When you get an hour or two of sleep at a time between constantly being woken up, for weeks on end, there happen to be quite a few hilarious and delirious moments that occur during nighttime feedings. I thought I would share a few for your entertainment and to preserve our memories. :)
To preface: We feed the babies 8 times per day (every 3 hours) and each feeding takes at least 60-90 minutes, sometimes longer. Our schedule revolves around 7:30, 10:30, 1:30, and 4:30 am/pm. Matt usually does the 10:30pm feeding on his own while I go to bed early and then I do the 1:30am and 4:30am feedings by myself while he gets (hopefully) enough sleep for work.
"What Are You Doing?"
It's 1:10am and my alarm is going off. I could swear my head just hit the pillow but it's time to feed again. I listen for a moment - I hear nothing but quiet and the gentle hum of the humidifier- excellent, my little ones are still sweetly sleeping. I then look over and check Matt - sleeping - good, my alarm didn't wake him up. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and slowly push myself up. I'm so proud of this new skill I've acquired again post c-section! I then get up, gather all the necessary pumping and feeding equipment together, and head back to bed to get set up with just enough light trickling in through the cracked bathroom door to see what I'm doing but still keep the room dark. When I'm finally ready I gather baby #1 and get started, noting the time on my handy-dandy notebook I keep all their feeding records in. When baby #1 is fed, burped, changed, and happy, I nestle him propped up into the Boppy pillow with a blanket to keep any reflux issues at bay and then begin with baby #2. While I'm feeding baby #2, Matt suddenly bolts straight up in bed out of a deep sleep, has a very confused look on his face, and asks me, "What are you doing???"
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| 1:30-3:00am |
I take a minute, look around my side of the bed, and do a quick mental check. Changing station... check. Baby snuggly sleeping with a full tummy... check. Another baby with a bottle in his mouth, happily eating yet still sleepy... check. Ummmm I kind of thought what I was doing was obvious. I choose to quietly whisper, "Feeding babies."
"So it's your feeding?" he asks me.
"Yes," I respond quietly.
"So I should be sleeping?" he inquires.
"Yes, go to sleep Matt," I tell him. I can't keep a little smile from creeping onto my face. Silly man. He's pretty much dead asleep as he's talking to me.
"Okay." He lays back down and his breathing tells me he's already fast asleep again. I shake my head and go back to feeding my little one, enjoying these quiet little moments before I grab another hour of sleep and do it all again. I couldn't be happier!
Baby Mouth
The other night I was in the middle of one of my cherished windows of sleep, dead to the world, with one arm slung up over my head, resting on the pillow. All of the sudden I wake up to an abrupt and jabbing poke right smack dab in the middle of my armpit! I look over at Matt and ask, "What was that for?!"
He looks at me with glazed over eyes and tells me, "I was seeing if the baby was hungry."
"That was my armpit, not a baby's mouth!" I exclaim. At first I'm mad - my precious sleep has been interrupted after all - but then I'm laughing because I see the humor in the moment. "What baby seriously has a mouth that big?!" I manage to make out between laughing.
The next morning he had no recollection of this happening and we still laugh about it every time I bring it up. And when we see the babies sleeping with their arms up I warn them, "You better watch out! Your daddy will poke your armpit!"
"We ate the babies!"
We were still in the hospital, having nurses come in every hour to check me along with feeding babies every three hours, and to say we were exhausted would be a drastic understatement. We had just finished one of our feedings and tucked both babies back into their basinets when a nurse came in to check on us.
"How's it going?" she looks at Matt and asks.
"Great!" Matt answers. "We just ate the babies!!!"
She took a moment, laughed, and thankfully completely understood what he meant to say was that we had just fed the babies. One word but a big difference!
