The under/over/around 1 Twins thread for support, tips on how to survive and enjoy twin parenthood!

[DreamingOfPeace]

BB3: dcda non id girls Sept 2011 (plus ds)
TwelveLeggedWalk: DCDA DD and DS 14.09.11 (PFBs)
Tiggersreturn twin boys (?!) (plus ds age 5)
Wherearemyearplugs twins (plus ds)
Ceeveebee b/g twins 21.11.11, PFBs
minesapintofwine: non-id boys 02/02/2012. dcs 1&2/pfb on good days.
ClaireMarathonFeeder: Boy/girl twins born 08/02/2012, no3&4, dd1 (2001) and dd2 (2004)
rednellie nonID boys 13.03.2012 + DD 03.02.10
Lemele: id boys (plus ds)
Skitoo : DCDA Non ID Boys, 01.04.12 DC 1&2
DreamingofPeace: dcda non id boys, 4.4.12 DC 2&3 (DD Sept 2010)
beyoglu: dcda non id girls 21.4.12
Bigboobsatlast ID twin boys 30.04.12 DC #2&3 (DD Feb 2010)
Scollister mcda girls 3.5.12 plus DD age 4
Twin2makes4 mcda girls plus 2 ds,age 8 & 4

Again, sorry for mistakes, doing this from my phone!

Settle in ladies :)

Hello. Can I join please? I have ID boys who are 9 months.

Hello spartacus!

Can we all do I'm Spartacus! posts now?

Anyone here used the Millpond Clinic? OH and I always said we would tough out the first 6 months and then if the blighters were still sleeping badly we'd get the professionals in. They've quoted us £320 for the girls, it's phone and email consultation and you do a sleep diary and they do you a plan. Up till 2.30 last night I was all, no bother, DT2 is sleeping "like a baby" without the swaddle, just give the bottles and back to sleep... but it all went downhill after that. She refused the bottle all night (OMG she's sleeping through!!! ahahaha) and had a grumpy/chattery sesh at 2.35 to 3.20, 5-5.15 and 6.20-6.35. And DT1 is still in the swaddle. And we've got the 6 month sleep regression coming up. And teething. I'm totally doing it. Even just to know I'm not doing anything stupid to make them worse, would be worth it...
Having said that that's a brill performance from DT2 on her third full night in a sleeping bag. She's refusing the swaddle for naps too, which has made things simple... she's def not getting enough sleep as a result though. On Tuesday I resorted to my old tactic of a long long walk in the afternoon, which was all good, but now the bloody tyre has bust on the buggy so it's kind of like trying to drive an early 90s Fiesta... pulls to the right... have now ordered a spare wheel from Mountain Buggy and spare inner tubes and tyres. Now why didn't someone say to me to do that when I was pregnant and doing all the baby preparation? All that shite about what to put in your hospital bag... did having music to hand help with the pain? No, and why did I think I needed it, I was in a hospital. They have epidural anaesthetic. It is the best invention of the modern age.

Right, must go and wake the small people. Can you believe it? Now she's sleeping in! I might push my luck actually, as I'm trying to adjust their times by 45 mins before the clocks go back. Haven't heard a peep from DT1 since 4am. DT2 why can you not sleep like your sister? Oh yeah that's right, because you're as light a sleeper as your bloody mother!

Hi beyoglu. Our two are having the 9 month sleep regression thing at the moment - sigh! But when they were 5 months I used Jo Tantum's email support to help get them through the night. We did sleep diaries etc and within a couple of weeks they were doing 7 - dreamfeed - 7. By 6 1/2 months they were doing 12 hours solid. She helped sort us out and it was only £60 for the months support. Good luck x

Here's a link if you want to take a lok:
www.babysecretsltd.com/contactus.html

beyoglu I have no advice I'm afraid, but your posts make me smile!

Don't you know that sleep is for the weak ?

I have had a blissfull 4-hour uninterrupted stretch last night, which is most I've had in weeks! Also have found a babysitter, a lively girl, and I'll try her out tomorrow!

