Under 1s twin post-natal group? Should we have one? Who's in?!

[PeelingmyselfofftheCeiling]

The antenatal group is nearly full, any graduates fancy joining forces to compare

Oh and the girls still sleep together x

ceeveebee - I'm sure you'll have better luck. New nanny is brilliant although the chunk it takes out of my salary is eyewatering. New AP just arrived and so far so good. So here's hoping. There's someone in my office with twins, working 3 days a week and they're in nursery. She's SW London too so it is possible hopefully.

BB3 - good luck with all that.

Lemele- I don't miss anything about pregnancy. Lovely pictures.

Oh, hope it goes really well for K tomorrow BB3, it must be really worrying as a parent. Here's hoping he's miles better afterwards. What happens in October job-wise? Is it a sideways step or a whole new job? The girls sound pretty blooming mobile for 9 months, reckon you'll have two early walkers?! I remember the back breaking days... DD wanted to hold hands and walk from the minute she got up to the minute she went to bed... Two of those, eek! She didn't crawl though which meant she was all the keener to walk everywhere.

ceevee Hooray for an agreement with work, even if its not ideal. Paying for childcare doesn't last forever either just years of it before you'll make worthwhile profit from working

Oh, fretting babies...back later!

Right, got t'other one on the boob now- when people say they sleep together, how do you mean? I've been laying mine side by side in the same cot, width wise in the cot, so if they wriggle and flail they won't reach each other. They're getting too tall for this for much longer so what's next? One at one end of the cot and one at the other? Just side by side at one end of the cot and hope they don't whack each other?!

Minimal improvement in sleep here. A big problem is getting DT1 to re settle. It can be up to an hour or two!! If I just put him down he wakes instantly and howls. So I pick him up, rock him back to sleep and repeat. try white noise cd. Try shush pat. If i hear DD or dt2 start stirring, take him downstairs for a bit. Ad infinitum... He's also waking loads, whereas DT2 surprised me last night by only waking twice!!! I was delighted. Did take til 9:30pm to get him down though but then just up at 1 & 5am. DT1 is still coughing, 6 weeks on, always sounds a bit rattly and is mucousy, so this may be affecting his sleep but his millions of wake ups and long periods of being awake in the night are so frustrating. Anyway, they must make some proper progress soon... And DT1 is smilier every day, and DT2 is sometimes but still much more unsettled.

In other news DD has just discovered the joys of soft play :) . Bit of a high energy pastime for the parent I find but lovely she's finally got it :)

Dreaming, I'd recommend Harvey Karp's methods for sleep - swaddling, white noise, jiggling and dummy (and sleeping on the side, but it's a SIDS risk, so not fir nighttime). the swaddling and jiggling send ours off to sleep so reliably we now have our evenings back. I hate giving advice usually as I hate getting it, but his methods are like an off switch for our guys.

The girls sleep top and tail in the cot bed but kind of at a diagonal so corner to corner x

Soft play is both brilliant and horrific in equal measure!

Glad one little lad is showing some improvement though dream! Yay for waking just twice!

Thanks for the well wishes, to be honest I'm getting more worried about him and potential underlying issues but one step at a time hey!

Just a quick one from me - good luck for DS tomorrow BB3. Let us know how it goes, I will be thinking of you.

Yay for improvement Dream - waking twice is fab, just got to hope his brother follows his example!

Mine are in seperate cots and flailing arms wake each other... but cots right next to each other and they look at each other as they fall asleep :)

Bad night last night, serves me right for hinting at possible improvement.... I need some advice on 'bed time' please.... mine are now 9 weeks old and I still just take them to bed when I go to bed (around 9pm). I REALLY REALLY want my evenings back. At the moment 7 - 9pm is a difficult time, both baby wanting constant jiggling - so still got that early evening unsettled stage that I thought only newborns had? How can I start to introduce a 7pm bedtime without just spending 7m - 9pm jiggling babies upstairs rather then downstairs! Is it just a case of persevering until they get the message or should I wait until they are older?

