The twins turned 4 weeks old yesterday, so I am now officially an expert on raising multiples. I’m also extremely sleep deprived, so I can’t really be counted on to know what I’m talking about at the moment, but still …

Last night was particularly rough — we put the babies down in their bassinets around 8 o’clock, and finally got them to sleep around 2. At some point in between, before I started hallucinating, I started thinking about all the parenting advice I’ve been given over the years, and how most of it is pure fallacy that is completely inapplicable to raising multiples. I somehow managed to remember enough of it to couple with rational thought. Here you go:

1. Get them on the same schedule

This is a common refrain from parents of twins, and for the most part, it is sound advice that’s rooted in common sense. If one baby is hungry, wake up the other one and feed them at the same time. Sure, it may seem counterintuitive to ever — EVER — wake a sleeping baby, but who wants to put one down to sleep only to have the other one wake you up half an hour later? Better to get these impressionable youngsters working on your schedule. How hard could it be?

REALITY: Some twins don’t want to be on the same schedule. Some twins just want to watch the world burn. Imagine, if you will, this totally fictional scenario that didn’t happen to us last night: You feed both babies and put them to bed. Baby A doesn’t want to go to bed. Baby A wants to eat some more. One bottle does nothing to satiate him, so you give him another. He remains displeased. You give him back to your wife to nurse him again, and he spits up all over your bed, just like he spit up on himself after the first bottle and on you after the second.

After hours of rocking him and alternating between sweet talk and desperate pleading and swearing under your breath (or quite loudly — fuck it, they don’t know what you’re saying anyway) … after wondering why the hell this kid can’t figure out how to suck on a goddamn pacifier … he sleeps. Then Baby B wakes up.

You still think they’re on your schedule? Friend, you’re on theirs.

2. Sleep when the baby sleeps

More sound advice, and I absolutely followed it when my oldest son was a baby. If he sleeps, drop what you’re doing — dishes, laundry, food prep — put your head down somewhere and close your eyes. Maybe it’ll only be for a few minutes, but it might be all you’ll get for a while.

REALITY: This does not work when you have more than one kid. With twins, what are the odds that they’ll sleep at the same time? But moreover, when you’ve got a 4-year-old whose goal in life is to avoid sleep at all costs, what does it matter if the babies’ sleep patterns are in sync? Big brother does not rest, and neither shall you. It seems as though the twins never sleep better than they do between 6 and 10 a.m. Nothing to do in that window, right? Except:

Get kid out of bed

Dress him

Feed him

Make his lunch

Argue over how much Team Umizoomi he gets to watch — IT’S GETTING LATE!

Help him brush his teeth

Help him put on his shoes

“I don’t care if you don’t have to go potty; try anyway!”

Get him to school close to on time

At some point, remember to dress yourself in a manner appropriate for school drop-off, including remembering to put on pants and covering up the Daenerys Targaryen T-shirt your wife does not like you to wear out of the house.

But at least the babies are still sleeping.

3. Never go to bed angry

This isn’t parenting-specific, but good advice for any couple. No matter what happened during the day, don’t sweat the small stuff, and always make time for a goodnight kiss.

REALITY: Yeah, you shouldn’t go to bed angry, but you will probably get angry after you go to bed. Sleeping with two newborns inches away from your bed is not exactly conducive to a restful night’s sleep, and lack of sleep can make you a bit … insensitive, shall we say, to the feelings of other adults in your proximity.

My wife and I have an agreement that, no matter what gets said in the middle of the night when the babies are at their worst, we let it go in the morning, understanding that we’re both unusually stressed and we can’t help but snap at each other once in a while.

More accurately: my wife read about that somewhere, and one day started acting like it was a policy we had decided on together, most likely to avoid responsibility for her monstrous behavior the night before. I can see right through your little game, babe.

4. Let them cry it out

You can’t coddle them all the time, and they’ll need to get used to being separated from you. It might be hard for a few minutes, but eventually they’ll settle down.

REALITY: If one twin cries, you run the risk of waking up both the other twin and the older kid who gets to be in a foul mood when he doesn’t get enough sleep. And these particular babies do those hysterical, breathless cries — you know, the kind when they cry so hard that eventually the sound stops coming out because they expelled all the breath from their bodies? Yeah, let ’em cry it out at your house.

5. Enjoy every moment

It’s a nice thought, and I appreciate the sentiment, which is usually delivered by a well-meaning, Maude Flanders-esque aunt or an acquaintance of your mom. These kids are a blessing, and this time will go fast, so it’s important to appreciate it while you can.

REALITY: You’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Sometimes raising children is THE WORST. Sometimes you hope that someone will knock down your door, hold a chloroform-soaked rag over your face, toss you in the trunk of a car and drive you off to somewhere more relaxing, like an abandoned warehouse or a container ship bound for Hong Kong. Sometimes you might even wish you never had kids.

Of course, these moments pass, usually pretty quickly. But when you’re in the moment, do you really want to have a voice in your head that’s reminding you that you’re supposed to be enjoying them? The tantrums and the stomach viruses and the sleepless nights? You’re supposed to love and cherish all this shit, and the fact that you don’t must make you a terrible parent, right? No. Sometimes — maybe even most of the time — being the parent of a newborn or two just sucks (kind of like being a Mets fan). But you just need to remind yourself that it’s going to get better very, very gradually.

Eventually it’ll all pay off (it damn well better), and one day you can tell some poor couple 30 years your junior the truth about what to expect and how to cope: keep plenty of beer in the fridge and scream when you need to.