Things that saved my sanity!

A friend's sister was about to have twins so I was going to send her a link to a post that I wrote, only I can't find the post I was looking for.  Maybe I just dreamt that I wrote it.  Anyway it was a list of things that saved my sanity that first year of having twins and a one year old.

1. We kept a journal of every time a baby was fed, changed or bathed.  You will be so tired that you won't remember the last time a baby pooped - and you need to keep track of that! 

2. Baby Einstein dvd's.  There were times that all three were screaming, but the moment the Disney logo came up and Tinkerbell flew over the castle they all stopped crying, it was amazing and gave me a minute to compose myself and deal with one at a time. 

3. Best advice I ever received...it is ok to let one cry while you deal with the other.  And that advice was truly the key to keeping me sane.  You are only one person and will be alone with them a lot, you can only deal with one at a time.  You will quickly learn what works for each baby and which one will settle down faster.  And if all else fails you need to have a couple people who know that when you call and say "help" and then hang up, they know to come as fast as they can because you are about to lose your mind :) 

4. People like babies, but they LOVE twins, the moment anyone walked in my house I handed them a baby and said "here this one needs..." feeding/changing/burping/rocking or whatever.  I was always handing a baby to somebody.  They loved to be useful and I loved that my baby got the extra attention that I felt they didn't get when it was just me. I rarely got to just sit and rock a baby.

5. Establish routines early, I talked about this in the tips blog post.  I had babies falling asleep in bouncy seats during play dates when there were something like 9 kids under 3 in the house. I believe it is because I never worried about them waking or said "shhh you'll wake the baby". 

6. Take them out a lot.  I used to put them in their car seats and just go for a drive.  Sometimes we would go have lunch at a park, which I managed by keeping Ben & Carlee in the double stroller at all times. They have always travelled really well so it was a break for me. Even now, they are much better behaved when we are out than when we are at home and I know it is because they are used to being out and knowing they have to be good or we go straight home.  We also had a triple stroller and I would push them around the neighborhood.

7. and finally...take lots of pictures, I made sure to stop what I was doing at least once every single month and get at least one individual photo of each one and also one group photo.  I still do this and I upload them to Snapfish and make a photobook every year. 

Oh and another tip. I have been watching  old videos lately and I wish I had taken more random video during that first year.  It is fun to go back and watch short snippets of what everyday life was like.

Something like this....