If you’re looking for more factual information, tips, tricks and rants about the silly things people insist on asking a MoM while purchasing tampons in the supermarket, go to the drop down list of categories on the right sidebar and click on the one that says ’twassvice’. Voila! Assvice about twins. I am positively chock full of it.
Otherwise entitled ‘So, you’re having twins?’.
For anybody on the internet who happens to actually get a relevant google hit to this site. Firstly, hello! You make a nice distraction from all the po.rn hits about arses, really you do. Don’t go away, please?
Let me begin again.
Welcome to the club.
I had my (non-identical) IVF twin girls at the end of July, I have no mother or mother in law to help, so I’m outnumbered by infants almost all the time.
My husband is often away or working funny hours. It’s Not That Bad. I’ll probably do it again in a year or two.
I’ve yet to carve LS’s eyeballs out with a blunt spoon in frustration at ever ejaculating into a cup (although I have fantasised about it) , OR go doolally with sleep deprivation OR forget to change my underwear for three days running (although I must admit to two days on a couple of notable occasions).
If there’s anything I haven’t mentioned or you want to know more proper medical stuff, I’m so happy to help. Just drop me an email.
Tips for surviving twins (In my not-so-expert three months and counting opinion):
1. Stock up on nappies.
Yeah, I know. Like, duh, right?
I mean it. You will use a terrifying amount. You will see more poop than a proctologist at a bad day at the office. You will probably be piddled on more times than the owner of an over-excitable pupply at home-time. You will use a lot of nappies to keep those conventionally polite barriers we all like to maintain between excreta and your carpets.
Seriously. If you see the brand of local choice on sale, for godssake get them. It doesn’t matter if they’re size big-ass. Eventually your spawn will fit them.
2. The prematurity thing.
Roughly 50% of twins will make term. The other half will be premature, but not by all that much and a minority will be less than 32 weeks.
You have a good chance of having term babies but should be aware that it is also not uncommon for them to come a bit early. In other words, don’t leave it until your fiftieth trimester to get the nursery ready. It sucks to go shopping for everything you forgot postpartum only to have strangers gleefully rub your newly-emptied jelly belly and ask when you’re due.
Note that ‘Last week, asshat!’ does tend to kill further conversational attempts.
I’ll simply say that most commonly your twins will be nearly term or term (average is 36 weeks) and if they have any difficulty, it is likely to be with feeding only. They may spend a bit of time in the nursery as ‘growers and feeders’ like mine did, or you may be able to take them straight home.
In either case, Let The Games Begin.
3. Feeding.
If you end up bottle feeding, please don’t do what I did and slay yourself with guilt. It is totally okay to put them on bottles if only because you’re so very very VERY tired and you’re worried that that ringing in your ears and blurring in your vision is likely to turn into a fully fledged psychotic break from reality. Fatigue like that is a perfectly adequate reason whatever the Boob Nazis say.
Not to scare you, but the reality is pretty brutal with twins, it’s not very common to be able to keep up with the boob juice alone unless you’re lucky enough to have a high supply. If you do, that’s great.
If you have to supplement with formula then you just go right from one feed to the next with breastfeed, breastfeed, bottle, bottle, pump, store, mix feeds aaaaaand start again.
It isn’t sustainable for very long. I managed two weeks.
BUT
My supply was also absolute shite partly because my pregnancy was pretty awful, I have pcos, and because my twins were just premature enough to have poor endurance/sucks so they were never at the breast- I had to try and build my primary milk supply on the pump and it just never happened.
But to cut the doom and gloom tone, I do know of a twin mum who did have a high enough supply not to need to supplement, so out of a field of the two of us that’s a 50% success rate.
However, the stats are that many people end up bottle feeding before their babies’s age reaches the double digit in weeks. Don’t feel like you’ve failed. Don’t. And if you succeed, you’re lucky.
As for types of bottles, I at first went out and brought the expensive brands. My advice now would be don’t bother as the babies won’t know the difference. Label consciousness doesn’t start until at least thirteen. I have cheap-ass generic bottles and teats and they’re fine. In fact, the fancy peristaltic nipples were too hard for my babies and I had to toss them out.
Even if you do breastfeed, you will pump and need some bottles. It’s better to be spoiled for choice than not have enough. Start with at least twelve and if you end up bottle feeding get at least another twelve. Wide neck unless your aim is superb on no sleep and fifty coffees. The narrow neck are an utter bastard to tip the feed into without spilling everywhere.
That way you have about two days supply and all you have to do is chuck them in the dishwasher and run it every second day.
Unless you love your sink in ways I do not, this is MUCH better than washing the bloody things by hand.
Trust me when I say you will have better things to do with your time than wash bottles.
