Lessons Learned in First Six Months with Twins

Six month old photoshoot

Wow!  I cannot believe that my twin babies are already 6 months old.  I don’t want to sound cliché but time SERIOUSLY does fly!

Over the past 6 months my life has gone through so many different changes from being on maternity leave, new dynamic in my marriage, going back to work after maternity leave, finding childcare for my babies just to name a few.

I feel like there are so many people just throwing information at you while you’re pregnant, after you have the babies and the whole time during the past six months.  The best advice that I could give a new mother is to do what works best for your family. 

I have made a list of the top 10 things I have learned over the past six months and I will share them below.

1. Planning is very important. 

I cannot stress this enough.  Thankfully I am a planner (I can tell you what I will be doing 5 years from now), so this being important works well for me.  I’ve learned that with the babies it is best to plan ahead for every thing that you are going to do for the day and even a few days in advance.  Now, I understand that planning EVERY detail of every day is not realistic, but aiming to plan helps the days and weeks run smoothly for me.  I have a weekly planning schedule that I do every Sunday (

I will share in a future blog post), this helps myself and my husband stay on the same page for the week. 

2. Babies are on their own time schedule…not YOURS. 

I learned this when trying to leave the house for the first time alone.  I had decided that I was going to take the babies to visit my family who live approximately 45 minutes away.  I had planned the entire day and packed everything accordingly.  I wanted to leave the house by 10 am.  Well at 9:55 as I am placing my son in his car seat, he decides that he wants to have a blow out.  So I had to change his entire outfit that was coordinating perfectly with his sister.  As the clock begins to approach 10:20 I am ready to place him back in the carseat.  As I am getting him buckled back into his seat, I look over at my daughter who now has spit up all over her clothes now. (I thought it was a good idea to feed them right before we left the house and it backfired).  Needless to say I learned that by them being on their own time schedule, I should allow myself more time for the unpredictable events.

3.  It Is ok to walk away.

I have loved every single moment of being a mother and I am so happy of the double blessings that we received.  However, from 6 weeks to 3 months my daughter had colic.  She would literally scream for about 1 hour non stop and there was nothing that I could do to make her stop.  She was not hungry, her diaper was clean, she did not show any signs of a sore belly….she just literally screamed for 1 hour.  This was very frustrating to me, not because she was screaming, but because my daughter was screaming and there was nothing that I could do to console her.  I quickly learned that it is ok to walk away for a little bit to regroup.  I think walking away helped both of us because I was no longer tensed and she was able to let her screams out without me hovering over her.

4.  People will give you unsolicited advice.

I have received so much advice.  Everyone has a cousin’s, uncle, neighbors, brother with twins and they can all tell me how to raise mine.  I have quickly learned to let unsolicited advice go in one ear and out the other one if this is not something that will work for me and my family.

5.  New level of Love

While I was pregnant people would always tell me that having children was a love that you have never experienced before.  I could not imagine that.  If you know me, you know that I am SOOO in love with my husband, and I couldn’t imagine another type of love that would be even close to that.  I knew that I would love my children…but I had no idea that I would love them this much.  I joke around a lot and tell people that I was just not ready to love two people so much.  Having children really is a new kind of love and it is the best thing that has every happened to me.  I am forever grateful.

6.  No sleep and still functioning

I learned that I can actually function without sleep.  My husband tells me all of the time that sleep is a hobby to me and that I worship sleep.  He’s a little extreme, but he is right I am in love with sleep.  Having my babies has shown me that I actually can function without sleep and I just didn’t think I could get as much done without sleep as I have.

7.  The babies are testing me ALREADY

I’ve often heard that babies and children will do what you allow them to do.  They do tests to see what they can get away with.  The other day my daughter was laying on her boppy lounger on the floor and I was sitting on the couch overlooking her.  She started making a loud scream noise out of the blue, so of course I looked at her to see what was going on.  She then stopped crying, looked up at me to see if I was looking at her.  When she saw me looking at her, she decided to do the scream again while watching me out of the corner of her eye.  How does she already know that I will come running if she needs me….she is 6 MONTHS and already trying to trick me.

8.  Every Stage is Fun

I’ve heard so many mothers say that every stage is fun when raising kids.  This statement is so true.  I have been able to find something that I love in every single stage, and as the stages progress it just keeps getting better and better. 

9.  Truly the Best Part of Me

 

Bringing my twins into the world has seriously been my proudest moment.  These two little people mean the world to me and they are genuinely the Best Part of Me

10.  Changes a Relationship

All of my friends with children have told me over and over again that having children can really change the relationship.  Of course I did not believe that.  My husband and I have been together twelve years, so at this point I’m thinking how could these two babies come into our lives and change it?  They can’t possibly change it that much.

BOY WAS I WRONG!!! (this needs a full blog post)

We have learned how to deal with the changes.  Some of the changes are great and others just needed some adjusting to be great. 

I hope my experiences over the past 6 months can help a new mother or help someone give advice to a new mother.

Thank you for visiting!!

XOXO

Katrina Zackery