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Parents of twins and multiples

6 replies

KathrynK · 09/12/2013 15:39

Hi everyone, I'm doing some work on parents of twins and multiples (POTAM), and finding that there's very little research on being parents of twins - sleep, feeding, mental health, relationships. Knowing that POTAM are likely to have been inundated with medical "advice" during pregnancy, did you find it all disappeared after the births? Have you found that what you needed was support from peers, or would you have liked some more evidence based information?
My interest is because I'm doing a uni module I'm doing on Understanding Research, and I'm doing twins because we have a lot locally and I've always been interested in the area (though there's 2.5yrs between my own kids).
TIA.

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Crazdsky · 09/12/2013 15:53

I have 2.5 yo twin girls and would agree that into area there was very little advice after their birth. In fact there was very little advice at all. During my pregnancy the only twin specific info I got was from a 3 hour TAMBA run preparing for parenting course which I had to pay to attend. It did have some practical advice on coping with the demands of twins but only focused on breast feeding with no mention of formula feeding as they had invited along a breast feeding counsellor, this took up most of the available time.
I have found it to be a case of trial and error as to what works. We have no local twins clubs to enable swapping of tips with other parents. The Internet has been the source of most advice. I personally prefer evidence based as what works anicdotaly for one parent may not work for someone else.

IamGluezilla · 09/12/2013 20:28

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IamGluezilla · 09/12/2013 20:31

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KathrynK · 11/12/2013 10:01

Thank you both for that. This is exactly my point Crazdsky, that while trial and error and peer support are both valuable, what works for some parents doesn't for others and so for parents to make informed decisions they need an evidence base, just like parents of singletons do.
And I also agree with you IamGluezilla, that if we see each child as an individual, then caring for each is not significantly different from singletons. It's exactly the area you describe - what works when one is crying and the other running amok, one is hungry and the other asleep - where parents need additional support. The issues I've found in research are around duration of breastfeeding and reasons for stopping, safe location of sleeping, parental fatigue, mental health of parents, impact on relationships.
I hope it's reassuring to you IamGluezilla that the time issue is possibly not dramatically different from the second singleton child, who never gets the same quality of parenting as the first, and yet does benefit from seeing the parent loving and caring for the first child, so internalises a whole set of values around caring. It's quality of care and responsiveness that's important in the early months/years, rather than specific activities :) .

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Cerubina · 11/12/2013 12:15

Personally I got a decent amount of ante natal care/information but my mistake was to read the guidance that says the first year is the hardest, so pretty much at their first birthday I was congratulating myself on getting there and never suspecting that it would get more challenging. I think there was a comment in one book that once you've got through the first year it should all become easier as the children become more independent. This couldn't be more wrong for me - I found the early months relatively easy, in that it felt that being organised was half the job (crowd control, essentially). At a year old they're hardly 'independent' anyway! If anything, more likely to get injured by falling/pulling things down on themselves.

Once they became mobile and their requirements went beyond sitting in a buggy or on a playmat with a toy to look at, I found it so much harder than before. It was always tricky to do activities that mums with one probably take for granted (playgroups, swimming, massage etc were either exhausting or ruled out altogether) but even things like meeting friends for a coffee or going to a playground became so hard to do - not enough pairs of hands, children going in different directions, even simple stuff like getting us all into coats and shoes to leave the house...there were times when I felt I couldn't face all the faff and probably became quite socially isolated.

Returning to work and facing the issues of them catching bugs at nursery was immensely hard too. I was unbelievably stressed about it all, trying to do my job to previous high standards while getting calls almost every other day (seriously, in the early weeks) to come and collect one or other. The fact that illnesses are usually staggered by a couple of days means there's quite an impact on ability to work if they can't go to nursery.

I think it is probably underplayed that you will need help to manage twins. I am beginning to see now (2.9 years in) that I am going to have to find some solution - I have no willing grandparents or other family on hand, so it needs to be paid-for help.

I'm having a bit of a hard day today as you might be able to tell from the tone, but for me there has been a massive hit to quality of marital relationship (we separated for a while earlier in the year), my physical strength (lugging two babies around is hard and I have quite bad posture now), my mental resilience and my immune response. I seem to catch all manner of bugs now and have had conjunctivitis for 3 months...

I imagine my husband would say it has had a huge impact on our relationship too, and has brought to the fore certain shortcomings in our parents that we hadn't noticed before, and that we are constantly short of time.

Funnily enough I don't sweat too much about the point Gluezilla made about how much time you have for them individually. One area where I give myself a break, perhaps - I know that they are happy, thriving and seem to have a lovely bond with each other, and will never have known any different anyway.

KathrynK · 10/01/2014 12:17

Just finalising my essay on this topic, so thank you once again for your useful contributions, and thank you Cerubina for sharing your reality Thanks.

50% of parents express disatisfaction with their relationship in the first 3 years after having a baby, because couple activities get pushed out by caring for the infant. Being prepared, but particularly educating the men to realise what an impact becoming a mother has, is known to reduce the shock and hence the negative reaction. www.thecoupleconnection.org.uk is a useful site.

I quite agree about the additional support. Much of the research I've been reading is set in the USA, where women are returning to work within 3 months of having twins. That must be incredibly hard on everyone. When I rule the world (!) all parents of twins (and single parents) will get paid help for as long as they need it.

Anyway, better go and finish writing the flippin' essay now. All the best,

Kathryn

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