Before you use them, just pull them out of the dishwasher and sterilise them if fancy takes you in that regard. I have a microwave steriliser that takes five-six bottles at a time, so all I do now is run them in the microwave for five minutes before I make feeds and bingo, done!
No dishpan hands involved.
I wouldn’t bother sterilising them at all, except that I make feeds in advance and store them and milk is a pretty decent culture medium, i.e. bugs like to grow in it.
On that note, if you use formula make your entire day’s worth of feeds at one time. ‘They’ (i.e. the clever people who write on the sides of tins) do say ideally to make feeds just before you use them, but it’s much quicker to make a dozen bottles at once than it is to piddle about before each feed. Especially when you’re tired.
They keep in the fridge just fine for a day or so.
I make them by dumping the right amount of formula in all the bottles and then I fill with boiling hot water, put the lids on and shake to mix. I’ve only burned myself once. Moral of the story is to check the lid is on before shaking, and not by road-test.
Yes, I know that this is not how they advise you to do it on the tin but if you do it the way they say on the tin with cooled-boiled water, you’ll getlumps and have to stir each bottle. It’s a pain in the arse.
As for the volume at each feed- your babies will take roughly 150 mls per kilogram of body weight per day over six feeds at first (but less in the first few days after birth in more like eight feeds- it’s normal for babies to lose a bit of weight after they’re born). So a three kg baby will take 150 x 3 = 450mls total, i.e. roughly 75 mls a feed, which helps guide how much to make.
Obviously if they drain their bottles, they need more and if they’re always leaving some you don’t need to make so much. After they hit around three months of age they tend to take less than this as their growth slows down naturally at that point.
My twins were in special care for a couple of weeks after they were born and although it was cryingly miserable to leave them in the hospital and go home alone, there was a huge silver lining.
Routine. Blessed routine.
I would otherwise not have known it was possible, but you can quite easily put them on a four hourly feeding routine. At the same time! Mine came home eating every four hours around the clock (i.e. 6am 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm, 2am) – which meant that I got some quality sleep, especially if LS took the 6am feed before he went to work.
To be really honest I used to sob at the 2am feed because it would take 45 minutes per baby and they’d puke and they were too difficult to feed to tandem feed at first, but at least I got to sleep until nearly 10am when I got back to bed at 3 to 3.30. Priceless.
As for when to expect to be able to drop the ungodly much hated 2am night-time feed, well, when you find you have to keep waking them for it give it a burl.
It will take a few days for them to work it out, but once they do, they’ll just take a bit more at the other feeds.
Then you only have to make ten bottles a day (excitement not sarcasm, believe me).
You’ll also find that sooner or later you’ll be able to feed then both at once rather than sequentially- it really helps if you have two good rockers/seaty things to put them in. By five-six weeks I could even prop the bottles on a rolled up towel and they could feed themselves. It now takes about 20 minutes to feed the both of them and I don’t have to do much. Thanks be.
I don’t get vomited on nearly as often either.
4. Clothes
Accept gifts of clothing early and often.
Although preemie sizes are great, they also only fit for a few weeks.
I ended up just letting mine swim in their clothes until they got bigger with just a couple of tiny suits for public consumption for Those Who Might Judge.
Stuff with zips or separate tops/bottoms is the best. I initially got a load of one pieces with press studs. Those studs are so flipping annoying when nothing will line up, or you do it most of the way and then realise you skipped one, and the baby wiggles and you’re tired. I ended up putting my darling spawn back to bed on many occasions with their suits completely unbuttoned because I just couldn’t get it right, I wanted to cry and my hands wouldn’t work properly without more sleep.
5. Sleeping
Yes, you will be pretty tired to start with. Even though when they’re newborn, they’ll pretty much just sleep and eat. They’ll get 20 hours sleep a day and you’ll probably have four. Don’t ask me why, it just seems to pan out that way ‘sleep when the baby does’ notwithstanding.
Mine slept best swaddled. I say use every advantage you’ve got while you can. They’re starting to bust out now, so I’m working on naptimes without the swaddle but still do it at night because Sleep Is Precious.
Now they’re a few months old, we have a dedicated morning nap and an afternoon nap- both great times to get stuff (like blogging about how tired you are and not, say, sleeping) done, incidentally.
People (well my my child health nurse) advise the sleep-eat-play sequence, but it’s no big deal if you do sleep-play eat, my twins don’t seem to have a complex about it, and they spit up much less that way. I care about that because I do the washing chez MII.
We put ours in two cots, but I reckon it really doesn’t matter how you go about it. A bassinette (or two!) could be considered a waste of hard earned because you don’t use them for very long, but if you want the babies in your bedroom they’re probably good for that since they’re smaller. Unless you have a palatial bedroom, of course.
5. Stroller, car seats et al.
I got a side by side. One of the cheaper, lighter (although still pretty heavy), narrower twin strollers on the market. It fits through a standard doorway- not all of them do and this is a make or break point.
