Gina Ford

[seventwin]

I am wondering people's experience with the contented house with twins book. I've heard that people tend to loosely follow it as its far too specific to be regimented about it! I really want to get in to a routine but can already predict some problems such as

• babies not taking a full feed
• babies waking early and wanting feeding
• babies sleeping far more than what is allowed for nap time
• not allowing for winding the babies for as long as is necessary in my case

I'm sure there are more and wanted to hear people's experience, love it or hate it!!

Thanks :)

I gave up on it when it told me when to have breakfast.

I followed a loose routine, I'm not a routine person but I found it helped to have a bit of structure around the day.

• Had a set bedtime.
• Aimed to feed every 3 hours, just so that I was prepared, was somewhere I could feed them and everything at hand. Fed both even if one didn't want too much. Winded part way through and at the end, I found they didn't need much winding. Others winded far more than I did, followed the advice that said a babies digestive system isn't that big so you don't need to wind for that long.
• If one woke, woke the other one, maybe not straight away but within a reasonable time. Didn't bother about specific nap times until they were at lot older. If they woke and wanted feeding, I fed them.
• I recorded all feedtimes and amounts, I started this in hospital, or the nurses did so I continued it.

My aim was to keep them pretty much in sync with eachother, I found it hardest to manage them when they both needed different things at different times.

Agree with trying especially about recording whats going in and coming out, someone gave me a GF book, thought some of the stuff was far too regimented but occasionally I would scan through and would pick up some tips, for example, if they seemed to be particularly restless/not settling I would have a look at book and usually find that i needed to up milk intake, lessen/increase nap times.

Agree with trying and cupcakes - although I was never organised enough to record stuff.
I didnt follow the idea of babies having specific ammounts, I did mixed ff and bf so had no idea what they got with a bf, and just kept on putting more in their bottles as they needed it.
I sort of demand my 2 - fed the hungry baby then woke the other for a feed after thats if they didnt want feeding at the same time.
I didnt wake them if they were asleep longer than a nap time - make the most of the peace and quiet while you can.
Good Luck
How old are your babies - how are you doing ?

Someone gave me the book when I was pregnant and no clue about babies, and I thought, wow, this sounds fine, we'll do this. Then my little ones arrived and it quickly dawned on me that they hadn't read the book - specifically all the 'problems' you predict!
I pretty much agree with the others, as in dipping into it as a guide. Our feed times were roughly as she suggested, but not always. For example if one of them went through a growth spurt they would often want feeding earlier - I would give that one a small feed until they were happy and then offer a bit more when the other twin had their feed at the normal time. We did this just to keep them 'in sync'.
Also, I found that, even adjusting my twins age (they were 5 weeks prem), they slept far, far more than she suggests. For example, where she says 'babies will be fully awake for 2 hours' - mine would usually be snoozing away after an hour at the most!
I did find the book invaluable as a guide, and she had some good tips about weaning.
What we found helped us establish a routine were:

• feeding one when the other demanded
• having a calm bedtime routine
• 7pm until 7am in the bedroom - all feeds/changes as dark as possible.This meant I spent a lot of evenings in the dark in the bedroom when they were tiny, but so worth it, as they got day/night sorted really quickly.
• 7am - 7pm downstairs, plenty of activity etc. Ours napped in their bouncy chairs until we felt they knew night and day, only then we started putting them down in their bedroom for specific nap times.
• when they were a little older, waking them from a morning nap to try to get a good lunchtime nap sorted

Good luck!

Definitely agree on the day / night thing from benja

I read it - it scared me
Then I remembered no one would be checking if I'd followed this routine and left it on the shelf for at least 2 months after they were home from SCBU.
Mine came home on a 4 hourly routine which we quickly realised was no where near "enough". (ff after real probs expressing etc). So I read Baby whisperer and decided to listen to my babies and demand feed them - roughy every 3 hours but cluster fed in the eve so
7, 10, 1, 4 , 6 and 8 then 2.30 /3 am. They didn't have a dream feed and they started sleeping through from 16 weeks (9 corrected).
I did look at GF again but it didn't tell me anything new so it's back on the shelf.