When my twins were first born I was so overwhelmed with different emotions. I was mainly anxious……about everything. But one feeling I had which I didn’t expect was feelings of guilt. I felt so guilty that I couldn’t just give all my attention to one baby. Often they cried at the same time and it is hard to try to juggle them both on each shoulder. I felt that sometimes I couldn’t comfort them because there was only one of me. I felt bad that they were only getting half my love and attention at times. Or each cuddle was cut short because you had to pick the other one up. I felt bad that they were twins and they were not getting as much attention from me as they would if they were born separately. It was hard.
As a first time mum, I felt guilty that I didn’t know more about caring for babies or I wasn’t learning quick enough. I felt bad that I couldn’t identify what each baby wanted. I used to go to bed thinking I need to focus on one twin tomorrow because the other one was really demanding today and I concentrated on them too much. I would give myself a hard time about it. One of my twins had really bad wind and needed a lot of comforting and winding, so some days I would feel like she was getting all my attention because she was the one crying and the poor boy twin was left in the swing for most of the day as he was more content. It’s hard because there is nothing you can do about it some days. Sometimes you just do what you can. If they were both crying I would take it in turns to comfort each twin with equal amounts. But imagine holding one crying baby and just having to watch the other baby cry for you. It’s an impossible, stressful and heartbreaking situation as the mother. But what can you do? You feel like you are trying your best but your actually failing to make both your babies happy.
But this feeling does pass. I just eventually got better at juggling two babies needs at the same time and more accepting that my best is good enough… it’s just you can’t win some days. I try to keep the perspective that you are outnumbered in the baby to parent ratio and this is just the way it is. As I got more confident in my mothering skills, my guilt wore off and I guess I just got used to two babies crying at the same time.