Strollers are like your taste in sexual partners or underwear, i.e very personal and specific for intangible reasons. Roadtest as many as takes your fancy before taking them home to meet Mum and Dad.
As for car seats, check your legroom, the anchor points in your car and the width of the seat bases before you buy. Yeah, I know, kind of obvious but it bears saying.
We have a SUV type car and something like that is handy because the room is useful. Otherwise we’d have to take the wheels off the pusher all the time to fit it in. Not Cool In Pissing Rain. Especially if you ever misplace one when you get to your destination. I shudder thinking about that.
As for the ‘et al.?’ Shops may try to suck you into buying bottle warmers, room temperature gizmos etc. Resist. They’re strictly optional. The microwave is fine for warming feeds, just swish before serving. If you feel warm, well it’s warm and conversely if you feel cold, it’s cold. No room thermometer required. Unless you want to get the gizmos, of course, then go for it. There’s plenty on the market to keep you very very poor.
6. Answers to common questions.
I get asked all the time: ‘are they twins’, ‘boy and girl, right?’, ‘are they identical’, ‘were they natural’, ‘was your delivery natural?’, ‘Ooooh you must have your hands full!’, ’do twins run in your family’ etc etc.
It all sounds pretty innocuous but it does get really grating.
Quickly.
Most of the time I now get the urge to say rude things to the rude questions. People also stare, and I’ve even had total strangers flip up the pram covers to verify that I have two babies in there (who were peacefully sleeping before you stuck your smelly face in, by the way Cigarette Lady In Supermarket).
I’m a bit of a shy sort, so it makes me feel like a travelling freak show.
I guess I’m saying come up with answers you’re comfortable with. I don’t tell strangers my twins were IVF because I don’t think it’s their business.
7. Help.
My two were born by semi-elective c-section.
Because I’d been on couch arrest for sixteen weeks, my house was an utter brothel by the time I got home from hospital. I spent several days heavy duty cleaning. At five days postpartum.
Whilst I had an easy recovery, I probably wouldn’t reccommend it as a good time to clean your stairwell.
I guess what I’m saying is that I knocked back all the non-specific offers of help because I thought people might interpret it as not coping when what I should have said was ‘Awesome, I need this-and-this done’. If people offer, have a list of tasks ready for them to do and let them do it. Have no pride about the help thing.
I live off a written day to day diary. It’s a godsend. Otherwise I’d have no idea what month we’re in, let alone that the phone is about to be disconnected because I forgot to pay the bill.
8. Shopping.
Try to leave the babies with someone and go grocery shopping without them. It’s just too hard unless you’re only getting a couple of things. You’ll feel like you just conquered Everest without oxygen if you get out with merely your skin and a loaf of bread shopping avec spawn.
9. The pregnancy.
Yes, you will get fairly humorously large in all probability.
It does get hard to walk, wipe your bits on the loo and certain grooming habits below your equator will go out the window. Okay, so you may think now that you’ll be different, but believe me I normally Keep Things Well Pruned and my Lady Garden ended up needing a very VERY thorough weeding by the time I could actually reach it again.
Don’t believe me yet?
I’ll give you some helpful stats on size.
I was term size at 28 weeks. My final fundal height (measurement of the size of the bump that you’ll have at your obstetric visits, term is normally 37 to 40 cm) was 50cm. My waist was 1.3metres/52 inches (it’s now back to 65cm/26 inches) .
I gained over 30 kilograms (sixty plus pounds). I ate for my nation. I was ravenous all the time. Yes, my bed was full of the detrius of nocturnal meals I didn’t even recall having.
I’m normally fairly small and I was terrified I would never go back, but I did. I was in my pre-pregnancy clothes (albeit with a collection of stretchmarks, but such is life) by six weeks postpartum. You WILL see your feet again, promise.
That’s my guts (more here stopping at about 34 weeks) in many cases stretch marks and all- you can see things returned to more-or-less normal.
You’ll get a lot of ultrasounds, which I used to love. Although believe it or not after a while you do tend to stop cooing at the little faces and toes. You just see them so much that it all gets a bit ’Oooh fingers…lemme seeee. Yep, still ten. Good to know’.
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Anyway, if you’re still at least reading this then either you’re very patient, don’t have much else on, or presumably it must actually somewhat apply to you. Therefore to my remaining few companions may I wish you good luck, best of British, a stiff upper lip and a well-stocked drinks cabinet.
The last item is critical.
In final disclaimer, this merry correspondence is only based on my experience. Don’t ever forget that opinions are like the proverbial bum-holes as in everybody will have one, they’re often a bit different looking, and even if technique varies the net output can be surprisingly difficult to distinguish.
Take what sounds helpful and run with those bits. Ignore the rest.
Much love,
Geohde
