I realized it’s been awhile since I’ve done a day in the life post. Those are some of my favorites from other blogs, so I thought I’d do another now that the girls are five months old and on a somewhat more predictable schedule (emphasis on the somewhat—for example, Pretzel has been awake for forty five minutes and is now nursing despite the fact that she generally sleeps until about fifteen minutes from now).

Both Mr. BBB and I are back at work now, so I’ll show you a typical day when we go to work as well as a typical Saturday when we’re both at home. Note that I do tend to do more of the childcare when we’re both home. This is not because I’m better at it nor because either of us believes we have to follow traditional gender roles. Rather, it’s just easier for me since I’m still breastfeeding which means I’d have to stop whatever I was doing to pump every four hours anyway or risk losing my supply. Since it’s easier to feed instead of pumping, I take care of the babies and let Mr. BBB get in some uninterrupted work (there also are a few things we’re doing for the renovation that I can’t actually do simply because I don’t have enough strength to lift what needs lifting).

Note that he does help me with the babies in the evenings, mostly because feeding two demanding babies solids by yourself, while doable, results in a much larger mess (or at least, it does for me).

So here’s a typical Saturday for us:

6:00AM: Wake-up (depending on what time he went to bed the previous night, Mr. BBB may already be up at this point. He’s a morning person, so he prefers sleeping 9:00PM-5:00AM or so)

6:00-6:30AM: Morning chores. For me, this is typically feeding and watering the chickens, getting the dog out, feeding the dog, and hanging out any laundry I started the night before. Basically, I try and fit in anything that needs to get done outside during this period. Mr. BBB sometimes helps me with these, but if he’s planning to do a full day of work on the house, he’ll usually just jump straight into breakfast

6:30-7:15AM: Wake the girls. Feed, burp, and change them.

7:15AM-7:30AM: Eat breakfast. I generally just make oatmeal and some Mother’s Milk tea. With an electric kettle, it’s about two minutes to heat up the water and then about ten minutes to eat. If we’re feeling like a lazy morning, we’ll make crepes or pancakes.

7:30AM-8:30AM: Play with the girls. I’m still trying to figure out the best ways to “play” with two five-month olds. This tends to be some combination of tummy time/reading/playing with the activity mat. I also found a couple books at the library on baby yoga and games to play with babies, so I’ve been trying some of those. They seem to enjoy it at least, especially when I bicycle their legs while singing “I Like to Ride My Bicycle.” Honestly, I’m up for whatever makes them happy.

8:30AM-10:30AM: The girls sleep. I usually try and use this time to get some work in on the renovation.

10:30AM-11:15AM: Wake the girls (if they aren’t already up—they do tend to sleep longer at the first nap than any other time) and feed, burp, and change them.

11:15AM-12:30PM: Play with the girls:

12:30PM-1:00PM: The girls generally go down for a nap around 12:30PM. I eat lunch (generally leftovers) and shower. Yes, I typically don’t take a shower until midday. It actually works out better because I often get sweaty/covered in wood chips while working on the house.

1:00PM-2:30PM: The girls will usually sleep until at least 2:00PM. About 50% of the time, they’ll sleep all the way to 2:30PM. So I try to pick things that I can be interrupted doing so I can go pick them up quickly if they do wake up. Generally, this is some sort of cleaning but it might be work on the renovation if I have something not messy.

2:30-3:15PM: Feed, burp, and change the girls

3:15PM-4:30PM: Play with the girls

4:30-5:15PM: The girls sleep (sometimes). This is the most variable nap. It sometimes happens a bit sooner, sometimes a bit later, and sometimes not at all. Based on what I’ve been reading, I expect that they’ll drop this in the next 2-3 months, but we’ll see. If I get a chance, I try to make dinner during this time or, if I’ve made it ahead of time, clean up. If they don’t sleep, I generally still try and use this time to get something done with them either nearby in their bouncy seats or one in a bouncy seat and one strapped to me (I have a Twingo carrier, but I haven’t been able to get one on my back with one on my front yet. Hopefully soon. . .)

5:15-6:00: Feed, burp, and change the girls.

