Feeding Difficulties

Feeding the twins by myself is becoming a great challenge. Not that the twins are being difficult; they’re too young to squirm out of my patented floor feeding position. In a couple months I may need a couple straight jackets to keep them in position for simultaneous feedings, but for now most of our feeding difficulties are coming directly from Abbie. A 20-month-old can make a giant nuisance of herself while I sit on the floor with both babies exposed to her whims and both hands occupied with bottles.

Her biggest infraction is knocking the bottles out of their mouths. She likes to walk up to them, put her index finger in one baby’s mouth, breaking the seal and causing him to cry, and repeating the process with her other brother. I have no idea what causes her to do this. She doesn’t seem to want the bottles for herself since she always knocks both bottles out and then looks pleased for doing so. She may be trying introduce herself since she always does this first thing when she sees them eating. Most likely she’s trying to get my attention by distracting me from her brothers. If that’s the case, it’s an effective technique. I’m trying to discourage her by telling her that’s naughty, pointing out that it makes them cry, and telling her not to touch them again. When she puts her finger in their mouth again, which she usually does, I lock her in her room for a couple minutes. That may not be the best punishment, but it does buy me a couple minutes to feed them in peace.

When she decides to play with something non-feeding related, things calm down, at least until she tries getting my attention again. She often wants me to play with her while I feed the twins, and her favorite way of getting my attention is by throwing a chosen object down in front of me, a space that’s usually occupied by the boys. When she wants to play with a stuffed animal, that’s not a big deal, as it bounces harmlessly off someone’s forehead. When she wants to play with something a little harder, say one of her kajillion plastic-encased noise makers, or Bag ‘O Glass, then we have a problem. I do my best to deflect the thrown object away from faces and redirect her to a floor-bound or at least lighter toy, but she doesn’t give up easily.

I lost my cool this afternoon when within a span of a couple minutes a cat spilled a glass of water in the kitchen, Abbie knocked over the glass of water I set next to myself, the dog started pounding on the back door to be let in, Abbie threw a book at her brothers, the twins squirmed, cried, and otherwise did everything in their limited power to avoid eating the milk they were screaming for five minutes ago, and Abbie, undaunted by her inability to get my attention from the front, started throwing her book at the back of my head. I locked Abbie in her room for a couple minutes more than a couple minutes to catch my breath and soak up spilled water while the twins screamed, apparently because they missed the challenge of avoiding the bottle. When I let Abbie out, I sang and did everything I could think of to distract her while I finished feeding her brothers. It wasn’t pretty, but we made it through.

Hopefully Abbie is learning her lesson to not bother us while they eat. I’m sure she’ll stop bothering us within the next month or two. If not, then hopefully by then the twins will develop the ability to deflect incoming objects.