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 :)

ha ha claire the cat food story made me laugh! my mother always likes to tell the story of a 2 yr old me eating my sister's poo that was floating in the bath. Thankfully i have no recollection of it.

All good here, dts still not sleeping particularly well but hey what's new and they really are getting cuter by the day!

not particularly looking forward to carting them round various odd french relatives at xmas but gotta be done i suppose

i hope everyone's dts are better for xmas (stories of coughs, vomit etc, sounds pretty hard)

nancy lol lol lol at the poo eating (yum!). We done the carting round relatives at Christmas today and dt2 had about 10 minutes sleep in 10 hours . Bless him he was only a little bit grumpy we put them to bed earlier at 6.30 and he's flat out hoping against all odds they will be like that all night (doubt it very much though!). It was tiring though just hopping from house to house but that's Christmas for you!

Is anyone else really excited now? My dts have no clue or even care but I can't wait!

Yes hope everyone is better now me and dt1 finally a little better but dh has it now.

Defintion of stress btw (my new one)-two weeks ago it was Christmas shopping with young twins. Now it's Christmas food shopping with young twins on my own. Why why why why why....next year I am definately doing it online (she says).

I loved the pics too twelve I can't see yours though I would love to! Everyone's pics have the same poses too which I love and red I really like the one of you and dd doing the same pose she is a cutie! The background is lush too.

Haven't seen beyou for a while hope you are ok? Would love to see pics of your girls too (mental note to self to put some up).

Merry Xmas to everyone and their dts!!

Oops posted too soon....

Had a nice day with dp's family but missed seeing mine who are all in England. Parents coming out on thurs thou.

Saw a friend and her 1 week old yesterday. All I could think was thank god I don't have to do that horrific first month again!

Ooh, that'll be nice when the reinforcements your parents arrive Nancy .

We had Christmas here, with my mum and her husband and my sister and her fiance and their new puppy. They did all the cooking though, it was fabulous. Good thing as still huge sleep issues here :( DD still a bit too little to 'get' Christmas, didn't want to open presents but she adored the puppy

We are really struggling here, but had a heart to heart with dh and feel a bit better. We both think its exhaustion, and we'd cope miles better in the day if only we were able to sleep. A really good night here is 3-4 quick ish feeds/ resettles, but still battling say every other night with up to 3 hour awake periods with DT1.

How are you Claire?

When's allergy clinic appointmwnt red?

& happy Christmas to all, I giggled at inappropriate food eaten stories too (I discovered DT1 could roll about when I found him sucking a wipe, that he'd pinched from inside a dirty nappy I'd just changed)

Just popping in to say Merry Christmas all! Drowning under toy mountain here but otherwise all good!

Merry Crimbo ladies and babies. Posting enforce DT2 wakes up again, am spending all night running up and down the stairs
Hope all the babies are well and recovered from surgery, nasty coughs and allergies. Sorry about lack of personals xxx

Before, not enforce - bloody predictive text, grrr

Hellooo everyone, hope you had a good christmas!

We are stating ar my mum's and catching up with friends and family. Sleep still no good dream, best night I've had in ages was two nights ago, with dtg wake for feed at 1.30 then both awake at 6.15!! And bedtime is now 9-9.30 because of all the late dinners

Of course then last night she woke 3 times, puked once and dtb just kept waking up as he now has a stinking cold!! How long til springtime please?

Ended up with both in bed with me and dh was away too. Bloody nightmare, I had to wake mum up a couple of times as I just couldnt get them both to sleep. Aaargh

twelve I think I may have seen you under that mountain somewhere! Ours is slowly decreasing being moved from one place to another. We had a good Christmas fairly quiet day but has another Christmas day on Wednesday with the il and another yesterday with my parents. Am now truly stuffed and hungover and back to work this pm. Looking forward to another day off Tuesday not looking forward to the big clean up planned for tomorrow .

Not a lot of sleep here either last night was one of the worst ending in dt2 projectiling over dh , slept from 3.30 until 7 then though. I'm ambitious for next year new beginnings more sleep! Also dt1 is taking little steps from me to dh and back again (beams with pride).

Merry Christmas everyone (no time to chill on sofa hi ho hi ho hi ho...)

Merry Christmas! We've had a good one, still at my parents. Dd just about coped, didn't have a ridiculous amount of pressies. Dts got hardly any! Think my relatives have decided I've just got too many children...

