Sorry - I guess I have more to say on this subject.

This is my pet subject - someday, when I figure out the answers, I'll write
a book. No, I'll write a couple of books - one for the parents, to help
soothe them down and find the balance in living with their babies, and one
for professionals, to make clear how important it is that parents get this
kind of help!

My first baby was one of those "separation anxiety" babies, constantly
wanting to be "on me", unable to be put down at all. It was traumatic for
*me* - let alone for him, poor little thing! Imagine my terror when my next
pregnancy turned out to be twins!! I couldn't imagine how I could possibly
manage 2 like that. In retrospect, of course, I can see that it was the
*struggling* on my part that made this so miserable a time; I was always
fighting this feeling that I was "supposed" to be doing something
differently, that I must not be doing it "right" (because the books and the
experts available to me at the time were all giving out this "20 minutes
every 3-4 hours" line!), and that every other baby I could see just slept,
ate, and looked cute for a while in a smooth rotation. So of course I was
always trying to get Matthew "off of me", and of course the more I resisted
his needs the more "anxious" he became, and on & on it escalated. He was no
dummy - he was right, I was trying to shuffle him off, in a very physical
way. And how excellent it is that babies can do this - surely it has been
key in determining our survival as a race!

But I must have learned something from this struggle, because by the time my
twins actually came, I had completely given up the whole "struggle" concept,
as well as the "rules"; I just fed them whenever they wanted (or even when
the other twin wanted!), carried them around as much as they needed to stay
happy, and figured out how to do things like go to the toilet while holding
two babies - AND NOT RESENT IT, which was the real breakthrough! Shower?
Forget it - a nice warm tub with the babies in my arms (how did I do that
anyway?) was the best I could do some days, but it sure beat the harried
frantic quickie with the baby/ies screaming outside the door! Guess what? we
were all a billion times happier once I just gave it all up and abandoned
the notions of what I/we "should" or "shouldn't" be doing! And those two
babies weren't "demanding" or "clingy" at all - the 2 of them together were
far, far easier to nurse and care for than my son had been!

(And, in case you were worrying about poor Matthew, he became the happiest
baby on earth once he got a few months older and began to talk - which he
did at an incredibly early age; he switched from being a screaming ball of
misery to a total beaming ray of sunshine at around 4-5 months, when he was
able to start to use words. Never saw anything like it!)

Cathy Bargar RN IBCLC Ithaca NY (who now that all 3 are young adults and out
on their own - mostly - sometimes wishes she had them all back safely
clucking under her wings again! But - guess what? - they all "came out
good", despite my bungling around!)

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