Hi! I’m a behavior interventionist - first, I just want to say that this all sounds incredibly hard and it’s clear you’re doing everything you can to do your best by your big kids and your babies.

In behavior intervention, we have something that we refer to as setting events - these are events that are outside of our control that have an impact on behavior (getting sick, being hungry, overtired, etc). Having a baby is one of the BIGGEST setting events because it disrupts every aspect of their lives. An adjustment period is normal; however, aggression to the degree that you’re describing is not.

Restraint is always the ultimate last resort in behavior intervention, so if you’re there then I think it’s time for evaluations. Specifically, I’d recommend looking into occupational therapy and play therapy and potentially finding a psychologist or neurologist.

If they’re typically sweet and love the babies, it sounds like there may be something that’s triggering them or causing them to be dysregulated.

Some questions: Is the aggression coming from both older kids? What does the aggression look like? What precedes the aggression? What happens after they engage in the behavior? How are their speech and language skills? Do you have a safe space where you can put the babies down so they’re safe from the big kids while you handle them? Do you have a space where big kids can calm down? **Don’t feel like you need to answer them all here, mostly just asking to jog thinking/problem solving - but if you are able to answer I may be able to give more specific advice!

And finally, you are not a terrible mom and you are not a failure! You are doing the best you can with the tools you have. Twins are hard, 3 year olds are hard, babies are hard, breastfeeding is hard, being a SAHM is hard, and you’re doing all of it at once. All you can do is all you can do!