You're going to be fine.
But it might take a month or a year or four precious hours of unbroken sleep.
You're going to be fine.
But there's hard days still to come, and then better ones, and then worse ones again when you're not expecting them.
You're going to be fine.
Even though you can't see that right now, or you thought you were already ok, but then you suddenly weren't all over again.
Because you still have days which start before you're ready, when you still need three hours more sleep. They come after nights where you can't remember how many times you got up to soothe your toddler and you don't know how long you stood rocking her in your arms for. You still have the nights where you fall asleep with her beside you, because you're too tired to take her back to her cot, and because having her so close means you can sleep more soundly anyway. You don't want to think about when these nights will end really, because then it means she will be bigger and you know you'll never be ready for that.
For now though the days still start in a blur while your aching body screams at you to stay in bed but your son has already dragged you down the stairs and so you realise you're feeding them their porridge even though you don't remember heating it up.
There's small talk on the nursery run if you can't avoid it and you wonder if anyone can tell you haven't brushed your hair and still have your pyjama top under your coat and then you realise you forgot to fill in the permission form that's sitting on the kitchen table.
You should have made your sandwiches for work but you didn't and you're so tired all day while you're there but still, it's somewhere you get to go to the toilet by yourself and you're grateful for that. You walk around without a baby on your hip or a child hanging onto your leg and you know you should be thankful for the rest but it still makes you sad that they're with someone else. Still, it's your me time, you realise, this too-short day where you wish you had more time to do everything better instead of half-properly because you have to leave on time which you never would have done ten years ago.
It is all a constant juggle, the drop offs, the meals, the spending enough time with them... and the guilt never seems to go away and missing them never gets any easier. You keep nodding vacantly when people tell you it will because what do they know anyway.
You, after all, thought it would all get easier, but there's still the tantrums and the irrational outbursts and the demands and the toddler logic and the constant cycle of sickness which keeps you indoors for ages and the toys which are never put away and the laundry which means you are folding tiny clothes every day without end.
They still cry and you still wish you could do better by them and you still feel terrified of being in charge of them and you still wish someone would just quietly tell you what to do or at least show you how to do this all right.
But you will, one day, know you've been doing ok.
Yes, you feed them chocolate spread on toast for dinner more than you should. Yes, you drink more wine than you should. Yes, you answer work emails on days off when it's just supposed to be your time with your babies. Yes, you make the wrong decisions and forget the raincover for the buggy and keep them out past naptime and let them watch TV all afternoon. But they're going to be fine because you love them. And you, you're going to be fine - because you love them.
In your arms and heart are the most precious beings in your world. They look at you and they know it, they feel it. As long as these babies are in your arms, the tidying can wait, it doesn't matter if you haven't showered, the phone calls can be returned another time.
It might take many more nights of holding these babies, it might take many more days of crying your heart out because you miss them and you want to do better by them, it might take years of guilt, it might take months more of afternoons at the park or it might take one afternoon with your best friend and a bottle of wine - whatever it takes, you're going to be fine.
In your arms are your babies, and they know you love them. You're going to be fine.
Kiran Chug blogs at Mummy Says.