Last night I tried bedtime without the help if dd1 and it was a complete disastrer. Left dtb in his cot while I was feeding dtg, but he got really upset and was crying so much he was coughing . Cue me taking dtg off boob just as she was going off, she then started crying too. So I had both terribly upset and trying to calm one while the other is crying is impossible... Humpf, I cant believe my first two were so good at self settling and these two won't hear if it.

Yes ceeveebee it is the frustrating stage, trying hard to crawl but they go backwards and getting really unhappy!
Tething probably has a play in there too bigoobs but no sign of sny teeth yet. Well done rednellie's twin for painless first tooth!

This is officially the longets I've ever breastfed for! Both my older girls stopped around 8 months as they had become very fussy ( dd1 sleeping through at night, dd2 only waking ONCE - do you hear me dtwins??). These are tha babies that I was very unlikely to be ablebreastfeed at all! I could have a little cry

How are you dream? Hope things are imroving for you!

Hello spartacus welcome to the craziest, most supportive thread on mumsnet!

Hi spartacus my dts are coming up to 9 months hoping they won't have that sleep regression as nights have been a bit crap lately anyway! Do you have any other dc's?

claire glad you are feeling better look out our dts will be crawling soon! (mine are just as grumpy they can only go backwards which gets them further away from the target but dt2 has gone forward a few times. He's even more grumpy now as he knows he can do it!)

ceevee sorry about your dh's cousin that must be terrible for him not to see his dc's and vice versa on top everything crossed for him.

beyou I would have tp think twice about paying so much tbh as eventually those dts will sleep through but I know how desperate things become bless you I spent an absolute fortune on colic remedies . Your posts are funny though the dt kicking the dryer sounds like a little minx!

I'm going to be totally selfish now especially with everyone else in the same boat but am feeling really blue and 'sucks to be me' the last two days. I know it doesn't and there are so many people in real crisis in the world I am grateful and lucky for everything I have...but still I am moping a bit. Dh's car was off the road for two weeks so he was using mine for work which is fine but with the il and my parents all away I have been stranded in the same little town with no help for two weeks. Bills and housework have got on top on me and I feel like a little tired . Yesterday I wrote in my head a 'reasons to be cheerful' list but today it's just one thins on top of the other. And...breathe. Good news is mil has dts overnight tonight yay yay yay think she sensed I was ready to crack! Also my parents are home tomorrow and I have my car back. There it's all good and I just paid my mortgage which was late and stressing me out (don't ask) so short term solutions to my woe's. Now for the long term- I'm going to win the lottery (the only thing that will do it) and buy a nice big house that isn't falling down and get a nanny and a cleaner!!!!! Sorry that was an epic whinge I'm off to count my blessings and kick myself up the bum.

Hi minesapint.
Just these two at the moment! I was on one of the other threads under a different name when I was expecting but haven't been able to get online much over the last few months (can't think why! :*)
Hopefully yours will skip the sleep regression thing altogether - ours started with it after they'd both been poorly in the summer then they've never really gone back to those wonderful 12 hours of solid sleep. I too dread night times at the moment. Oh dear - I keep repeating 'this too will pass!!'
Anyone got any tips? I was told today to just let them scream it out and go back to sleep but I just can't do that...

Hi Sparticus and welcome
I am mumsnetting from work and feel very naughty
My two are 11 months onld and are pretty good sleepers. If they do wake in the night I don't let them cry. I go to their room and resettle - DTD likes to have her chest patted or back rubbed, or if that doesn't work I will rock her cot (its on wheels). DTS has a comfort blanket like this which is sucks on all night so usually if he cries its because he can't find it (and in fact before I seperated their cots sometimes DTD would steal it...)

www.jojomamanbebe.co.uk/sp+sheep-baby-comforter-in-baby-toys+B3455

I never feed them in the night as they don't need it at this age imo (now that I have stopped bf and they are on solids) and I tihnk it would encourage night wakings

Hi ceeveebee. Did yours do the regression at 9 months? It's all been a bit of a shock as I presumed that as soon as I'd stopped feeding them in the night and they were sleeping through then they'd stay that way. Silly me! ;@) Am greteful for the couple of months worth of 12 hour nights that we got anyway.
They usually go back off again with a bit of a cuddle. Other times they resettle when the slumberbear goes off or I sneak in and put white noise on the cd player.
The comforter looks lovely. Thanks for the link x

Hi- no, we've not had a regression really, just a handful of night wakings which I think is usually teeth related (blasted teeth, apparently this will go on for years to come...)!

