I’m paying the price for too long an outing yesterday. I put the babies in their carseats around 10:15 after eating, left the house at 10:45, and didn’t return until 2:00. Not only is that way too long for them to have been in their carseats (they were so good about it), but being away from home for that long just completely threw off our routine. When we got home, nobody among the three of us really had any idea when it was time to eat, play or sleep. By 5:45pm it was meltdown-city, and they’ve woken to eat more than usual overnight. Boo.
I’m finding it’s both easier and harder to take them out these days. It’s in some ways easier, largely because I’ve gotten better at it. I know what it takes to get out of the house, what I need to pack, etc. I don’t have to think about it as much. My mental checklist has become almost automatic. On the other hand, they do not yet have an especially regular or predictable nap/eat schedule, so it’s very difficult to predict ahead of time when they’ll sleep and when they’ll be fussy. Add to that the fact that the car and stroller no longer work the automatic sleep magic that they once did. It’s trickier to get them to sleep sometimes, even (especially?) when they really need it.
And there’s a big difference between an outing to my mom/baby class or to my friend’s house (who also has infant twins), versus an outing that is more about running errands or meeting a fellow adult for lunch. If I’m going to a baby-centric place, they get to come out of their carseats, play on the floor or otherwise interact with the world, and when it’s time to eat, have a more normal feeding session. If not, then they just stay in their carseats, which means they’re pretty much either sleeping, eating, or fussing. They don’t totally hate their carseats, there just isn’t much to do in them.
It’s a tough balance to strike. Staying home more makes for easier babies, since I can easily keep track of what happened, when. I also have my complete bag of tricks for entertaining them, feeding them, and getting them to sleep. But staying home too much makes the days creep by a lot slower, which is much more likely to make me a little nutty. So while I do continue to try to get out of the house regularly, I also find I have to really ask myself if the outing is necessary and/or worth it. Frequently it is, especially if it’s a shorter, flexible outing (i.e. I can decide to do it when I see that the babies are likely to tolerate it). But now, more often than before, I pay a certain price for my excursions.
Nothing in life is free.