Allergy clinic beginning of Jan. Got a nanny. Eek that means I'll actually have to do my job.

Cor blimey mines - can't believe yours are taking steps! Ours have worked out getting from sitting to lying and sort of crawling. We 'think' dt1 said his first word,,cat. Mind, this is confirmed by besotted grandparents and uncle so may just be very wishful thinking.

Merry xmas ladies wanted to pop on and say hello, well my gorgoeus girlies are 6 months old today!!! where does the time go :) have been really busy with the family and finding it difficult to get on to mumsnet but will make more of an effort in 2013!.

Hope everyone is well and you all had a lovely xmas, wishing you a happy new year and will try and catch up with where everyone is at :)

We have a tooth and one twinny sleeping a bit better hooray! They are still waking up several times (at least 6-7 times before midnight and god knows how many after that, I'm too tired to remember the next day) but a teeny tiny step in the right direction! Hope you are all well and babies too. Happy New Year and hopefully I will be here a bit more in the NY if sleep continues to improve!

Happy new year my twin mum friends! Been a pleasure knowing you all in a very eventful 2012. And now lets all think what 2013 could bring more sleep more sleep. Xx

Hello everyone, Happy New Year. I saw your thread and thought that his is the perfectt place for some advice. I'm writing for the first time as I'm having a nightmare in the evenings. Every evening one of the twins (two non identical girls - 9 weeks) will settle after the 7 o'clock feed then wake up between 30 and 45 minutes then take between 90-120 mins to re settle, mean while the twin that didn't wake up will sleep through until between 00:30 and 02:00. The twins seem to alternate nights so it's baffling as to what we can do. Would love to hear our suggestions.

Inalso have a dd who is 2.5yo

Hi onepopper. Congratulations on your DTs.

My DCDA girls are nearly 14 weeks old and I had similar problems with mine too. Recently however, (since they were about 12 weeks), we seem to have cracked it.

This was the pattern in our house from when they were 10-12 weeks...
We would put both down at 6:45pm after bath/top & tail and milk.
DT1 would wake after 45 mins and refuse to sleep until 11pm milk then she would go through the night until I woke her around 7:30pm because she was exhausted
DT2 would not make a peep from 6:45pm & I would wake her at 11pm for milk but she would wake for a night feed around 4am.

My girls don't drink very much milk (FF), 4 or 5oz per feed. We tried various things, this is what we found worked for our girls...

DT1 - when she woke after 45 mins, we gave her a cuddle, put her on her stomach and shushed her while patting her back for a bit. She has since gone through until 11pm. I really think it is putting her on tummy that worked in getting her back to sleep. Babies sleep cycles are 30-45 mins so they often wake then and some need resettling.
With DT2, for the last week we have given her Cow & Gate for hungry babies at the 11pm feed. This worked on the second night and she has slept from 11:30-6:30 for 5 nights in a row now i bet I am going to pay for getting excited by this and they will never sleep again from tonight

I hope this help :)

Hello onepopper welcome! Great name btw! You have my most sympathy sleep deprivation is an absolute killer and imo a form of torture!

Do you feed the dts at the same time? I.e wake the other to feed? Even if not long since last feed I find a few oz can still tie them in together (or a short bf if that is how you feed). I assume you already do bedtime routine as you mentioned the 7pm feed but if not it definately helps. Is there a chance the dt that won't settle has colic? Gripe water is great for that. Hugs hope it will get better for you soon (it will I know). Maybe you shouldn't read the next bit though!

I am feeling really low today the worst I felt for months. Dh gone back to work and I think it's a combination of post Christmas tiredness and gloom. Plus I have been ill for weeks and weeks due to being so run down and busy I think and dh hasn't been very understanding. So we spent the last days of his time off as a family (I worked some days) bickering and sniping at each other . I have so much to acheive this year it's stressing me out already but know I need to get a handle on things and calm down a bit.