6:00-7:00: Highly variable what we do here. Sometimes, I will use this to finish dinner. But sometimes, they’re so fussy that I take them for a walk instead, and sometimes, we just play. Their fussiest period is from around 6:00 to 8:00 or so, so I try to be flexible.

7:00-7:30: Dinner for us

7:30-7:50: Feed solids. This has been a fun addition to our nighttime routine. They’ve actually been eating very well—Peanut will sometimes make a face when we try a new food, but she still eats it. Pretzel does not seem phased by anything new and will in fact complain if you don’t feed her fast enough. They’ve done a variety of green vegetables at this point because we figured we’d start with the most bitter and work our way to sweeter things like carrots, sweet potatoes, and fruit. I will say that only about half this time is actually feeding them—the other half is cleaning them up (and I literally mean just cleaning the babies. I clean the high chair, bibs, floor, etc. later).

7:50-9:00: Bedtime routine. I’ve been working on shortening this, but they usually don’t seem to get tired until 9:00. Every now and then, they’ll go down a bit earlier. I figure things will change as they get older. Right now, the routine is breastfeeding, massage, diaper change/put on pajamas, book, second round at the breast, singing. We don’t do a bath because the routine is already fairly long and I don’t think they really need baths every day (their faces and hands get washed after they eat). Plus baths seem to wind them up, so when we give baths, we do it mid-morning to early afternoon, generally right after a feeding and before a playtime.

9:00-10:30: Remainder of chores. This includes such exciting things such as cleaning up from the babies’ dinner, starting laundry, folding laundry, putting away laundry (a lot of my life centers around laundry right now if you couldn’t tell), cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming, packing the diaper bag for the next day, etc.

10:30-10:50: Pump

11:00: Sleep

So there’s a typical weekend day. As you can see, I get a solid seven hours of sleep, generally without interruption (Peanut woke us up once in the past two months, but they’re really good about sleeping through the night otherwise). I do prefer eight, but I’m happy with what I get. Sometimes, I’ll sneak in a nap during the girls’ afternoon nap so that helps.

 Below you’ll see a typical weekday with both Mr. BBB and I going to work. One thing you’ll notice is that while we’re home, we try to keep the feeding times consistent with what we do on the weekends (they tend to be a bit more variable at daycare, but I think part of that is just the girls settling in). It seems to make everything smoother if we stay consistent. The one exception is on Sunday where we do the morning feeding an hour early so we can make church on time. Generally, I try and stretch the next two feedings to get back on the normal schedule, and that seems to work for us. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that routine is great and you should try to be consistent wherever possible, but don’t sweat it if you need to move things around somewhat.

Weekday schedule:

5:45-6:00AM: Wake-up. Mr. BBB does have two early days for work where he gets up at 5:00. On those days, I wake up with him at 5:00 to do any outdoor morning chores while he gets ready for work and then go back to sleep and wake up again at 6:00. On the other days, I get up at 5:45.

5:45-6:30AM: Morning chores. On weekdays, this includes at least ten minutes of getting everything ready for work (lunch, pumping bag, laptop) and aliquoting bottles for daycare. I also shower in this interval.

6:30-7:15AM: Wake the girls. Feed, burp, and change them.

7:15AM-7:30AM: Get the girls ready to leave and the car packed. I’m down to two trips to get everything to the car by myself which I think is pretty good.

7:30AM-8:00AM: Drive into work. Drop the girls at daycare on my way.

8:00-4:30PM: Work. The end time can be variable, but I’ve been trying to keep my hours reasonable.

4:30-5:00PM: Drive home, stopping to pick up the girls from daycare on my way.

5:15-6:00: Feed, burp, and change the girls

6:00-7:00: Still a lot of variation, but I do tend to cook a lot during this interval since it’s some of the only time I have during the week

7:00-7:30: Dinner for us

7:30-7:50: Feed solids. 

7:50-9:00: Bedtime routine.

10:30-10:50: Pump

11:00: Sleep

So there you have an example schedule with twins. It’s certainly not ideal—I would love more sleep for example—but it’s not as bad as some people make it out to be. Rest assured that others have come before you and figured this out, so you can too. And it does get easier. Having them settle into a routine has been a godsend because I can now be more comfortable in my knowledge of when I will be able to have a solid block of time to dedicate to a project and when my attention needs to be on the babies.