The First Night the Twins were Home

I have been MIA for the past couple months because I gave birth to my two beautiful twin girls. It was a magical time to bring them home, bond with them and my husband for two whole weeks, and start the mommy transition. Instagram culture shows the magical rainbows and unicorns version of the mommy transition. The beautiful moments, the quiet snuggles, and full face of make-up. Yup, and I call bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong it was a magical time and becoming a mother has been the greatest accomplishment of my life. But, I want to talk about the mommy reality, especially of twins.

Someone is always crying. Its rare in the first few weeks you will make everyone happy. Whether it’s the babies, your husband or yourself, someone is crying. My husband and I always tell people about our first night with the girls at home. My milk had not fully come in, something nurses at the hospital promise if you keep feeding will happen, “don’t worry about it!”. Also, the formula guilt trip you get before leaving the hospital – because “breast is best”. Anyways, we get home, they are okay in the afternoon, cranky in the evening, and screaming terrors at night. They cried from midnight to seven in the morning. I kept breast feeding, and breast feeding. I was in pain, I was exhausted, and my husband and I were starting to turn on each other. Kyle ended up texting my mom “S.O.S.” while we lay in bed with two screaming babies beside us.

My mom was at our house by eight, took both babies down stairs into our family room, open a bottle of formula and the crying magically stopped. My husband and I thought we had gone deaf after the night we had. I had two babies, not enough milk, and they were just cranky because they were hungry. Something a seasoned mother can identify, but a naive mother thinks will go away with breast feeding.

Long story short, don’t be afraid to ask for help and don’t let anyone make you feel bad for using formula. I don’t want to get into a debate of formula vs. breast milk. I understand the importance of breast milk, but for twins I don’t produce enough. Even now the girls get some supplementation with formula, and that is okay. A little formula doesn’t make you a bad mother. But, making yourself feel so guilty about it that you let your kids cry because they are hungry when there isn’t enough milk for both isn’t fair.

Transitioning to motherhood is hard. Figuring out how to adjust to taking care of any number of little people is hard. They suck the life out of you, both literally and figuratively, in those first few weeks. But, that first time they hold your finger and fall asleep on your chest makes every sleepless night worth it.

Hang in there new mommies – you got this.