For parents of multiples

Is anybody out there reading this who has twins? Or triplets? Or -- heaven forbid -- an even bigger litter? Probably not, but here's a little advice anyway.

If you have multiple babies at once, sometimes it's going to feel like you're not getting ANY sleep. Just to pull an example out of the air: One of your babies might get all of his first molars in quick succession. Before he's done, his twin brother might start in on his first molars. And before he's done, the first baby might start working on all of his canine teeth. And so on. In the midst of this, one or both of them might get sick. At 4 am you might find yourself saying, in a desperate sotto voce, "I never sleep. I'm never going to sleep again."

I'm here to tell you, that's not true. Not that I believe these crazy rumors about children eventually getting all their teeth. That's obvious fantasy. BUT! The good news is that no matter how bad things seem, you are actually getting little bits of sleep all the time. The key is to 1) recognize them when they happen and 2) enjoy them!

Now, recognizing sleep can be tricky. For instance, Monday morning around ten o'clock I threw myself on my bed in total exhaustion. The babies were asleep. I'd only slept a couple of hours at a time for three nights, and on this particular morning I decided that the dishes had to wait. I was going to sleep! I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling for a long time. I thought in frustration, "I'm so tired. Why can't I sleep?" That thought started to loop miserably through my mind, like a Philip Glass composition on repeat. But I was really tired, so I kept lying there. At some point the light on the ceiling began to shift and change. It was white, then yellow, then pink, then blue. It bloomed and washed around like strange aurora. Lovely. There was also faint music, lapping at the edge of my hearing in time to the light show. I watched and watched. And all the while I was thinking, "I'm so tired. Why can't I sleep? I'm so tired. Why can't I sleep . . . ?" Then, Tristan cried out from the nursery and the white ceiling tiles snapped into focus. Two hours had gone by. I had been sleeping the entire time! But I had completely failed to RECOGNIZE and ENJOY it.

Don't fall into this trap!

The first and most effective strategy for recognizing that you are sleeping is to get a second opinion -- preferably from someone who is awake. Here's an example conversation:

Me (with face in pillow): Dane, please go get the baby.
Dane: What? Why?
Me (still under the pillow): He's crying. He needs you.
Dane: No he's not.
Me: Yes he is! Can't you hear him? Why won't you go?!
Dane: He's not crying. I'm awake. You don't know what's going on because you're asleep.
Me: No, I'm not.
Dane: You're asleep.
Me: But I'm talking . . . .

After this exchange, Dane assured me again that I was sleeping and I was able to settle down into happy oblivion for two or three more hours. See? Recognition, then enjoyment.

Of course, sometimes you're on your own, so the first strategy doesn't work. In that case, you'll have to employ the second strategy for recognizing sleep -- figuring it out for yourself. The key to this strategy is to be mindful of your surroundings, and always remember that when you're asleep events are more disjointed, colors are more lurid, and the soundtrack is (usually) more psychedelic than in your waking life.

Now, you have to stay on your toes to use strategy number two effectively. Life at home with infant or toddler multiples is such that you may find yourself inside on a sunny afternoon, wearing leopard-print pajamas, listening to Radar Love, eating an under-ripe pear, and staring at a pink and green plastic lion. You might think hopefully, "This is pretty surreal. Maybe I'm asleep!" But you're not. For starters, Golden Earring isn't particularly psychedelic.

Let's consider another scenario. Suppose you find yourself taking a midnight walk through a steeply sloping wooded canyon. It's raining. Light from your headlamp flashes on wet sandstone, then dripping moss. Your paratrooper boots are slithering over loose stones and rotting leaves. You're clutching a sleeping baby to your chest with one hand, grabbing for balance at wet tree roots with the other. If you're really good at strategy number two, now might be a nice time to pause and ask yourself, "Do I actually own a pair of paratrooper boots?" But you're busy. The footing is bad; the weather is terrible. You're trying to keep the rain off the baby and yell directions to the rest of the team.

Yes, the team. Your head lamp flashes on each of them, struggling along the cliff face. Your husband. Your father. Your step mom. Your step brother -- with the other baby strapped to his back, thank goodness. A friend from high school who you've barely seen in the last decade. And your friend's playwright husband. All great folks. You're glad to see them. But, again, once you've had some practice at strategy number two, this might be a point where you would ask yourself, "Do these people normally dress like commando/ninjas?" And even if you're less practiced, you might ask yourself, "Is this really the group of people I'd get together to steal cadmium from a mine I discovered on a neighbor's property?" And, "Do any of them really have the contacts I'm going to need to sell the cadmium on the black market to laptop battery manufacturers in China?" Because that, in fact, is why you're all out in the rain.

As you all come down the final slope and assemble in the shelter that your father has thoughtfully built at the top of the mine shaft, alarm bells should be going off even if you're never heard of strategy number two. The rain has let up, the darkness is lessening. The sun will be up soon. The rest of the team is uncoiling ropes, getting ready for the descent into the mine, and complimenting your dad on his carpentry. You are scanning the valley below for the landmark that will let you know you've come to the right place. The elaborate shelter that has been built at the top of the mine is apparently not evidence enough. And then you see it: In the front yard of the neighbor's house, in full technicolor, is a larger-than-life inflatable plastic Santa riding a hot pink plastic hippo. Santa's arm is raised to the sky. You know that you've arrived.

What you apparently don't know -- but you should -- is that you are asleep. A few minutes from now, you're going to have to abort the mission just as your step brother is beginning to repel into the mineshaft. Your baby is crying. Let me assure you, he is not crying because the pink ruffled overall shorts you dressed him in for the expedition aren't warm enough. Nor is he crying because his brother has crawled over to that tipping octagonal grate and fallen into the mine. Both babies are warmly dressed and safe in their cribs. They're crying because they want you to stop drooling on yourself and feed them lunch.

So! Where does that leave us with strategy two? In a nutshell: If you are experiencing anything that might fit reasonably into an action-adventure movie, and that movie morphs suddenly into something more like an episode of Doctor Who, you are probably asleep! Stay sharp and this should be easy to recognize.

And once you've recognized that you're sleeping, with a little more practice you can learn to sit back and enjoy it. Remember that this is what you want to be doing. This is what you've been longing for through all the hours that your rocked, shushed, walked the floor, and knitted to the saccharine strains of Baby Signing Time. Sleep in any form is good. Sleep is what you need for your eyes to stop twitching involuntarily. So, when things start to happen, don't worry. Don't stew. Relax. Maybe you'll hang on to sleep long enough for the tenth Doctor to show up! Or the fourth, or fifth, or Sarah Jane, or Amy Pond, or even K-9. Whoever floats your boat.

Personally, I'm so tired I'm just happy to see Santa.

To all you other parents of multiples out there, sweet dreams!