Newborn twins

[Mackenzie2009]

Hi all
We've just found out our young daughter is expecting twins. To say this has comr as a shock is an understatement. She's only 15 nd my husband is furious. Our daughter is insistent that she wants to keep them and continue her education so I imagine that I will be the main caregiver for a few years and Imstumbling at the first hurdle. Where do I get a pram and travel system for two very tiny newborns. We really don't have a lot of money and I'm starting to get scared about the cost of everything. Any help will be immensely helpful.

Hopefully now she’s told people she will have been referred to a teenage pregnancy midwife, who will hopefully be able to mobilise all sorts of support for her and you all as a family.
If you don’t want to be the main provider of childcare, now is the time to speak up. Your DD can be placed in a supported mother and baby placement. I would imagine in the new year there will be a lot of involvement from social care, and hopefully they will give you all options and lots of support.

I can’t imagine anyone revising or sitting for exams when you’ve been up all night looking after two babies. They’ll be no time or quiet to get any studying done.

In my city, there are buggy banks where parents in need can borrow essential equipment. It might be worth investigating this.

The OP is probably still working so wouldn’t be around during the day to help and will need to sleep at night ready for work and therefore limited time to support a teenager with twins.

Your poor Daughter. Please give her a big hug, take a deep breath and make a plan for the future together.

Hopefully the Father of the babies will step up.

You seem to fully understand this is not ideal, sounds like you have had no choice in the matter and I commend you for making the best of a bad situation.

Do you have any other children?
Do not buy a new pram, second hand is perfectly fine but depends where you live whether you’ll be rural roads or in the city etc.

are you on Facebook?
how old are you?
are social services involved yet?

Ignore the negatives, it’s too late and won’t help.
you can do this and you and your child and grandchild CAN excel.

Please encourage her to be more than a teenage months, continue with her studies and be the best of what she can be. She can still get a good career etc

big hugs to you at a bloody tough time.

Sorry the reason I ask re Facebook, is there’s some great baby groups. Usually called due in June 2025 for example, they can be fit and miss but I’ve found a great group through.

People have been having babies at 15/16 for years, I know family members have that only recently I had worked out their ages that this was the case.

Theyre wonderful parents, people, with good jobs, happy lives.

As a single parent she won’t be able to continue studies until the babies are nursery age/funded as she won’t have time to do anything other than care for them. She’s deluded and needs to speak to a twin support group to get an idea of what is in store

Just here to say the same, I didn't show until about 24 weeks and had them at 28 weeks, considering her age I'm not surprised she's probably been able to hide it.
The poor girl has probably been under an enormous amount of worry.

Wow OP.

are you happy to raise your grandchildren for the foreseeable? Because if my 15yo wanted that it would be a hard no. You are adult enough to be a mother? Then you be a mother. Not my job.

No one has said she must do every feed and every nappy but OP needs to make it clear that she isn’t going to raise these babies for her.

This is going to massively change OP’s life too, not to mention any other children OP may have. That’s without the financial pressure of where these babies are going to sleep, extra mouths to feed etc.

Fucking hell, some horrible people on here. Most teens are sexually active, it's pretty much the luck of the draw who gets pregnant. And a teen hiding a pregnancy is common, they panic and hope it will go away, or delay to avoid being talked into abortion. It's not like you routinely measure teen bellies, hiding a pregnancy in a baggy jumper is not that hard.

This is a hard thing op but survivable. Have you watched bump? It's on BBC, about an Australian girl who gives birth without realising she was pregnant. You might find it helps discussion with DD, it's a positive show but shows the difficulties.

Have you reached out to the father and his parents? It should be on them too, practically and financially. I know someone who did tons for her son's child (and the mother) after a teen pregnancy. You can probably share the load.

I'd be asking about what help is available - financially, emotionally, educational.

It is so not the luck of the draw who gets pregnant. It’s the ones who are too thick to use contraception.

But have a think about the word “survivable”. That’s the environment these two babies are being brought into- what a start for their self esteem to be “survivable”, don’t they deserve to be “wanted” or even “cherished”.
The gap between those words shows the degree to which this is sub-optimal.

