Twins. I am not enjoying this.

[Notthelife]

I gave birth to twins three weeks ago and I’m not enjoying it at all. They are my third and fourth babies and so I have been through the newborn stage before but this time it just feels overwhelmingly shit. They aren’t even difficult - all they do is sleep, feed and poo, but it just feels like too much.

I didn’t want twins. I didn’t want four children. I can’t get my head around it. I’m trying to take each day as it comes but the thought of the future fills me with dread. Every morning I get up and I feel anxiety in my chest. It usually goes by the end of the day but today it’s hitting me hard.

How do I get past this? I can’t change it now. How I do I find any joy? Do I just have to wait until I go back to work in a year? I’m trying to get out of the house and do things which helps, but I can’t imagine how I’m going to manage a year of maternity leave. With my other two, getting out and about every day was what kept me sane. How am I meant to do that with two babies?

Are my feelings real or is it hormones or PND? How would I know the difference? Raising twins is going to be difficult so perhaps my emotions are normal and I just have to get over it?

Please help. I don’t want to feel like this.

Discharged from the community midwives today. The perinatal mental health midwife is coming to see me on Monday.

My mood is definitely levelling off a bit and I feel more stable and less teary. I am still not enjoying any of it. I can’t find happiness or joy - I am just going through the motions.

I had a brilliant birth but a terrible time on the postnatal ward after and I think that’s contributed to how I’m feeling. The midwives said I could provide feedback via PALS but I’m not sure if that’ll help or not.

I still don’t know how to move forward but I know I have to.

Didn’t manage to leave the house today other than a solo school run. Just couldn’t be bothered. But now I have a horrible feeling in my chest because I’ve wasted a day and achieved nothing.

Did the midwives discuss the potential for this being pnd today or was that out of their remit?

It was mentioned but just in terms of how it could be that and I should contact the GP if I thought it might be. She checked that I’d not had suicidal thoughts but that’s all.

I think I probably do need to go to the GP.

I would. Honestly there is help available, it doesn’t hurt, and there is no need for you to wait or struggle. Give them a call in the morning and explain.

You are far from a failure - it's not easy having and getting used to just one baby and to be hit with two, especially if you didn't really want twins (and there's no shame in that either), it's mentally and physically tough.

Reading your posts, I genuinely admire you and you sound sensible and caring and you're doing your best - I really hope things balance out for you and you start to feel happier and more at ease soon - and it's fine if you're not bonding with your babies immediately (my mum didn't bond with me for months, but she loves me and I love her and we're close now). The very fact that you're acknowledging how you feel, shows how much you care. 💖💐

Thought I’d update you all because I am so grateful for the kind and supportive comments I got when I originally posted.

I’m really pleased to say that I am feeling so much better than I was. I can get out of bed in the morning without a tight feeling in my chest and I have stopped crying every day.

I am still seeing the mental health midwife on Monday and I’m still very much considering seeing the GP at some point. But overall I feel like I’ve achieved a level of acceptance and no longer feel quite so overwhelmed.

I really hope it was just hormones and things continue to improve. Either way, I have a tonne of supportive messages and practical suggestions on this thread that I can keep coming back to if I need to. Thank you all so much. I’m so glad I posted.

Glad to hear you are doing better. Twin mum here (3 under 1) so I get it!
probably not helpful to say this but it does get better and much of what you feel is lack of sleep and hormones.

Things I did that helped A LOT!

plan to get out. I used to go somewhere / anywhere between the late morning and early afternoon feed. Pack your changing bag in the evening and be ready to go anywhere!

Go for long walks. You’ve no idea how much good fresh air will do to your mood.

plan days to be at home. And make sure you schedule home days each week to allow some downtime and no pressure.

have a long hot shower. If the babies cry when you are in there that’s ok. As long as they are somewhere safe.

Try Gina Ford (queu the MN Gina haters), even if you aren’t breastfeeding it’s good to establish routines early.

be kind to you. It’s hard but it will help.

This period won’t last long and it does get easier.

good luck and congrats on your babies x

So pleased to hear that @Notthelife - having four children is hard, but having twins in the mix makes it much harder, especially as they are so new.

Hope you carry on feeling better - spring is coming and it will be easier soon to get outside, see some sunshine and blue sky (hopefully!) and get some fresh air, which will help the babies to sleep, and you to feel (a bit...) better.

Can I ask a question about routines, especially the Gina Ford one (before I invest)?

My first was a very difficult baby, a terrible sleeper, permanently attached to my boobs and completely resisted any routine.

My second was totally different. I only BF for a few weeks and once she was on formula we quickly found ourselves in a nice rhythm and later a more structured routine, although she was such a good feeder and sleeper we could flex it where needed without too much impact. It required little to no effort on my part - as I say she fell into the routine herself.

I’m well aware I’m going to need a routine with the twins and I’m not against following something like GF but how compatible is her approach with my desire to make sure I can get to some baby groups, meet friends for lunch etc? Will I be trapped at home the vast majority of the time? A Mum from my NCT group followed such a strict routine with her first that she stopped almost all socialising which was really sad.

I think you need a routine, and the priority is the twins in sync with each other. That might be GF, or not - up to you. We would wake the second twin when the first woke for a feed (so they quickly got into sync with each other), for example. Tried to go easier on other stuff. But there was (and is) precious little going with the flow.

I feel like it's so much harder with twins than a singleton that thrown a super-strict routine like GF into the mix is asking for trouble, personally.