No time really, but hi all, welcome Spartacus

Brief run down for me:
DD lost loads of weight with her chest infection but much better now, sadly wobbly though and fell yesterday requiring head to be glued in A&E :( She'll have a scar on her forehead, hopefully not too bad
My boys are still ill, both on inhalers now for their wheezing. Sleep non-existant. I was delighted to get 2.5 hours in A row the other night though :)

beyoglu, you have a routine. You don't get up and put the telly on in the night or stimulate them anyway, they'll get it eventually and from your posts your routine is awesome!! I'd be tempted with the Jo tantum first I think, its a lot of money! Maybe I should do that, sleep here is so dire...

Agree Claire, this mythical self settling is so hard. I just think they either can or can't, as DT2 is really starting to get it but DT1 has the same routine, bedtime cues etc and won't even contemplate lying calmly in his cot until he goes to sleep!! Here's for you for the hard settling without DD1. I had a similar the other night, ended in tears all round, literally. Even DD who was still feeling
grotty then.

Incidentally my DD never did sleep regression at 6 or 9 months just from 12-19 months

Ouch dreaming I hope she's ok. That must have been terrifying. Hope the sleep thing turns around for you soon.
Don't know if it made the difference but I gave our two their tea 1/2 hour later and gave them a great bowl of baby rice (which they love - gak!) for pudding instead of fruit. And they did much better in the night. I'm desperately hoping it isn't a one off and the answer lies in giving them ridiculous quantities of food. Might be worth a try. I'm crossing everything it wasn't a fluke but, even if it was a one off, the rest was nice.

It was horrible spartacus, I had cars stopping and offering to just chuck us in the back to get us home quickly to take her to hospital while the blood poured down her face, and she's wiping at her face with her hands, and blood was everywhere . She was such a brave girl though, 25 months and no tears being cleaned and glued in A&E.

More coughing, puking, calming distressed wheezy babies and minimal sleeping here....

This is it for the winter now isn't it?? They're going to be ill til spring...

I will attempt to stuff as much food as possible in spartacus, in readiness for less coughing :) DT1 not doing well with weaning, gagging on everything. DT2 much better...

Lots of puking here too dream! Dtg who does not cough at all in the day had ONE COUGHING FIT and puked all over me and my bed! Put her in cot while changing bed and myself, and she got so upset that was sick again on her cot and me!
I havd mountains of washing everywhere... Plus dd1&2 have nits AGAIN, I cannot bloody brlieve it, do we breed them??? I don't have the time for nit combing every bloody night

And your dd1 deserves lots of poor thing!

Sorry rant over

spartacus no sleep regression here, nothing to regress from!

So inevitably after I forked out £320 DT2 has started to like the sleeping bag... wouldn't call it a great night's sleep last night but it was like averagely bad, like before when she was in the swaddle except that now I pat her tummy instead of reswaddling her. Still early waking, and this morning I went in at 7.15 to try and just get another 10 mins out of her, imagine, it's pitch black, and I pat the sleeping bag, and I'm like... her tummy seems very round... it was her bum! So we did the swaddle cold turkey just in time I think...