I can remember with DD that by 8 weeks she was in bed and asleep (admittedly not for long before wanting a feed!) by 7pm...... I really want the boys to have a bedtime so I can have an evening (and me and DH can eat dinner with two hands not one!)

Me too bigboobs. Mine have joined in dds bedtime routine since they were 5 weeks. It's kind of starting to click, helped by a white noise cd, but often I do just jig a baby upstairs in the dark rather than downstairs. I was the same, DD was going to bed at 7pm by 10 weeks and slept through at 11 (our bedtime issues started at a year old and are ongoing!) . I did exactly the same with these two with no effect so far! Or one goes down but not the other- though that's much better than both up!! It just means nothing gets done too. I'm busy with DD or the dts all day, then dts, one or both, all evening, then dive for bed before the Nightmare Nighttime begins again... At 12 weeks. Claire cheered me up by saying her evening fussing started really settling down at 14 weeks so I'm only a week and a half off that :)

Oh and I'm sure DT2 will be up 2 hourly with his brother again now I've said he only woke twice... beyoglu, is jiggling just wrapping them up and walking round or on the spot jiggling them around? I do do that. The only thing I don't do is swaddle as both are starting to find their hands to suck. White noise is really helping though.

Dreaming, swaddling made the difference for us... the buggers kept waking themselves up with the startle reflex and once we started swaddling them they started going down at 7pm (before that we walked the floor with them from about half 5 till 8 or 9 or sometimes till the late evening feed) and sleeping well till about 6am, and they've more or less dropped a night feed (feed times have lengthened out to 7, 11, 3 and 6, give or take). But I know what you're saying about sucking fingers, ours do too during the day and it's a lot easier than replacing a dummy 100000 times an hour. Plus it's kind of sweet that they can do something for themselves!

With the jiggling it's on the spot jiggling around - small repetitive movements, what you want is for their heads to jiggle around very slightly, quickly but only a small range of movement. What we do is in the evening if we keep them downstairs we wrap them up, pop in a dummy and put them on their sides and jiggle them for maybe 5 minutes and then they go down. (The last 2 nights I just put them upstairs at 7, white noise on, wrapped and dummy but no jiggling and no lying on their sides - but that experiment was called off this evening due to not wanting to miss a crucial moment in the footy if one of them starts crying!)

I'm so encouraged to hear of someone's baby going through the night at 11 weeks! Ours are in week 11. DT2 would totally sleep through I think, if either of us had the nerve not to feed her in the night after feeding her sister! However, it's already a bit of a relief to be able to rely that she won't wake up 2 minutes into her sister's feed and start crying - they've caught me out so many times with that one.

We used to swaddle ours with one hand tucked under their chin so they could still suck their fingers. Also we find that playing lullabies (out monitor does this) and having a rotating mobile above the cots has really helped them with self settling.
I also found that bizarrely doing bedtime earlier helped them. I used to start bath at 630, feed at 7 then bed so was up to about 8 pm by the time it was all finished. My mum came to stay and said she would help me with bedtime but only if all finished by 7 so she could watch Emmerdale. So I moved everything an hour earlier and seemed to help them settle better, I think perhaps mine were overtired.

My two are 9 months and don't sleep through! They still have one feed a night all be it a small one.

Yep. I mistakenly & smugly believed that having an ebf baby who slept 7-7 quite often from 11 weeks on and went down without ever crying, a champion sleeper, meant I'd have a good nighttime sleeper from then on, even though I had to carry her in the sling til 9 months for naps. Ha, how wrong I was... DD is ok some nights, and has slept through for the last week (writing this will clearly jinx that...) but memories of the nights of her getting up at midnight and getting her back to sleep at 5am when i was pg are still lingering... And if she wakes now she's often up for a good hour or so. I swaddled the dts til about 6 or 7 weeks when they were both 7lb +,and could go into grobags though. I'm sure sucking her fingers, and later her thumb helped DD massively with self settling and therefore sleeping through so I'm keen for the boys to keep practicing. DT2 keeps making himself gag and throw up though, the fool! Hmm. Whether to re-swaddle.. I got fed up of redoing it every 30 minutes when they woke up too.

