First Few Months

The first few months were rough. Between me and AW adjusting to 4-6 hours of sleep a night (she was already used to 6 because of her job) and getting into a good routine of feeding and diaper changing there were many meltdowns, by the boys, by her...and me. Raising kids is tough, those first few days were hell. I went from getting a solid 8 hour rest each night to anything from 6 hours to no sleep at all! I used to be able to focus on work for the majority of the day, especially when AW was at work, but not anymore. I'm really not sure how I accomplished anything "at the office" for the first three months.

See, our situation is somewhat unique (compared to all of our friends with kids), our families live 5+ hours away, so I couldn't call my mother, father, sister or brother for help, or the in-laws. For the first two weeks our mothers stayed with us and helped out at every turn, but by week three we were on our own. A few weeks after that AW had to go back to work because her maternity leave only covered 6 weeks. But soon it all started to click. When AW went back to work, it threw me into the work-from-home/stay-at-home Dad role. Now I was outnumbered...at least with AW home we each had a baby to care for...now, more often than not, it seemed they were ganging up on me. I'd start making bottles the second the first one woke up, but...like clockwork, as soon as that bottle hit his lips his brother would wake up and let me know he too was hungry.

Slowly but surely everything stated to fall into place. The boys and I got into a routine. They'd wake me up, I'd feed them, change them, let them play for a little bit, and then they'd nap in their swings. A few hours later the cycle was repeated. And that's how we started to make it through the day. As they got older the cycle got easier. Sure, every once in awhile the cycle would break and we'd have a "bad day" and I'd need some alone time as soon as AW got home from work, but those days are few and far between.

Looking back, at month 5+, I don't remember much from the first 3-4 months. That makes me a little sad, but at the same time I'm happy because it means the boys are growing and nothing bad happened during that time.