You have older ones, so some of the routine is ready-made - school pickups etc. I wouldn't try to impose GF on top.

Thanks @TheWayTheLightFalls that makes sense. We’ve been waking them both for feeds and that’s working well. At this point (a month old) there’s no need for anything else as they mostly sleep, but over time we’ll need to start to incorporate bedtime routines, nap routines etc.

You can interpret and adjust Gina Ford’s routine as much as you want. I didn’t have twins so can’t help on that front and everything will be X 2 obviously but it is good to see how their wake windows will roughly change as they get older and you can kind of adjust your plan for the day based around when they’ll sleep. Second time round I was a lot less rigid with it and just kind of had it in the back of my mind. We also didn’t do the putting them in their own room early on thing, they were in our room til 6 months. The only thing I was quite insistent on was that I didn’t lie on the sofa with them sleeping on me etc. It is lovely and occasionally I’d do it but on the whole I made sure they went in the next to me or pram for a sleep. I found that the 2 month mark was the peak (of worstness) both times for me 🙈 It was the point they were less sleepy and wouldn’t just nod off anywhere. They started resisting being put into the next to me and did that high pitched scream where you just think omg make this stop. I also would never just put them in and abandon them for the night. I’d lift them back up if it didn’t sound like it was fading out within a minute or two. Quite quickly we broke through that bit and I’ve been mega lucky to have ridiculously good sleepers both times. I do think a routine early on physically trains their brains how they are going to sleep long term.

Sending you lots of positivity. I hope things get easier and you find something you can focus on to make the days feel better, even if it’s just a tv show or podcast on a walk or something just now. My two are still very young (and that’s without twins) and I still feel completely swamped at the fact I just cannot get out the front door. It takes a solid hour to round them up, fight them into their clothes, toilet trip, jackets, the dog going mental in the background to the point my brain feels like it’s going to implode 😩 Maybe a twin group with people in the same situation is the only positive for now where you just check in with each other and share how shit it is at first 😆😭 I’m sure things will begin to get easier

I definitely managed to get out to baby groups whilst following GF. Quite a few of the nap times are scheduled as naps-in-buggy, so, as far as I remember, I tweaked the schedule so that the babies could nap in the buggy while on my way to a group and back, and were awake while at the group.
Once you've got yourself and the babies used to the schedule, you can definitely tweak it to fit your timings.

I used to write down when they fed and then followed that as a schedule. I was BF so they had more feeds in the evening. My life was planned backwards from getting them all into bed in the evening. So that I could tidy up and sleep.

I fed the first to wake at that time, then woke the other. Night time, only the one that woke.

Mid morning was television time and feed time, along with shack time for DS who was non-verbal. (Playdays, if anyone can remember that far back).

This gave us a couple of hours or so between feeds where we could go to toddler groups in the afternoon. Bag was always packed ready.

They used to mess it all up by throwing up, exploding nappies etc, of course.

I did get a dishwasher, a cleaner, a nanny student for a few weeks - anything I could to make things easier.

I got through it - they are 30 now. Take the odd photo when they are being lovely, otherwise it is easy to forget it ever happened! It is something to look back on, even a week later.

OP, another twin mum here (although mine are almost adults now), they came when eldest was 2 so 3 under 3. It was the hardest year of my life when those babies came.

You are getting through one day at a time, don't expect too much more from yourself. It is HARD. And thankless. Try not to judge yourself for not 'enjoying' it and just do the best you can each day, give yourself some grace. I promise it will get better. Big hugs x

I remember feeling numb and grey a lot of the time...people would say how adorable the babies were aged three months but I couldnt "feel" it. But I did feel I adored them. And their little personalities began to shine through: best of all they really loved their older brother and found everything he did so exciting.
Going out to a cafe or a playgroup with them felt so great compared to that stressful got to do chores feeling that swept over me at home...friends to visit helped so much so keep socialising.
Anything you can to reduce the chores, lower standards, prep stuff easy meals batch cooking if your brain is still working mine certainly wasnt. But I could have used more jars I think!!!!!
Also, try to involve the older children when you can as they are only little and it's not their fault you have two babies ...don't put too much responsibility on them to behave well.
Reduce toys underfoot.
Invest in playpen for emergencies.
Go for a walk everyday.
Make the sofa a haven

Agree with the earlier poster who suggested synching sleeps and feeds is key. We didn’t do Gina Ford, and it seemed to work out just doing that. Gently rocking the buggy to help them fall asleep in the buggy , and little car rides also seemed to send them off to sleep. So glad that you are feeling better OP.

You’re doing great just getting through the day at this early stage! Twin pregnancy and birth is really tough to recover from too, so you might need to take some time to rest up and recuperate.

In terms of getting out and about, I just started with a short walk around the block with both babies in a pushchair or one in a sling. It helped me to build up my confidence taking them out alone. I knew I was only 5 minutes walk from home if there was a crisis. You don’t have to go out for lunch or to a playgroup yet, you can work up to that gradually.

When they were a bit older, I started taking them to a twins group. It was lovely to chat to other mums who understood, and the multiple mums with older children would hold a baby/bounce them in a chair to help out.

I also remember telling my mum that I hated my life right now when they were babies. Your feelings are completely normal.

Hi I posted my experience with twins earlier today
if you can search it
it’s a bit too long to type it out again
im new to this site so not sure if you can search it
Struggling with twins is the thread name