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Sleep tips for twins, triplets and more

sleep tips for twins

One of our resident sleep experts, Tanya Greene from Sleep Right Sleep Tight shares her sleep tips for twins, triplets or more.

 

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became a baby sleep consultant?

I have been working with children for 15 years now, and personally am a Mum to 4 gorgeous children.  I worked in Childcare before having my own family, and then gained my qualifications to help other sleep deprived families get a great night sleep.  My passion is helping each individual family get through those sleepless nights and bedtime struggles.

I made the decision to help other families through their sleep struggles after having problems with our daughters sleep.  She was 15 months at the time and waking approx. 5 times a night.  Where we were living at the time there was no help, so I turned to an online program.  We had amazing success!  From this, I knew my path was to help families in similar situations as ours.

Why is it important to help your twins or triplets learn to settle on their own?

A baby’s sleep patterns are affected by what is happening throughout their bedtime.  They generally look for whatever is happening at this point to be repeated throughout their night when they wake.  If your twins or triplet are reliant on outside aids, dummy’s, feeds etc. in order to fall asleep, you will find that waking throughout their night, they need these to come back to get themselves back to sleep.  They are what we call sleep associations.
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Stress free toilet training for twins

toilet training twins

Our guest blogger Shannon from Project Revive and Thrive shares her experience with toilet training twins.

 

I’ll be the first to admit, toilet training does not excite me, not one bit.

The only thing I like about toilet training is that I won’t have to pay for nappies anymore. As far as the how and the why go, I didn’t really do any research about toilet training.

I just knew it had to be a stress-free toilet training process. Although to be honest, I was hoping daycare would sort it out for me.

Toilet training does seem to be a high traffic topic on the mummy blogs. You’ll find constant questions like how do I train my 18 months to go to the toilet, how to toilet train boys, the guide to toilet training in a day, the secrets to the 3-day toilet training program etc.

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Attachment parenting twins or multiples – what worked for me

attachment parenting twins

Author: Twinfo

I couldn’t wait to be a mother.  Even though I didn’t realise it was an actual term, I was really looking forward to attachment parenting.   It just seemed the natural thing to do.  To be honest, I didn’t realise there was really any other way to parent.

We had a fairly rough start to parenthood. When couples start thinking about having a baby, infertility never comes to mind. Unfortunately for us, it was a subject that we soon knew a lot more about than we had ever expected. Thankfully, after 8 soul destroying rounds of IVF, and one twin miscarriage along the way, we finally able to announce to the world (OK…….Facebook!) that we were having a baby! I couldn’t wait to have a water birth, delay cord clamping and respond to  the beautiful newborn cry. Plus co-sleep, baby wear and breastfeed my single baby. Oh, hang on….its twins??? Really???? OK, our bedroom will only fit a queen bed, how we will all fit in there? I have three bulging discs so I won’t be able to tandem carry them, and what do I do if they are both crying??? How will I possibly breastfeed two babies at once?? Everyone is telling me I won’t be able to have a natural birth or breastfeed???

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An unexpected twin vaginal birth at 28+3 weeks

Vaginal twin birth

Author:  Rebecca Story

Friday the 16th December 2016, I had my 28 week scan (a few days early) everything was fine. The boys were perfect, healthy and growing nicely as they should be.

That Sunday I started to feel uncomfortable.

I wasn’t worried though just thought I’d done too much around the house and needed to rest. I went to work on Monday and struggled to sit for as long as I normally could. I couldn’t get comfy in the seat. I was moody as hell and told my boss I wouldn’t be in the following day. So Tuesday I went to get a medical certificate from my GP, he wanted to give me 1 for the rest of the week but I said it would be fine as I was due to finish work that Friday. I then went and got my nails done. Walked around trying to find somewhere that sold my foundation and get my clients at work Christmas presents and it was hard. I was in so much pain. I told Shane he would have to go to the supermarket as the thought of walking around there almost bought me to tears.