and then (fanfare please) she slept 90 minutes in her morning nap! In the swaddle! She's been 45 mins max since we switched her over. She actually likes it now! And I got to have a shower and watch the whole of Holby City! I also got the inner tubes for the buggy wheel and we now have an inflated wheel - I'm not sure I did it right, think the tube might be twisted but fook it, it's springy, that'll do... I was dying to get out for a long afternoon walk with the girls so I could get some sunlight and DT2 could get some much needed nap time but now she's perfectly well rested and it's pissing down with rain so maybe not :)

mines take a deep breath, you're doing a good thing! Yay for the mortgage payment - if it's getting hard though talk to them early (specially if you're with someone nice like Santander or one of the building societies) - in this market they'll do anything to avoid you defaulting on your mortgage.

dream well done for surviving that! Poor dd - I have a scar just like that from where I fell and planted my head on a drainpipe when I was 4. It faded really quickly...

spartacus I'm with you on the feeding, deffo. One of mine has started refusing the nighttime bottle 2 nights in a row now, or 3, I can't remember, and we started solids in earnest last week. I've high hopes that the other one's about to go as well. Doesn't help their crappy sleep but at least when this clinic is doing my sleep plan I don't need to talk about weaning off the bottle... HV had an idea of reducing the number of minutes you feed for by half a minute a day, which is cute, but where do I count the minutes in a pitch dark room with a bottle in each hand?

ceeveebee I know what you mean about feeding encouraging night waking. Last night DT2 refused the bottle again and I know that messing around trying to get her to take it woke her up, took about 15 mins for her to settle back. DH has instructions only to give it to her tonight if she actually wakes and cries for it, not if she wakes when her sister wakes.

Right, so. Now onto the DT1 swaddle wean. I just put her down for a nap with the sleeping bag and she's totally gone for it after a very short period of waving her arms around ("arms! in bed! where did these come from!") - it was really cute, she used them to rub her eyes. I bet I could put her in the sleeping bag tonight and not hear a blessed thing. I love that kid. I mean, I love DT2 as well, I just don't love her style of sleeping (i.e. not).

God that was meant to be a quick one!

Hope all the pukey kiddos are on the mend. Poor DD dream, what a horrible thing to happen after being ill. Poor little dab.

Sleep - the great obsession. There are a lot of good sleep habits you can get into, but there's also the inconvenient truth that the majority of babies do NOT sleep through till after their first birthday. I think mine said ages and ages ago about accepting them for what they are. Delicious annoying babies.

Pontificating over! Welcome spartacus, nice to meet another multiple mum on here.

I've done my good deed of the day. I accompanied my neighbour and her 10 week old twins to the local children's centre as they were having their multiples meet up. Helping her made me realise, yet again, how much easier it is now and how fast it goes. I remember struggling out of the house with all 3 in the early days. Shiver!

As you can tell I'm feeling quite positive this week - I finally feelvlike the dust has settled from the move and I love being near so many friends and family. Just makes me wander how I survived the early months all on my own!

That sound horrendous dreaming. Restores your faith in human kindness though that at least people stopped and offered to help. What a brave little star she is.
Coughing and puking sounds hideous Claire Hope it starts to improve for you soon. I think our washing machine was on multiple times a day until these two got to 6 months. And the ironing never ends!
Glad you?re making progress beyoglu. Hope you get some sleep throughs very soon. It?s such a balancing act with the naps and feeds. I?d love to know the equation: x naps + y feeds = 12 hours solid interrupted sleep!!
Tried to give ours a jar of baby food for tea plus some baby rice for pudding and they were not impressed with the jar one little bit and refused to eat it. Then spat out most of the baby rice. Then shouted at me. They don?t usually mind the odd jar but didn?t like this one so tea time was a disaster. And they were up and down most of the night. How tempting it is to just feed them enormous quantities of baby rice for tea as they love it and forget trying to feed them anything proper.
Don?t good deeds make you feel good red. And knowing you?ve helped someone at that stage when it?s just so so hard.
I need to go to the list and see how old everyone elses little ones are...

I think DD looks Harry Potter-esque now. its a diagonal scar anyway.

