Leila Green, a 41-year-old mother of triplet infants, recounts the overwhelming challenges she faced in motherhood, including immense guilt and anxiety. After her babies' birth, two were hospitalized while she stayed behind with one, leading to feelings of inadequacy. She implemented strict feeding schedules and sleep routines, hiring professional help to cope better. Despite attempts to balance attention among her triplets, moments of self-doubt lingered as she fought for efficient management of their needs and her mental health, especially during feed times.
I struggled with guilt. A few days after they were born, two of my babies had to be moved to a different hospital, while the one other baby and I stayed in the original hospital. That was the worst day of my life. I just didn't imagine this would be my start to motherhood.
If I was feeding the babies at home, I wasn't feeding the baby in the hospital. There was never enough mommy to go around. There didn't seem to be a winning option - I just felt I was always letting one of them down.
From a very early age, we had a strict bedtime routine and overnight schedule - something suggested by a maternity nurse we hired to help us for a week when we all arrived home. We were militant and inflexible because anything that would give us a minute more sleep was worth doing.
Whenever someone wanted to visit, I tried to make sure they came during a feed so I wasn't doing it alone. I had huge amounts of anxiety around feed times.
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