OMG!! Twins!! Any Advice?

[434Teresa]

I dont think haveing twins is hard becasue I had the boys that are 11 months apart first and that was hard..

somehow my twins new that they would get a dry diaper or a bottle as long as they could see me when it was time to do those things, so they would stop the crying as long as they could see me....I was a odd one they told me to feed them every 4 hours but I never dont that i gave them a bottle when they wantted it, they would take the last botle about 9 or 10 pm and go to sleep and not wake up again until about 6 am and would go back to sleep a few more hours. sometimes I feed them at the same time and others I would feed one then the other,just depends on what they would let me do but like i said they were good about waiting as long as they could see me.

I had always worked until the twins, I got laid off from my job and just decided to stay home with them and I am happy I am at home with them for I dont know that I could work and take care of everything like I did with my older boys for I am older now myself(40) and it shows by the end of the day even with be not working a check paying job. I know now that I missed out on so much with my boys, and am happy to be home with the twins eveyday even tho I need to be alone every now and then to get a second wind so to say.

You will see that 99% of the time twins are just as easy as having one baby..they learn that you will get to them if they just wait a second, its my teens that I would like to send to your house for a few days........having three year olds and teens now thats a life, its like 2 familys living in one house...no joke RELAX you will be great with the twins...you will know what you need to do and how to handle them when the tiem comes...oh get use to no purse, its to much to carry, i just put what I needed in the diaper bag.. and get a small diaper bag and a big one you can put the bare amount you need in the small one to carry out with you and have the big one in the car for refills.....


for alot of the twins stuff to get free diapers and so you have to mail in a copy of their birth cerficate to get them to send you the stuff..but soem sends out really good coupons with out it......

[serenity72]

on wisdom but lots of congrats!

[Honeyb]

Our twins are five today and yes its hard but i wouldn't change one thing.

God Bless you and your family

[3libras]

One of my twins is very delicately-featured and I have actually had people ask me if he is real or a doll if he is sleeping. Right...like I'm gonna haul around a real baby AND a doll. I had a woman at Giant Eagle tell me that she thought I had a doll in the stroller to keep my baby happy. My mom and I overheard a couple in a restaurant bickering over whether or not Seth was real.

OMG!!!!

[3libras]

Congratulations times 2!!!!!!

You have gotten lots of great advice already.

I have 3 year old B/G twins and a 15 month old singleton.

Pregnancy advice:
-drink lots of water (important to stay hydrated)
-eat lots of protein
-make sure you have an OB experienced with twins (a twin pregnancy is NOT the same as a singleton one!)
-be prepared for the possibility that you could end up on bedrest, that they could be born early, that you could need a c-section, or that everything could go smoothly and they'd be born full-term
-there are some great books about multiples pregnancy and parenting multis the first year (if you need title recommendations, let me know) I checked them out of the library and then bought a couple of the best ones.

I signed up for all the freebies for multis but did NOT receive a single pack of free diapers. My twins were born in Sept 2006. Got a few coupons for free baby food and a few other small things and cents off coupons. The best was coupons for 5 free cans of formula and a Mustela gift pack with full size bottles of products! You do need to send copies of birth certificates for the best deals. Fortunately, we did ask for diapers for our baby showers.

Doubles:
-I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND having either two bouncy seats or two boppies. I fed my two their bottles at the same time while they sat in their bouncy seats. It's also nice to have a place to put one while you have to change the other one's diaper, etc.
-2 car seats
-eventually 2 cribs
-double stroller (we had the Graco duoglider that the Graco carseats snapped into)
-eventually 2 boosters/high chairs

You don't necessarily need 2 swings, saucers, etc. Some babies don't like the swings (for us personally 2 swings were the only way they would take a 3rd nap during the day) and you can always rotate babies through the saucer, jumperoo, baby gym, etc.

Feeding:
-have some way to keep their bottles straight (for us, each twin liked a different brand of bottle so it was easy to know whose bottle was whose).
-we also batch-produced formula (i.e. made up a 24 hr supply once a day and already had it in the bottles ready to feed)
-we promptly refrigerated leftover formula if they didn't finish a bottle. Some people may cringe at that but we saved a lot of $/formula that way.
-It is possible to breastfeed twins but sleep deprivation did me in at 2 months. It is also more challenging if you have preemies. So be prepared to pump.

Surviving the early days:
-line up some help if you can
-freeze meals ahead of time/buy TV dinners/have others bring you food

[needmoredeals]

Oh, I would like to mention that my twins are 13 months old and they still sleep together. I tried to separate them, but they weren't having any of it. So, you really never know.

I also only have one swing, only one twin really liked it. I did have two exersaucers. I feed them almost every meal in them until they figured out how to climb out. Which brings me to one more point.

They will figure things out faster, like how to climb out of exersaucers (something I thought was impossible). Because one will start to figure it out and the other will build on that and so on until they are doing what you think is impossible for babies to do. LOL

[434Teresa]

They will figure things out faster, like how to climb out of exersaucers (something I thought was impossible). Because one will start to figure it out and the other will build on that and so on until they are doing what you think is impossible for babies to do. LOL[/quote]

that is so true..they also learn how to double team you very early on to..like one wants to play with mom, if the other is in another room you had better go see whats going on...

[momto8kiddos]

No advice here but a big congratulations to you!