from day 1.
sleep deprivation
In the last 6 weeks I think I've cried more than I cried the entire 6 years before this. Before you call in the men with the white coats, let me add that I'm not a crying sort of person. Usually very even-tempered and yet...the hormones in those first two weeks coupled with the sleep deprivation since the babies came home from the NICU have left me a bit frazzled.
It feels like I'm ungrateful at times but someone told me that I'm still a normal parent (!) even though I went through infertility and am still entitled to all the normal feelings that go along with it. All true.
I've been keeping track of the crying (very nerdy of me but I need to know if I'm losing it...) and it is actually not that frequent - Thurs 6th, Tues 11th, Sat 15th, Tues 18th.......
On Tues 11th I hid in the bathroom to have some space and cry. That's when I decided to get the night nanny because I realised I'm sleep-deprived and it's affecting my reasoning.
Really, it's not fun and I am soooo not someone who can survive on just a few hours sleep. I've always needed at least 7, but preferably 8 or 9 hours sleep a night - nothing's changed now that the babies are here.
If you're pregnant and reading, sleep as much as you can now. Not that you can store it up, but just enjoy it. I soooooooooo miss my uninterrupted sleep.
I'm holding it together - sometimes I feel like I'm doing a great job (D certainly thinks so) and sometimes I think I'm barely holding it together.
The night nanny helps and of course, more nights would be better, but we can only afford about 6 nights maximum every month, so we'll savour each hour of those 6 nights.
babies
I love, love, love looking at their sweet little faces, hearing their cute little sounds and still have moments where I can't believe they're mine - finally.
P.S. trying to be honest about what life is like with two little ones but very, very grateful I have them in my life
Leigh, I hear you on the sleep thing. Sleep for me is sacred as well. I don't really need more than 7 hours, but I need 7 hours to function. I've quit jobs because they started too early in the morning and I couldn't fall asleep because I was so nervous about sleeping enough hours. I completely understand reaching close to insanity on lack of sleep, i cried many times because of that too. But crying is good, it relaxes your muscles, and throws out a lot of the tension that you are holding. Hopefully you'll be able to come up with other strategies besides the nanny. You loving the pamper diapers is hilarious! but I'm pretty sure that anything that helps is received with intense joy. ;)
ReplyDeleteLosing sleep is the hardest part, which everyone reminds you of but doens't help you prepare for! I'm still soo jealous of your night nurse!
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you bought all those preemie clothes! We had a horrible time finding clothes since we're going into a season change and they are marketing fall clothes now. Plus the NICU nurses said not to bother, that we wouldn't get our money's worth out of them so we just use the NB sizes and roll up the sleeves. There is tons of extra fabric but they don't seem to mind. that might help with your laundry! Have you tried folding down the front of the Pampers with K? That's what we have to do because we can't get preemie diapers in our area.
I still don't know how you do it! I'm beginning to fray and DH is going back to work soon-SO AM I! Stay strong! I'm looking up to you!
Oh, it all sounds so, so familiar! Cry when you need to; in the shower worked best for me. I say never underestimate the healing powers of a good shower and a good cry! It's definitely all a shock to the system.
ReplyDeleteMy husband loves Pampers too! He hoards them, and when we have other brands to use, he pulls out the Pampers Swaddlers for overnight. : ) I doubt you have them in South Africa, but Luvs are good diapers for the price (much cheaper than Pampers and Huggies).
Hang in there!!
Hi Leigh, one preemie keeps us busy enough - in fact in the first couple of nights at home we had these middle of the night conversations wondering how on earth parents of multiples manage!!
ReplyDeleteThe night nurse sounds like such a brilliant idea - hats off to you for being onto it enough to think of that :)
Thankfully our "little" prem was over 6lb so we haven't experienced the nappy issue - I can only begin to imagine the frustration of all that laundry.
You're doing oh so well - and thanks for finding time for the updates when you're so busy running around after those 2!!
Clio, now that's committed to sleep! I actually don't even go for job interviews if the location is more than a 30-minute drive from home. That's how much I value my sleep.
ReplyDeleteMandibula, exactly – I used to get tired of hearing the “sleep while you can” comments – now I know what they all mean.
I need to blog about the money thing – we just have to do this night nanny thing – otherwise I think I’ll go crazy from lack of sleep.
I don’t know what things cost there, but here they’re about R30 for a babygrow ($4) which is not bad. Also I asked my work colleagues to only buy prem and newborn clothes so we got a lot of it. And the vests are about R30 – R40 for two, so also not bad. I’m already rolling up the sleeves on these – can’t imagine if they were in newborn stuff! Poor kids.
The NICU nurses told us to go buy prem nappies because we’d only bought newborn. Kendra should be able to wear the wonderful Pampers within a week or two and I can’t WAIT!
When are you going back to work? D was only at home for about 4 days……. So it’s been interesting Need to blog all that too! And when is your hubby going back? What’s soon?
Deanna, no, we don't have Luvs. I sorted out all our nappies yesterday so I can use up the other stuff and focus on the Pampers loveliness :) I am clearly going crazy!
Saffy, that's so funny. My friend, C, and I were saying today that WE don't know how parents of triplets do it :) She also has twins.
Eventually they will start leaking again - a sure sign you gotta buy the next size up in diapers!
ReplyDeleteFunny - I dislike Pampers because they don't hold up at all, and not overly fond of Huggies - although my best friend will buy nothing else.
I like Luvs - but my sister prefers Pampers.
I've found they go in phases, sometimes I'll get a bad batch or they'll change they way they are made from one year to the next. And a skinny baby may fit into one diaper while a chubby one will work better in another brand.
Another factor is diaper rashes. Buy anything cheap - store brand or White Cloud, and my kids all had severe diaper rashes and I went through 4 - 8 diapers more per day. Pampers also caused severe rashs.
You love what works.
We went in for our 34 week check up today and things look good. Tim bought a birthing kit for the homebirth. I'm not looking forward to the birth - I'm enjoying pregnancy too much. LaRue is a mega wiggle worm and I love watching her move around. I know I'll miss it so much.
Oh no! just when you think you have things figured out
ReplyDeleteOh, Rachel – time is close now for LaRue – I love how you call her a wiggle worm. Connor was a wiggle worm too
I'm a marketers dream too. I know I hate Huggies from when we had Phoebe. We went into this pregnancy knowing we love Pampers. We can get premie and newborn sizes for Pampers here in the US, do they have those sizes where you are? Our boys wore the premie size when they were first born and they were both four pounds (not sure what that is in kg).
ReplyDeleteAnd it's great you got a night nurse. I remember a few weeks ago, I was really sleep deprived and it was bad. I could barely function. My DH took care of the boys for a night here and there and I felt so much better. Now that they are older, they are sleeping more at night. Sometimes I can get 5 hours in a row!!!
And yes, life with two little ones is very very hard. I'm there with you. There's always laundry to be done, babies to be fed and diapers to be changed. But they are so so cute!