Uh oh BB3... Still, I could live with up, a quick feed and straight down again. Do they settle well after it?

DD used to be in bed for 7. Now we are still struggling with bedtime and she's often/usually awake til 9:30pm, albeit in her cot from 7:30-8 we stick with the slightly later bedtime. I wonder if i should try the dts earlier.

Whoever knew bedtime was so complicated?!

la la la I'm pretending I can't hear about all the post 6 month sleeping problems.

dreaming, I put the girls into grobags when they were big enough too - we never did swaddling in the early days as they had cannulas and massive splints when they were in hospital so we couldn't swaddle fully, and half-swaddling really annoyed them. We only started the swaddling at 8 weeks!

re. reswaddling when they wake up... yep, I always wonder about DT2, who often wakes up with one arm out - did getting the arm out wake her up, or did she get it out because she woke up? Did you swaddle with sheets? I had to buy miracle swaddle blankets that have extra panels attached to hold their arms in. We took to calling DT2 Houdini.

We used huge muslins, about 1m square. I miss the swaddling days, they looked like little gloworms!

I used to have a gloworm! Blinking loved it too! We never swaddled as edie can't stand to be wrapped up - she sleeps spread out like a star fish face down! Ayse-Rose sleeps face down, knees tucked under bum in the air!

BB3 good luck with DS this week. I've been thinking about you lot. I really hope things get resolved for you. Don't forget you can always have a moan at us. xx

bigboobs, I'd persevere upstairs. You'll go through a horrendous stage where you'll be settling them upstairs for ages until they get used to it, but it's so worth it. Our two go down now at 7pm and don't wake until their first feed (either 10.30pm or 2am, depending on their total randomness). I don't think I could survive without my hour or two in the evening. And yeah, our DD still woke for a feed until she was 9 months - that is totally normal. Children wake at night and you have to help them back to sleep, on occasion, until they're quite big. But the key is the length of time it takes to get them back to sleep - 10, 20 mins is fine, an hour is not. Everyone's got their routine that helps, like the jiggling etc, but it's the consistency that's the key I reckon.

We don't swaddle as I am very very lazy and our two are like BB3's in that they are top to toe, but on the diagonal. We found if we did it straight they would wiggle towards each other then end up head butting each other awake. We're going to have to keep them together at least till our move as a) we have no other space for them and b) I'm not buying any furniture as we'd just ahve to sell it or ship it back. Oh god, the whole working out what to pack/ship/sell is a total pain in the proverbial. We're not bothering with car seats as they'll need bigger ones soon anyway, we are bringing our double stroller on the plane, but shipping the single stroller...we're shipping one cot, but will have to buy another once we land...the list goes on. It's VERY boring.

On a plus note, it is Canada Day today and we've been out of the house from 9.30am until 3.30pm - we even decorated the stroller and took part in the parade. DD was waving her flag like a maniac and random people kept on taking our picture - I think it was the stroller covered in gold and silver streamers, Canadian flags and the enormous quantity of children we had that did it! And neither DH or I got cross or stressed. Result.

Good lord rednellie, out all day with no crossness or stress?! . Well done you, it sounds like loads of fun :) Love that your family were the entertainment

Really terrible night last night. Why do I keep posting fleeting improvements on here to jinx myself?! So dashing for bed now, though DD still complaining in her cot- having a shower anyway as there's never time for that in the morning...

Oh and bigboobs, I forgot and have fallen off the healthy eating wagon already... I just finished scoffing a whole pack of jaffa cakes then clicked on here and remembered healthy eating should have started today... Oops. Apart from that and one oh okay, two fairy cakes at playgroup I've been reasonable ish today . Definitely put more effort in tomorrow. How did your healthy eating start go?

I also forgot dream. I think we are still far too tired to plan proper healthy eating. How's about just aiming to eat more fruit and beg for now? Might achieve that as long as cake crisps chocolate can also be consumed today I have had peas, sweetcorn, potatoes, carrot and swede. Oh and some raisins in fruit bread in Starbucks :)

I vote for all twin mums to stay on this thread regardless of twin age!

