We're 6 days into this whole parenthood thing and our over-analyzing engineering minds have kicked into gear.
As Erika mentioned in the last post we are on a 3 hour repeating schedule. That is, unless one of them wakes up gassy, with a dirty diaper, or hungry. Don't want to starve our tiny babies! :) It's really the only way we can manage to keep two babies fed, clothed, changed, and happy. We start each cycle at 3, 6, 9, and 12 AM/PM. If you were to spy on us during the daytime (6am - 12am) you'd see something like this:
| Minutes | Mommy | Daddy |
|---|---|---|
| -10 | Relax and get ready | Finish cleaning the feeding equipment (bottles, pump, syringe) from last round. Set out equipment in the right locations. |
| 0 | Start expressing with pump | Wake up Peyton, or grab whichever one is most awake. Change diaper, and remove warm clothing if baby's sleepy. |
| 2 | Stop expressing. Start breast feeding Peyton. | Wake up Lucas. Change diaper and disrobe as required. Portion and start warming breast milk from fridge. |
| 12 | Stop feeding Peyton. Start breast feeding Lucas. | Start supplementing Peyton with the stored milk. |
| 22 | Stop feeding Lucas. Start pumping for storage. | Keep feeding Peyton. |
| 30 | Keep pumping. | Stop feeding Peyton. Start feeding Lucas. |
| 40 | Stop pumping. Label, portion, inventory, and store milk. Break down pump and put in soapy warm water for feeding equipment. | Keep feeding Lucas. |
| 50 | Change Peyton if she's finished, put her back in her warm clothes. | Stop feeding Lucas. Maybe top off Peyton if she gets a second wind. |
| 60 | Help daddy, get something to drink, hold babies. | Maybe top off the tanks again. They both like to rest a few minutes and kick back in to feeding. |
| 70 | Continue relaxing and maybe start a nap. | Change both diapers, put warm clothes on them, and put them to bed. |
| 80 | ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz | Start chores. Laundry, dishes, cleaning, make food. |
That's a pretty typical cycle during the day. We usually have about 1.5 hours of "free" time each cycle. Oh, I left out all the burping, but that's pretty obvious. :) If you're one of the lucky ones staying here to help out in the coming weeks you get to fill in for the Daddy column while I'm at work. Hopefully soon they'll get big and strong enough that we can give them more than 10 minutes of breast feeding. That'll make things a bit easier.
At night things are different. After the 9pm feeding is done, I go to bed. Mommy hops into the nearest phone booth and puts on her superwoman outfit. She lets me sleep until the 6am feeding. She skips a step and doesn't express in the beginning. Extra few minutes each time! And if they're not latching within 5 minutes she doesn't make them try to breast feed for 10 minutes. So that saves some time on each cycle. She tells me she still gets over an hour of sleep each time.
We've got enough milk stored up now that we're going to try something so Erika can get more rest. She'll be skipping the 6am feeding, which means she gets to sleep 4-5 hours in one block.
Oh yeah, here are another couple pics from today. This time I get some camera time!
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