I am somewhat of a perfectionist and definitely one who likes to do things on their own and not ask for help.  I was determined to take care of my twins without any outside help: just me, my husband and two munchkins.  After the twins were born, I hung on stubbornly for a short period before I broke down and realized that it is ok to ask for help.  It doesn’t mean I was a failure or that I was giving my childrearing duties over to someone else.  It just meant that I was exhausted from 1-2 hours of sleep every day for almost 2 months, I wanted to take a shower more than once every 3 days (don’t think that is gross, especially if your multiples aren’t here yet), and I discovered that I wasn’t superwoman.

It all started when my son’s water broke at 28 weeks.  We spent 3 weeks in the hospital before they came into the world at 31 weeks.  Then, for the next 5 weeks, I was either pumping or hanging at the hospital.  My husband played superman for as long as he could for the 3 weeks of hospital bed rest until he became exhausted and we realized it was ok to ask our neighbors to let the dog out in the morning and put him up at night.  Somewhere between bed rest and NICU time I learned to say “yes, there is something you could do for me.  Could you please pick up milk, bread and cat food at the store for me”.  I didn’t fall over or get hives for asking for help and it allowed me to focus on the babies while they were in the NICU.

When I got back home, I turned back into superwoman for a long time.  For about 1-2 months I would feed, feed, pump around the clock until they learned to breastfeed and then I would feed, feed and start all over again.  I tried not to wake my husband during the week as he had to go to work.  After getting only 1-2  hours of sleep every 24 hours for almost 2 months, I  finally had to break down and ask him to help with either the 1:00 or 4:00 feedings.  It wasn’t long after that that they started sleeping longer at night, but I cherished that extra 2 hours of sleep while he was helping.

I again had to learn that it was ok to take people up on their offers.  Yes, if you want to come visit on Wednesday I would love if you could bring some diapers.  Yes, if you want to come watch them for 3 hours I would love to sleep.  After about 4 months I even had my mother-in-law come weekly to hang for the afternoon while I took a bath, cleaned or went for groceries.  It was good for me and a good change for them.

As you prepare to give birth to your twins, triplets, quads or higher order multiples, the biggest tip I can give you is to ask for help and accept it when it is offered.  Friends, family, neighbors are all good resources for you.  Send thank you notes often to let them know how much you appreciate them and what they are doing for you.

If you have triplets or more munchkins on the way, please consider asking for overnight help.  You would be surprised at how many people will volunteer.  Everyone loves to snuggle with a baby!

If you have a strong church family, ask if there is anyone who would be willing to volunteer to help once you come home.  Don’t be surprised if you aren’t overwhelmed with the number of people who want to come help you.  Set up a schedule of when you need volunteers.  Better yet, if you have a friend who would be willing to coordinate a volunteer schedule, let them help you with that task too.

You can also advertise at local colleges for someone to come a couple of hours/week to play with the kids while you get things done.  Yes, you might have to pay a little for this, but you would be surprised at how much you can get done in 2-3 hours and it will be $30 well spent!

If I had it to do all over again, I would have shed my superwoman costume and accepted offers for help from the beginning.  It helped me to be better rested, stay healthy and get a few things done so that when my help wasn’t there I was able to devote all my time and energy directly to my children.  That in itself makes any help well worth the asking and the taking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 5:10 am and is filed under Multiples. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.