Two rubbish nights on the trot here. All in bed now (including me) so fingers crossed for more sleep tonight.

How did today go bb3?

Well done on successful day out red.

Gonna start 7pm bedtime tomorrow. Don't mind of they wake not long after for milk, just want a couple of hours downstairs adult time - need a chance to recharge our batteries and do housework

Got Dr appt tomorrow to get prescription for the pill not sure I need it just yet but dh is likely to get a more permanent solution...... no more babes planned for this family! not enough room in the housez money in the bank and my body OS ruined

Right, must sleep! Chow for now! (did I really just say that?)

How's everyone today? I've given myself the task of comparing Nutella with an organic Wholefoods version of Nutella to see which one is tastier. So far, no results so I'm going to have to go back and do more testing...

Well, we had a good night last night with the boys - they slept from 7pm till 4am and then after a feed went back down till 7am. Phew. BUT blooming DD was up from 1am till 3am. So that didn't work out quite as planned. Why do they not come with on/off buttons? Make everything much easier.

Also, on the subject of contraception - what is everyone thinking about? I don't want DH to have the snip just yet (I am totally mad and I know it), but I don't want to have to faff with condoms for the rest of my life and the pill is out due to the bf (I know I could take the mini pill, but I would forget to all the time and then the inevitable would happen)...any suggestions/tips gratefully received.

I find 2 babies is contraception enough! Seriously, I have been told that the injection is bf friendly and thats what I plan to use when I get round to it. The other option is a coil but I don't really like the idea of that, don't know why

All you mums who have been through weaning before - I am at the end of my tether with DTD. She is just so random. One day she'll tuck into scrambled eggs and make lots of mmm noises, the next week she won't let me anywhere near her with the spoon (of scambled eggs I mean). Today she had about 5 spoons of weetabix with fruit puree (whereas last week she wolfed down loads of it), 1 spoonful of chicken, rice and butternut squash and 3-4 spoons of egg, plus a whole yoghurt which she loves.
I have tried feeding her in a high chair, in her bouncy chair, on my knee, have tried a spoon, my finger, giving her food to hold, giving her a loaded spoon. I've tried offering food at different times of day but she is just not interested this week. I just don't get it. Anyone got any tips? Could it be teething, does that cause them to be off their food?

Re contraception- Mine not going to bed (though have gone down 8pm both the last two nights bigboobs, eek! That'll not happen again for ages now I've posted it) and the terrible sleeping is the contraception here too. I'm not fancying anything hormonal as it makes me a stir crazy psycho bitch a bit stroppy and moody and anxious. Before children we just used natural family planning as I had regular cycles, and it was fine for the 4 years we did that. However if we'd had an unplanned pregnancy it would have been welcomed. Now, dh is adamant there will be no more children and wants a vasectomy... I'd like another, maybe maybe in a few years, as mine are only one school year apart and as i might have said, I think DD will go, the boys will go the next year and I'll be desperate for another baby :) . So i don't think you're mad rednellie. Well, that was the long version of saying maybe the coil though the thought of having it put in puts me off... Mirena is hormonal but more locally acting not systemic like the Pill. Or theres the copper coil, which can sometimes give heavier periods. Mine are very very heavy anyway, so basically, there's no contraception I fancy, but i don't want dh to have the snip... Rock and hard place!!

DT 1 gets up at 5:30am. Too blooming early baby!! So with multiple wakenings, hard to settle babies and his last week of 5:30am starts, with DD often up at 6:15 too I'm feeling totally washed out. Urgh. I feel your pain rednellie and you have it harder than me as i have help pretty much every day. I hope your boys repeat their good sleeping and your DD sleeps through tonight.

How's K BB3? Did it go smoothly? I hope he's hearing better and didn't have to have the more invasive op. Thinking of you and your family!

Oh, and BB3, I couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery at the minute, I'm impressed at how you're managing to plan moving a family of 5 overseas.

Sorry- last bit was meant to say rednellie of course, and just proved my point