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An amazing twin natural birth story (with professional birth photography)

twin birth photography

Author:  Skye Wilks

We found out we were having twins at our first ultrasound.

I’m always nervous when I go for an ultrasound due to four previous miscarriages before our daughter, so was already on edge. I had my 2 year old daughter and husband with me.  As soon as the technician put the Doppler on my belly I saw something different, she jumped and said ohhh! And removed the Doppler. So as you can imagine my world for a moment went ice cold and terrifying. She then continued and said there’s two babies. Off in the dark corner I hear my husband go “what”?! And my two year old proudly say “two babies!”.  I covered my mouth with both hands and sat quietly in shock. DCDA Twins which I was told was the safest twin pregnancy so we were already a head of the game. As I had been on clomid we knew there was a chance but never thought “it would happen to us”. We were excited, terrified and questioning if we would be capable of raising two babies and a toddler. 3 under 3, can it be done?

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Two mums and their amazing journey to twin parenthood.

same sex couple have twins

Author: Emma King

In September 2016 my wife Stacey and I welcomed beautiful boy/girl twins into our family and it was the most wonderful day of our lives but was also a long time coming as we know so many other families have experienced. We knew it would be a long and expensive journey being a same sex couple, using donor sperm,  and wanted to share our story to provide hope and encouragement to anyone in the same situation.

2 years and 4 days earlier we started our journey.

We decided Stacey would try first to conceive given we had 2 uteruses on offer. The cheapest and easiest option was to try Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI). We went through all the tests and procedures to get started and then had to make the biggest decision of our lives – choosing a donor, well 3 to be precise – first preference, second preference & third preference. We decided to narrow our decision down by traits that resembled Stacey and I – eye colour, hair colour, skin colour. But what helped us the most were the donor letters – the letters the donors wrote to their donor children or the families that used their donation – we found they really reflected their personalities and that meant a lot to us. And with that we made our first attempt, and second attempt, and third. Each time having to review what donors were available, who would we be happy for our child to share DNA with. None of our attempts were successful.

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Twin Breech Birth Story

Twin breech birth

Author: Alison Craddock

My doctor knew I wanted to birth my twins naturally, even if one was born breech.

On the 6th July 2017 I had an appointment at the Mercy Hospital for woman in Heidelberg, I was 35w 2d pregnant with my boy / girl twins. During my pregnancy I always knew that my son was head down and my daughter was transverse which means she was laying across under my ribs, my Doctor knew I wanted to give birth vaginally so was always upfront with me and informed me of possible birth scenarios, one being my daughter may be born breech.

I woke in the morning to a slight waters rupture so I waited for my appointment in the afternoon to discuss with my Doctor. I was admitted into hospital on the spot and my Doctor was hopeful I would go into natural labour overnight but if not, I would be getting induced in the morning.

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The average weight of twins at birth is 2.5kg. But not these big boys!

Newborn twins family photo

My fraternal boys Lachlan and Luke will be 2 in May and this is their story.

I was divorced with two girls and at 28 years old I had my tubes tied. I had met someone else who had kids also so we agreed that we were “done”. As the years went on and my girls grew more independent that longing for a baby started up again… we bought a puppy! A few more years past and my husband opened his mouth and said “Yeah a baby would be nice.” You said that to the wrong person, Buddy. Haha. My girls were then 9 and 7. I went to a couple of different doctors about having my tubes reversed and they all gave me the same response… do IVF instead.
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Look at them now – fraternal boy twins, born at 26 weeks, are perfectly happy and healthy two year olds