The absolute worst thing though is the dts have been sleeping badly at night getting worse and worse we had a few 5.30 wake up's but last night was 3am so I decided it was time to do cc at night (after feeding). I've avoided this as it always seems longer and louder but felt I had no choice and it reminded me of the early cc with day naps with dt2 taking an hour to settle but felt like 3 then another hour about 6am when I really should have got them up but dt1 was sleeping. So now I feel like the lack of sleep has impacted on my parenting skills and that I've had a mini break down. It's 9.15 and I am still in my pj's on mumsnet but will get out later (than planned) and trying hard to feel positive. My dts are playing and smiling and laughing and are clean and dressed and about to have breakfast and dt1 has been walking lots already today. So for that reason I am going to stop feeling guilty and try and cheer up a bit. I do feel guilty though. Tonight I am going to do cc again as the night wakings have got to stop it's ridiculous now but I am going to be a bit more strict with myself and not bawl my eyes out at 4am! I'm not sure what time I should stop it though? I know you should do cc until they fall asleep but I'm so used to 6.30 starts I feel this is get up time this am I did it for longer and dt2 fell asleep at 7am which me. I let him sleep a bit and when dt1 woke got him up too. Hopefully a few nights of cc (arrgghh) will iron out any issues. I will report back, hopefully in happier mode!

Btw I have had lots of hugs and smiles of the dts today so I know they still love me despite my mini meltdown thank god. Trivial thing but really helps!

welcome onepopper! i've got 14week old bg twins who don't sleep amazinly so i don't really have any advice but what i would say is that what they do now will probably change anyway! my dtb was sleeping pretty well at 9 weeks (i now realise) and dtg wasn't. now it's the opposite!!

well, they both slept absoltely horrendously on new year's eve (they obvs knew it was a night to celebrate). i ended up wishing dp a happy new year over the baby monitor as i breastfed dtb!

mines i'm really sorry that you're having a crappy time. although it sounds like you're doing pretty well!! there's been occasions when i haven't managed to get dressed til the afternoon! as for cc, no advice, i just hope i don't have to do that one day, sounds awful! dp and i have our down days too, depending on how tired i /we are (well, he thinks he's tired, but god knows why, i would kill for sleep like he gets) we bicker more or less. hopefully we'll get on again by the time the children leave home! well, i am exageratin but the dts have certainly tested our relationship!

ps my inlaws have taken the dts for a couple of hours and should have been back 5 mins ago. feeling v twitchy (sp?) as is the first time i have left them with anyone apart from my mum.

BRING BACK MY DTS!!!!!

Hello Ladies, First time on this thread. Had my ID twin girls three weeks ago. Finding our feet with the night time feeds and getting the babies to sleep (been a little difficult as they have both come down with colds, but nasal spray seemed to help a little last night). Doing okay awake wise atm due to my husband being off work, but he goes back next week, so the night time feeds will primarily left to myself (eeeek). How did you all cope once your loved ones went back to work?

Hello, happy new year!

onepopper, welcome, but I have no idea. My dts would scream for hours with 'colic' (that turned out to be cows milk protein intolerance for one) from 2 weeks to 4 months for one, 5.5 months for the other... Yours still sleep better than mine and mine are 9 months this week!!! My DD is 2.3 too, so similar to yours. Hope you crack it anyway.

Wow to the walking mines!

Oops, interrupted by my dc...

Good luck with tonight mines, I don't think I could do cc, i never have faith mine aren't hungry/wet/ hot cold and also they wake each other up, and worst, DD. I've heard of lots of good results though so hope it happens easily tonight for you. I will be attempting the Baby Whisperer style pick up/ put down again soon. I had some success but now teething has hit. I can just feel DT1's first tooth poking through, DT2 is really miserable with a red hot cheek (though the cheek keeps doing it, so I know its gum pain but no idea if his first tooth is imminent or not)

About to dairy challenge DT2 too- well, when he calms down again. No point doing it to a super miserable baby, how would I tell?!

Well done for being brave and leaving them Nancy. I assume they are long back by now. I know the feeling though. I have managed to leave mine twice for one hour both times and that's it!!!

chocolateforthree did you name change? I've forgotten if you did, and how old your dts are!

Oh, and mines y y y to exhaustion fueled bickering, sniping, arguing :( :( :(

hello dreaming so glad to see you on here, so your boys are teething dtd1 has 2 and dtd2 has her first my babies always teeth quickly???? how come you are doing dairy challenge i do recall a while back you werent sure re allergys, lovely to see you around :)

Hi twin2, you too! Apparently early teething runs in families. Mine are not early teethers . My dt2 was so miserable for his first 5 months, he screamed for hours each day, he vomited a lot, he cried after feeds but wanted to feed constantly. BUT he grew fine, had no watery diarrhoea and the hv talking a pile of shit as they do told me it therefore wasn't intolerance. At 5.5 months we went dairy free and he's been great since. So, challenging at 9 omnths, as advised...

ogh crap, crying baby, be backk...