PFB guilt!

[JustPutSomeGlitterOnIt]

I'm nearly a month into having three chn under 2 - a 23 month old, and 3 week old twins. All girls. And I'm really struggling with PFB guilt!

Basically I've gone from being able to give my 1 YO all my attention (I do also work FT I should mention - had her young and soon after uni, and had to maintain my career too); to suddenly being a sleep deprived, grumpy mummy who has so much less 1-1 time for her.

I have a lovely supportive OH, and lots of help on hand, all offering to have our eldest for the day.
But I want her! I miss our time just the two of us.

I'm already noticing some difficult and attention seeking behaviour coming through from her as a reaction to all this change.

This makes me really distraught to be honest because she's a really good child by nature. She's a lovely, unassuming little girl. Never attention seeking, friendly and gentle with her peers.
We mainly planned the second pregnancy to give her a little friend. So to see her playing up as a direct result of the new babies makes me think we've make some terrible mistake!

Of course I know that all three of them are lucky to have each other in the long term. And we love them all very much.

But please help me with the short term.
How do you parents with lots of little ones arrange your day to allow attention for all of your children?
The twins are EBF too, so I'm just stuck to them most of the time, and can't get us up and out and playing like I used to.

Am I overreacting to a perfectly normal and healthy part of her childhood?
Because at the moment I'm feeling so upset that my PFB isn't my just PFB any more!

I empathise - my daughter was 20 months when my twins were born, and it was a shock to everyone’s system. I breastfed too, and with twins (even more than a singleton) that does basically mean you’re sat there for hours on end, and I had complications following my c section so was physically quite weak for a long time. I was lucky to have a lot of family support in the early months, but it still used to really upset me that it was always someone else taking her out or playing with her, when I was used to doing it! And when she got a bug when the twins were about 3 months old I found it really difficult because I couldn’t just sit and cuddle her in the way I was used to.

In the short term I don’t think there’s a great deal you can do, other than think of activities you can still do together while breastfeeding the babies (reading and watching TV are the best, although I know it’s not the same as getting out and about.) But... it DOES get easier in many ways - once the babies don’t need constant feeding, you can start leaving for them a bit with your husband (or other family, if you have it) while you get out with the toddler. And I found a regular nap routine helped massively. By about 8 months my twins were down to two 90 minute naps a day, and I tried to spend the time doing something ‘quality’ with their sister.

That said, in other ways it’s getting harder again now that the twins are 18 months and old enough to want me to themselves and will squabble over who gets to sit and play with me, and I do occasionally look at parents out with a single child and think enviously about how calm and easy it all looks, and how many different options are open to them (I never get to do swimming or soft play single handed, for example.) I don’t think it’s a problem multiple parents will ever entirely solve! But they do all love each other, and my daughter has adjusted brilliantly to her little brothers and is really protective of them. I’m sure yours will get there, too; it’ll just take a little time.