Fraternal twin boys

Author: Tamara Edwards

We are a same sex couple, from Bathurst NSW. My partner Danni and I decided it was time to expand our family. We found a private donor, did all the legal paperwork to make it official. The donor was a friend who was extremely generous to give us this gift. After 2 1/2 years of trying and finding out I had low fertility and was not ovulating our medical team put me on clomid to help. After the first cycle we found out I was pregnant. We went to doctors and we worked out I was 6wks, our GP did a bedside ultrasound to confirm, he saw 1 sac, then there was another one, he wasn’t sure on 2nd one, so we were sent for ultrasound which confirmed fraternal twins. It was a smooth sailing pregnancy, no morning sickness, was feeling great. We went to Orange base hospital for our 20wk scans to confirm sexes and measurements, it was late Wednesday afternoon, we found out baby B was a boy, we were all smiles, baby A was being difficult, this is when it all changed, halfway through ultrasound sonography stopped, made a few phones calls, doctors came in etc. They found that my cervix was 5cm open and baby A was engaged. I was moved to maternity ward, a large team of doctors arrived and we had to make some hard and quick decisions. First thing Thursday morning I was rushed in for emergency surgery to have a rescue stitch put in and to try and save the pregnancy. The surgery went well, ultrasound didn’t show the full extent and I was more open than first thought, and baby A had to be gently pushed back in. Doctors advised we had a 90% chance of losing them both. The next few days were a blur, my partner was by my side the entire time and never left, we found out 2 days after surgery that baby A was also a boy and the surgeon told us he had blond hair lol. I was told I had an incompetent cervix, this is why I had the complications I spent 5 days in hospital flat on my back and was advised strict bed rest. I had to get to 24 weeks for babies to have a chance. I was sent home back to Bathurst and told to keep fingers, toes, legs crossed hahaha and pray. I had weekly appointments at the high risk clinic at Orange base hospital, who had been consulting with the Nepean hospital specialist about my case. Everything was staying stable and I was beating the odds, our boys were strong, healthy, big and growing very well. I was also told I had gestational diabetes, which would also be helping the boys be so big. Baby A was where all the concerns were, baby B was nice and high, laying transverse and was happy cooking away.

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Multiple birth pregnancies – how a birthing specialist can help, regardless of the method of delivery

Multiple birth pregnancies

Wonder Birthing – e-interview with Amelia Parkinson

 

1. Tell us about yourself and why you started Wonder Birth.

I am a mum to beautiful 6 year old boy and giving birth to him changed my life forever. I had an incredibly empowering birth with my son and decided that many women didn’t realise that birth could be like this so, I retrained and started teaching in London and when I moved back to Sydney 2 year ago I set up my own business.  I am really looking forward to being able to help with more multiple birth pregnancies.

Multiple birth pregnancies

2. What sort of training have you completed to get to where you are today?

I have a Bachelor of Health Science in Rehabilitation Counselling and have trained to be a Wise Hippo Birthing Instructor in 2014 in the UK. I’m currently training this year to be a doula.

3. What do you love most about empowering pregnant mothers to find their own way to birth?

I love teaching and being with pregnant women and couples.  It’s such an exciting time in people’s life and I always feel so privileged to be a part of it.

The education program I teach ensures that couples can learn skills and discover their own voice within their birth and birth planning. By building people’s confidence in the birthing process and their bodies builds empowered parents. The philosophy of the program is key and it’s that it actually doesn’t matter what type of birth that the woman has- its how the woman feels about her birth that makes it a positive experience. So many other courses on offer focus on essentially you have to have a “natural birth”- if women don’t achieve that they feel like they failed, and no new mum needs to enter the start of their Motherhood journey feeling like they have failed on the first hurdle.

4. How can you help families who are expecting multiples? What is the process? What can people expect?

I love helping families expecting multiples, in my classes couples learn a whole set of skills and tools to stay calm and relaxed throughout birth. The best thing about my 10 hour course is that all the skills you learn are useful for whatever type of birth you plan or end up having. The skills are adaptable and the education builds resilience for couples to be prepared for birth and any changes to their birth that may happen along the way. I’m now training to be a doula now too so am loving to be supporting during births too.

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