Newborn twins are HARD

[PollyDarton2]

There’s two of them!!!!!!!!

Are there any twin mums out there who’d care to share any nuggets of advice or tell me about their experiences or just nod and agree with me?

I was warned that people “just don’t get it” and that’s definitely how I’m feeling. People are being plenty supportive and/or sympathetic. But that’s not the same as having someone know what you’re going through.

My twins were my 2nd and 3rd children, I felt like a brand new mum, twins are so much harder and people don’t appreciate how hard it is........unless they have twins too. I got a lot of support from a twin group. The first year is really hard, so is the toddler stage. I really miss the time when they were between perhaps ages 4 and 13.

they are now 14, nearly 15, and in my experience, the new born baby stage was really hard being sleep deprived but the teenage stage is so hard as well !

I've often be told that toddlers & teenagers are some of the most challenging times. I've certainly found the toddler stage to be so so difficult.

My sympathy to you!🍷🌷🌻
Mine are now almost 8 years old, but I remember very vividly the early stage.

Also lots of stupid opinions for ie like the twins are basically same like to have a two small kids , so they know exactly what you're going through etc.🤦🏻‍♀️

Multiple moms are superwomen!🏆

Same situation here... eldest is 17 and twins are almost 15... first year of twins life is a bit of a blur in my memory now as it was so full on... I think it does get easier as they get older, even the teen years ( with diagnosed anxiety in one and dyslexia in the other factored in).

For now... go easy on yourself:

All fed, none dead is your parenting goal.

If you don't make it beyond feeding and changing twins for a day so what, I'd call that a success.

I made the decision to only dress girls in baby-grows for the most part when they were tiny for ease.

Accept help if offered, ask for it if not.

If somebody visits you, pass them the babies and disappear for a nap.

You've got this!

It's so SO hard. I felt so isolated, as all of my friends I'd met in NCT had had singles and were meeting up for coffee and cake while I was struggling at home. Go easy on yourself and yes accept as much help as possible. After some very dark times I eventually hired a 'mother's help' type of person who would come a few hours a week to give me a break and be a second pair of hands. Appreciate I was very lucky to be able to do this, but if you can afford to then I highly recommend. And yes to people just not getting it, a friend once told me off for hiring someone to help me, saying she was raised by nanny's and disagreed with mothers using them. This friend didn't even have kids at the time so had no understanding of what I was going through.

Just remember it does get easier! Find a local multiples group so you can have some equally stressed allies

Yes they are! Mine are a lot older now thank fuck.

In the early days learn how to feed simultaneously assuming FF, decent chairs you can do both at the same time. Mine had horrendous reflux and had to be upright after every feed so I figured a way to have one on my chest, one on my knees, feed and then both over each shoulder.

Accept all offers of help, and get out
of the house as much as you can.

Congratulations op! Mine are teenagers now, so going through a comparable difficult twin age!! But remember us twin mum's are tough, at least that's what I've told myself over the years 😀And you have another child too so can't imagine how hard that is. Focus on the sleep and food, I was rigid with routine for the first year, it kept me sane. I roughly kept to the every 4 hrs cycle that started when they were in scbu and it sort of gave me and dh an anchor when everything felt a bit nuts! Take all offers of help, try and gaze at them and take photos as this phasecan whizz by in a haze. Good luck and welcome to the twin mum club!

Congratulations op.
I'm not a twin mum but my cousin is , we all rallied around . My Aunty moved in for 3 months and cousin, cousin dh and aunty tag teamed so everyone could get a full nights sleep every 3 days.
Also us cousins were on shopping duty, we took a day of the week each to literally be on call to pick up anything that was needed ( cousins DH worked during the day and neither cousin nor Aunty drive).
What was probably massively helpful was that Gran was a twin mum ( my dad was a twin) and laid out the support cousin would need.

My twins are almost 18 now and they have two younger siblings so it didn't put us off.

My top tips are
Join the local twins club. No matter how daunting a prospect it is to get them up and out it is totally worth it. You will feel like you have come home. The experiences of the singleton parent are no way comparable to the logistics involved in having twins.

If people offer help ask them to do anything other than hold the babies. You will resent them otherwise.

Routine is a life saver. It may be counterintuitive but can really help.

Get a cleaner (if you don't have one) so you don't worry about anything other than the babies.

Good luck

PS now they are almost adults they are amazing. Such great friends and such fun to have around.

Oh good yes about the visitors! The amount of people who pop round to 'help' who turn up, lift a sleeping baby from the bassinet, cuddle it for an hour and then return it, still sleeping to the bassinet 🤣

I'm still just getting to grips with how to physically handle the two at once. Just fed one, second woke and started crying mid-feed. Tried to position no2 into place but displaced no1 in the process. Now no2 is feeding and no1 needs winding but I've not got enough arms!

Right! I’ve signed up for the local twin group. They have weekly meet ups so I’ll try and go along to see other twin mums in action.

To all the people with teenagers… I am in no hurry to get there!! I’ve got a 2YO and my sister has a 16YO and there’s no contest in who is harder. My sister looks after my son once a week to give her a break from the teenager! When DH found out the twins were girls he started imaging two of my niece and that’s probably the most panicked he’s been!

@Carriemac youve inspired me actually, when my niece has finished her GCSEs in a month or so I may pay her to come and help. She was round in the Easter holidays and happily took on baby duty while I napped.

