Found out we are having twins!

[dangle90]

Hello! So recently me and OH have found out we are having twins. We are over the moon, but obviously nervous as well. It's still early days but just thought I'd pick anyone's brains who has had twins and can help us out with a few questions... so here goes!
What pram did you use from newborn?
What were there sleeping arrangements?
Any tips or anything else you can think of will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Congratulations to all you twin parents to be! It really is so wonderful, ours are nearly 10 months and they are such a joy to be around, constantly giggling and smiling at each other.

We also have the Bugaboo because I wanted a side by side, and one which did parent facing. We did have to upgrade our car to an estate though.

Our two slept in the same cot to begin with, just as April describes. And we moved them into separate ones at about 4 months I think.

We also have Baby Bjorn bouncers to put them in during the daytime, somewhere safe to plonk them. They are pricey, but they still fit into them now for daytime naps.

If you end up bottle or mix feeding I highly recommend the perfect prep machine.

Use Tamba to find your local twins club. We have not been to the actual group play session yet, but I have joined their group page on Facebook which is great.

We have a rucksack change bag as my DH is a SAHP so he didn't want the handbag type, and it is much easier being hands free.

In my area (Southampton) you have more scans if you are having identical twins.
Mine are boy/girl and my scans were 12, 20, 34 and 36 weeks.
It was great, because we have the extra ones I took my MIL to my last one and she was so chuffed.

Correction - 32 and 36

My twins are 17 months now, best advice I was given was to feed them together to get them in to the same routine. They both have a nap at the same time (I nap at the same time😁) and both sleep 7-7.

I breastfed them until 11 months, when I stopped breastfeeding them magically started sleeping through the night, until then I was up about every 1-2 hours😩

I had loads of scans and a very straightforward pregnancy (as in even though even simple twin pregnancys you get lots of scans if that makes sense)

I had my dts at 37+4, DD weighing 6.15lb and ds weighing 5.5lb. Good weighted considering I had morning sickness until 24 weeks and through most of my pregnancy could only eat cheese sandwiches and drink milk😑

Apologies if none of that makes sense, am dyspraxic.

Thanks for the info scrunchy! I must admit I do feel like I'm panicking a bit about money already, I don't think we can afford all the very expensive prams ect, so I suppose we will just have to see how we get on, I'm sure people have managed in a lot worse situations than us. Did you guys bother with Moses baskets?
I work in ct and MRI at the hospital so have friends in ultra sound I'm hoping I'll be able to use this to my advantage

Theweasleytwins- that makes total sense! Thank you! That's brill that they are sleeping 7-7 now! Bet the night feeds were hard work before though! I'm planning on breastfeeding too so I am deffo going to be making the most of my sleep for the next 6 months 😂. Not too sure what to do with the cot situation either as I don't even know if 2 would fit in our spare room!

We didn't have Moses baskets we decided to do daytime naps in the bouncers as we were buying them anyway.
It is hard deciding what to buy and what not to bother with. We decided to get noise only monitor because cheaper than the video ones etc.

Our local twins group have a Facebook selling page and prams, bouncers, toys, clothes all come up on there. We just bought a second hand play pen from a twin parent from the selling page. Check Gumtree too.

When they are older, I'd highly recommend the Ikea Antilop highchair, £15, bargain!

even though I haven't had the babies yet I also plan on breast feeding and there is a brilliant Facebook page think it's 'breast feeding twins and triplets uk' and they have great advice etc about feeding.

I have twins and they are the best thing ever. It is hard but it is so totally worth it. I have the Phil and Ted Voyager pram which is a front and back one sorry I don't know the official name. I can't count the amount of times that I have thought thank god I don't have a side by side pram because I would never fit through here. You don't need separate carrycots because it zips up and unzips to become either a bassinet or a toddler seat once you have worked it out then it's great because you don't need to waste money on carrycots. It will fold with the seats in place as well. I found mine in a local independent baby shop and they couldn't have been more helpful.

I have seen other mums with side by side doubles having to give up on going into shops because the doorways were too narrow or being unable to walk down certain pavements so I would strongly suggest having a look at both styles and making a decision based on the sort of thing you will need your pram for.

In terms of sleep when mine were tiny they were in a Moses basket each. When they outgrow those I have put them in a cot bed one at each end with their heads in the middle and their feet at the foot of the cot. They do seem to settle each other and have slept through from about 10 weeks old and will go from 9 p.m. till 7 a.m. most nights. moses baskets can be bought cheaply from places like tesco.

You may not need anywhere near as many clothes as you think you will do so I wouldn't worry too much about stocking up before hand. If you end up formula feeding then A Perfect Prep Machine is definitely worth considering because it's been an absolute godsend for me. If you end up bottle feeding then it is still worth looking at getting a twin feeding pillow because when they are too small for bouncy chairs it is great for feeding them both.

Also people will probably recommend baby sleeping bags but when you're buying two of each it gets very expensive. However as long as you follow safe sleeping advice blankets are absolutely fine I have used them with no problems whatsoever and it's a lot cheaper than buying two lots of sleeping bags for a range of togs and ages (mine are 6 months old So i may use them as they get older and move around the cot more.)

Ooo if you are planning on breastfeeding then there is an amazing group on Facebook with very helpful admin, Breastfeeding Twins and Triplets UK

Alittle Facebook selling sites are good for things, I got 3 sleeping bags for £10

Yeah we will definitely be trying to get most things second hand. I think we'll probably get the pushchair new (def can't afford the donkey, and we were fine with DD being in a front facing pushchair after coming out of the carrycot), as we'd hope it would be the only one we'd buy, but apart from that... even car seats, DD's baby seat was passed on to us by a friend. Our baby bjorn bouncer was from eBay and we'll def be getting another of those. I also used to buy baby gro bags on eBay after the initial 0-6m ones, they do get pricey even with one kid. My top tip there is to look in TK maxx- they usually have good bargains for gro bags from the opposite season you are in- so maybe look for winter ones now!

Baby bjorn bouncer is fab but very expensive new, see if you can get them second hand, you can bounce them with hardly any effort. In terms of the pram mine was about £750 for pram, double kit, rain covers and car seat adaptors. You can get sun covers too for about £50 for both together which are so much easier than parasols and have uv protection.

Iso fix is a MUST if your car has isofix points. It's so easy, no messing with seatbelts. I have the mountain buggy protect car seats which are very reasonably priced with the iso fix bases.

I had scans at 12,16,26,28,30,32,34 and they arrived spontaneously at 35 weeks exactly.

Mine were DCDA but I had fortnightly scans even though the recommendations at 4 weekly, I wasn't complaining, was lovely seeing them all the time!

Also agree with the others, Perfect Prep is brilliant if bottlefeeding and if you are bottle feeding don't stock up on one brand until you've tried them. My sister bought us tons of tommee tippee bottles and they never got the hang of them, they used NUK and now Dr Brown.

We didn't use Moses baskets, they just slept on the couch during the day on little mats that I got from Boots. Can't mind the name but it's like a little peanut shape and it keeps them feeling secure.

Thanks for all the great advice ladies, no doubt I will have to keep referring back to this thread when the time comes to start buying things. I hope we get that many scans! We have our 12 week scan next weds and I'm already counting down the days!

I had scans every 4 weeks.