Twin mum here. First and foremost this is certainly going to be brutally hard work, considering the shock, age of your daughter and practicality of having unexpected twins.

I think ur absolutely amazing for standing by her and accepting her decision and being prepared to help out, everything happens for a reason. Your husband will come round but I can see why he's angry and upset.

I think the no1 thing to have is a travel system pram, such as the bugaboo, if u can buy a second hand one of these with all the parts - grab it! Second hand with everything else (bar the carseat, this will also need to be compatible with the bugaboo or whichever u buy)

Get into the sales for bottles etc, ur definatly better getting more bottles than u think as well to have spare for times when u haven't had the time to clean etc.

Everyone went on at me about "routine" with my two... I did take this on board but it's very important to remember that what one baby needs might not necessarily mean the other needs the same, they are two individual babies after all. Luckily mine seemed to work in sync thank The Lord! But this might not be the case and u may need to be persistent and have lots of patience with managing this.

During the hard days after my babies feeds I found it a lot easier to put them both in the car and go for a "nap time" drive to ensure they both slept and settled, I think this helped with them being in sync. This is only ok if u feel you've had enough sleep yourself tho, as ideally u want to be sleeping when they're asleep.

Nuby RapidCool Portable Baby Bottle Maker - a God send.

A sling - for one baby whilst holding the other.

The bottom line of it is your all just going to need to be as prepared as u can be and find a way to work it out once the babies are here. It may occur to ur daughter after they're born that she can't continue with education for now, she may need to rely on benefits u til such times the babies are older and she can start again.

Where there's a will there's a way and I truly wish u all the best xx

Absolutely.

It's ok for the OP to say actually, no, I'm not taking on the load for you DD. This is your home and I will support you, but you're going to have to put everything else aside and focus on parenting these babies for the time being because I have a life, job etc. that I'm going to be living and I'm not available for 24/7 childcare duties.

Yep, or not bury their head in the sand for so long when 1 tablet (morning after pill) or 2 tablets (medical termination) could have solved a lot of angst

It is the luck of the draw. No contraception is 100%, especially when used by inexperienced teens. There's no thickness about it. Condoms come off, the pill fails because you have a stomach bug, etc. I'm pretty sure if your child was in that situation you wouldn't call them thick.

By survivable I mean it's perspective of it being impossible to get through. It might be hard but do-able. DD might be able to parent independently within a few years. I don't mean the babies won't be loved, you're being facetious.

Most people who have babies in any situation find at least some phases of the first few years to be more about survival than cherishing every moment. With twins it's even more the case.

I think the first questions before any thoughts of travel system, bottles or cots is who is physically going to look after these babies and provide for them financially? The mother to be seems to think she will be continuing with her education.

Her dd is 15. Yes you can say it's her responsibility, but really if dd can't cope then op is going to be first in line to pick up the pieces.

Join Tamba.

This is something op needs to find out - I wouldn't say 'that's the end of school for you' but find out what the school allows and what alternatives are - home learning etc. or if DD needs a few years out of education, what is available after that in terms of college courses

Buying the stuff is an understandable step to make it tangible and it's easier than tackling the other stuff.

I applaud your post!

When teenagers have kids it is their families or the tax payers who support them. It’s a massively selfish act who actually benefits nobody. Of course one can’t expect teenagers to make mature decisions, but the least they can do is to discuss the pregnancy with adults (parents, counsellor, etc) at an early enough stage, before the decision to terminate the pregnancy or keep the baby is taken out of their hands.

I would be genuinely surprised if most 15 year old girls are sexually active.

https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/45313-what-age-did-britons-lose-their-virginity

*New YouGov Surveys research has revealed that one in five Britons (19%) who were willing to say when they lost their virginity confess to having done so when they were under the legal age of consent of 16.

The median age at which Britons lost their virginity is 17, with half of Britons having sex for the first time between the ages of 16 and 18. One in six (17%) lost their virginity at the age of 16, with similar numbers doing so at age 17 (16%) and age 18 (17%).*

Ok so not a majority but at 15 snogs and fumbles are common and a fair few going further than that. Sex under 16 for one in five.