@Frazzlerock this is exactly it so far! DS just slept and ate and pooped… normal baby stuff. So far these two girls have spent most of their life complaining about something!

This post has been so cathartic. Thank you to everyone who has replied.

Hiya I'm here to say I have 5 year old twins and survived and the newborn days are the hardest. My main advice - DROP YOUR STANDARDS... don't expect to be a brilliant mum, or have a tidy house or get your figure back or go out every day... Just grit your teeth and get on with it and count every day you've all survived as a win even if you never got dressed 😁 you got this
P. S at 5 years old my twins are easier than my friends singletons as they play with each other, have done since about 2.5 really well, give or take a few scraps 🤣

@Dinneronmybfpillow your post made me
chuckle so much. The baby feeding displacement problem! It’s a real issue. And handling them both at once is hilariously clumsy, my poor babies are probably going to whiplash soon.

@PollyDarton2 DTs are DC2+3 for us and we already have DD(3). I'm dreading the teen years! DH is made up with his gaggle of girls... but I have gently reminded him who their mother is.... and that dating me at age 16 was a very different to parenting me!

If you are lucky you have a wonderful MIL like me who arrived every day for the first two months and kept me and husband fed cleaned the house and washed all the clothes. She even guarded the door in the first week against my very formidable aunt who thought she should wake me and the babies up do she could visit us. My heroine@

It is amazing how I look back now and only remember the cuddles until I really think about it! I had a toddler too when my twins were born, sadly gave up breastfeeding at 8 weeks for the sake of all of our sanity really.

They were prem so came home in a hospital routine, I'd really recommend seeing what you could get in place as it was my saviour. I'd nap for one of their naps and get washing done on their next one. Get people round for a coffee then make them make it, this is the one time when you can get away with asking as noone really understands how you are coping!

it does get easier - until the teen years!

Actually my teenage twins are a delight compared to my two singleton teens. Being so close they seem to help each other over the difficult bits of adolescence.

Assuming you are bottle not breast feeding I used to sit on the floor with my legs out in front and lean one twin against each of my outer thighs. It seemed to work ok. They were two months prem so quite small when out of SCBU but very thirsty so I spent most of my time sitting on the floor feeding. Having the radio nearby was a must!

How are you doing @PollyDarton2 ?

I actually thought I'd love twins when I had my first child - I needed medical help to conceive so twins seemed like a great deal, two for the price of one !

But since then I've seen how demanding ONE baby can be. So now I'm praying my last baby is my last baby and not last babies !

There's a documentary on youtube about a family who had identical quadruplets, maybe watch it to feel better about your own situation 😅

Hi 👋 I’m surviving thank you. Terrible night with them, and Wednesdays is one of my childcare-less days for the toddler so panicked and made my husband call in sick. Thank god I did… Velcro babies today. Which is lush when he is here to help (hell when he isn’t!) So cuddles all day. Stuck under two feeding babies at the moment.

I feel so lucky and happy most of the time, but the hard bits are just so hard. Taking it one day at a time.

So many replies here telling me they only remember the cuddles is exactly what I needed to hear.

Hi @PollyDarton2 - just surviving here too! DH went back to work today. I wussed out and took DTs and DD to my mum's (she is my godsend atm). I can't believe how much I can't remember from DD was newborn, and I hate not being able to just cuddle on the sofa with one baby for ages like I did with her. I swear they collude to tag team with crying/sleeping so you're constantly swapping over. 🙄
I've booked an IBCLC for tomorrow because my poor tits can't hack their terrible latches any more and then we have the HV in the afternoon for the dreaded weigh in.
Shit night last night here too, I was awake from 01.30 until 5am and then the 3yo came in at 6am. Might just go to bed now....

Sorry I missed that message @Dinneronmybfpillow hope you’ve managed to get some sleep since!

I swear they collude to tag team with crying/sleeping so you're constantly swapping over. YES! What is this?! T1 looks content so I merrily feed T2 and then T1 wakes back up and starts crying louder and louder while I plead her not to wake her brother.

Is your husband at home this weekend?

I managed to get a four hour stretch of sleep last night. Literally amazing!

Ugh, Broken today. Another crap night - awake from 3am and completely unable to settle either twin until 5.30 and DD came through at 6am. I told her if she woke them, I would probably cry. Obviously she then proceeded to wake them.

Today was rough. From 15.30 I have been either holding or feeding at least one twin. The constant feeding of both started at 17.30 and continued until about 21.00. I said to DH the other day that I don't care for anything as long as at the end of the day I can wash my face and brush my teeth as a basic meeting of my own needs but once again neither has happened.
Then I read on a Facebook group that the newborn days are the easy bit and how it all just gets worse from here and I just cracked and sobbed.

We have baby twins and a toddler. It's expensive af, the first few weeks were mad and the toddler years are going to be something else. But... there are definite upsides. The twins are easier than our toddler was. He wanted us, they are happy just to share a massive cot, hold hands and grin madly at each other. They sleep brilliantly because they have that sense of being safe. There is no point in pretending life is about anything but babies so you don't have to overthink it. And to complete a family with that kind of closeness at the core... it's a blessing beyond anything.

Get a tommee tippee perfect prep imho. Bottle at just the right temperature in 40 seconds and we now use ours to make up food. Lifesaver.

That's twin competition syndrome. Evolution telling them if all the attention is going to the other, to try and outcry them!

They seem to develop a miraculous ability not to hear or wake each other though. Must also be evolutionary :-)