The importance of naps

I had one of those days yesterday that kept veering between being terrible and being lovely! The morning definitely fell into the 'terrible' category. After the morning feed, I packed E and A into their car seats and we drove over to meet Uncle Will for the first time. He's back from New Zealand on a flying visit and I couldn't wait to introduce his new niece and nephew to him. Unfortunately E and A didn't seem so keen to make a good first impression and spent almost the whole time we were there screaming, or threatening to scream! I popped out to fill the car up with petrol, leaving E and A with Grandpa and Uncle Will, but apparently A cried the whole time I was gone. The problem was that neither of them had had a long enough morning nap so they were exhausted. They were also hungry but were too tired and wound up to feed properly so we were caught in a miserable cycle. Eventually I managed to calm A down enough to get some milk in him and then he settled for a nap. E was rocked to sleep by Grandpa.

I drove home, but the babies woke when I stopped the car and then both of them treated me to full-on red-faced incandescent screaming at the same time. It's been a while since I've had to deal with this, and it brought my sense of panic and distress back immediately. I had to sit both babies on my lap, with E propped up on a cushion while I fed A. Faced with them still grizzling I decided to go to Baby Clinic to get them weighed so at least I was out of the house.

They behaved really well at clinic. Mr A went first and then fell asleep in his car seat while I was getting E weighed. E was looking sleepy so once we were back in the car I drove around a bit to get her off to sleep, then parked up outside the house and read my Grazia until my feet and hands were going numb (oh the joy of looking after babies in the winter!). I was convinced they would wake when I carried them into the car but someone up there was smiling on me and they didn't stir. When they eventually woke up they were in a lovely, happy mood and we had no tears at all until bedtime.

It really does go to prove how much they need their naps. I'm sure that when they were kicking off it was because they were exhausted. I need to work extra hard to make sure they get enough sleep and then hopefully we'll all be much happier.