Weaning is still not going brilliantly. I'm struggling so much with what to feed dt2 (the dairy free one) that we've dairy vhallenged him today, early, with half a petit filous... fingers ccrossed

oh, crying, sorry guys, back later

What are you struggling with weaning wise dream? I've not found it that bad being dairy free but my SIL is vegan and a cook so I get lots of ideas from her. My two are their dinner tonight then DD proceeded to feed them her spag bol! They demolished it. Am very pleased as it'll mean less faff if I can just prep one meal.

mines meant to say hope you're feeling better. We allvhave our down days eh? And money stress really doesn't help. Anyway, been thinking if you

Halloooo ladies! I've changed my nickname, thought after the imposter best to change from scollister to something a bit more anonymous. Just catching up on posts as no sleep here either! Will post properly once I've caught up but just wanted to say hi in the meanwhile xxx

Hey rednellie, I hear you on the pre-12 month sleep and I say "LALALLALALA mine are going to sleep through the night before Christmas or we're spending the new house fund on an effing maternity nurse"!

Actually I can't complain, DT2 is now happier out of the swaddle than she ever was in it, and DT1 did her first non-swaddled night tonight and she was absolutely fine. So the swaddling is over thank the lord! Now what to do with the blankets? Wash them and store with baby clothes for donation to friends, or do I burn the effing things? I dunno. I think it was useful for DT2 for a while in the early days but DT1 never really slept any better with it, and it's caused me no end of stress (more in the anticipation of weaning them than actually doing it, although last week's sleep was fairly bad). It was just in time anyway because DT2 is now regularly sleeping on her tummy - either she was just about to do that anyway, or the sleeping bag has freed her to do it, but she anyway seems to like it. It's a bit confusing on the nights she wakes for a bottle (like last night) and I try and feed the back of her head!

spartacusflapjack any mileage in mixing proper food into the baby rice? At least the baby rice is mostly milk so it's all good for them. I know what you mean though, DT1 ate 3 and a half bowls of baby rice the other morning. I thought she would never stop. I'm determined to act like a relaxed mum around food and let them eat as much or as little as they want but that was really stretching it! I'm making a list of jars they like and hate. Heinz caribbean pork is welcome any time of the day in our house. Fisherman's bake, DT2 hated it so much she refused to eat anything else! DT1 is hilarious - murder to spoon-feed - she intercepts the spoon, grabs it and licks it clean herself and then drops it. DT2 just sits there and opens her mouth if she likes the look of the spoonful - but only if I taste it first! DH has a visceral hatred of baby food so he has to pretend and put the spoon to his mouth and go "mmm, mmm" while trying not to make a face. I think it's really sweet that DT2 basically wants to share the jar with us. Or maybe she thinks she's the queen and we're the tasters.

Hey chocolate!

Dream are you cooking yourself for the wee ones, or using jars? A lot of the jars of stuff are dairy free. I'm doing half jars half fresh - just giving them pureed green vegetables to get them the taste, and then I'll start on other veg when they're big enough to pick it up. Having said that I've been adding butter to the green veg to bulk up the calories a bit - I thought it would be good to give them stuff that had at least about 60 calories per 100g as that's what the milk is - I don't want them eating tons of veggies, drinking less milk and then picking up another night feed. On the other hand DT2 is looking decidedly plump and I think I might get a stern talking to at the baby clinic next time! Can never win, the poor wee blighters were always below average, now I think DT2 is going to be above, and they'll not like that either... she's half Glaswegian, what can I say, I think it's all fine as long as I keep them away from the irn bru and the sausage rolls! DT2 is now fascinated by anything we eat or drink - nearly brought DH's coffee down on his lap yesterday - and she keeps grabbing for my many many cans of diet fizzy drinks. I guess the time really has come for me to chuck that habit, I knew it would. Bugger.

Dream Just reading and running as boys have just started to niggle the second I signed in but this book has been invaluable to us - like a veggie version of Annabel Karmel:
www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-And-Child-Vegetarian-Recipes/dp/0091853001/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350889999&sr=8-1-fkmr0
Goulash and Baby Rice is a particular favourite! x