Bringing home twins when you have a toddler waiting to welcome them to the family can be a juggling act. Here are some tips to make the whole process a bit smoother.
Try as we might to not disrupt an older child’s life when several siblings come home from the hospital, it is likely to happen anyway. Bringing home triplets or twins when you have a toddler waiting to welcome them to the family can be a juggling act.
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My twins turned 8 last week, and coincidently I found this interview I had done for our student midwife about our twins in the special care nursery. It is very raw and unpolished, but I wanted to share it with you as it is.
I wrote this on the 17th October 2011. So the twins were 4 months old at the time.
Eight years on, it has made the memories come flooding back.
31 days. Oliver was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery (NICU) for a few days and Alexis went straight to the Special Care Nursery (SCN).
We were very very lucky. Our twins were mainly in there for fattening up and to learn to feed. While they certainly had their share of hiccups along the way, they didn’t have any really realy serious issues. At the time though, it was all very scary.
While Oliver was the bigger twin, he had more health issues. He was born apnoeic, but was soon revived. He was in NICU for the first few days then was transferred to special care. Oliver was in an isolette for a week with oxygen being pumped into the isolette. He was never ventilated or on CPAP though thankfully. We were told every day when we left to expect that we would find him back in NICU the next morning on CPAP, but this never eventuated.
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Author: Lindy Fien
Well, here we are. My identical triplet girls (Shannen, Kaitlin and Courtney) are finally adults, and I am so proud. Life in our family has been a roller coaster from the day we found out we were expecting triplets.
There were big changes in the year 2000. A bigger car, my boys 10 and 12 yrs had to learn to share a room and my attention. Endless bottles, nappies, clothing, bathing, feeding….it all seemed so overwhelming. So, we formed a production line, an organised routine that got our girls to adulthood with my sanity still intact. Not to say there weren’t times when I questioned my ability to parent, but I realised I’d been given this amazing task and damn it, I was going to get it right.
Author: Tara Tihema
Without a doubt, toilet training twins has been my proudest achievement as a multiple mum. It was made all the more special because I feared and avoided it for so long, but now that it’s over I wish I had dived in earlier and saved a fortune on nappies.
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Night Nannies for twins and triplets sound like an amazing idea!!! And I wish I had known about them when my babies were little.
But what do they actually do? And how can they help your family? Twinfo recently interviewed AnnMarie, the Founder of Night Nannies. AnneMarie is also a twin mum herself!
Great question! An overnight Nanny is someone who holds qualifications in early childhood development or nursing and provides a tailored service specifically for infants. This service provides all aspects of respite, routine guidance, settling techniques and feeding assistance. Postnatal Education and Care sums up our Overnight Nanny service.
Babysitting to us is a basic evening service after 6pm where we come in and the parents go out for a nice relaxing dinner knowing that their older (sleeping children) are being cared for and supervised.
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You can’t miss it. The marketing for Mother’s Day began a month ago – you know, all the “beautiful” flannel pyjamas and fluffy slippers are piled high as you enter the shop. However, if your household is anything like mine, my partner will turn to me a few days before Mother’s Day, with a panicked look in his eye and ask me what I want for Mother’s Day!
And here, Mums, is where we get it wrong. If you say “Oh nothing, let’s just spend the day as a family’, then that’s what is going to happen! Before you know it, you will be left looking after the kids while your partner is out mowing the lawn and doing all the general jobs that need doing on the weekend. And you will go to bed feeling disappointed. So don’t feel bad about being brutally honest. If you want to have a hot bath ON YOUR OWN (with no bath toys in sight!) then tell your family that their job is to clean the bathroom, and remove the bath toys. Your partner can then take the kids out to the park for an hour to let you soak in peace!
If you haven’t thought about having a babymoon when pregnant with twins or triplets – you need to get onto this trend immediately! If you are pregnant with multiples, then you deserve a babymoon more than ever. You won’t get to rest or relax for about 12 years after your babies arrive, so take this opportunity right now.
If you are new to the idea, a babymoon is a last holiday as a couple before your babies are born and the entire universe is turned on its head.
A babymoon may sound like a frivolous concept, and may not be the best way to spend your money right now if you are saving up for all of the babies you are to have. But, trust me, babymoons are awesome, and no one ever regretted having a babymoon.
There are ways you can do this so you can keep the cost down and look after yourself and your babies at the same time. You don’t need to fly to a desert island to get the rest and relaxation and time with your partner that you need – this can be done anywhere.
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Author: Lauren Cartledge
Now that the girls are 3 months old, we have
As flattered as we are that people love seeing the girls, we get stopped whenever we are out multiple times a trip by random people asking about them.
Their top questions or comments:
“Natural or IVF?”
“You have an instant family you don’t need anymore!”
“You are SO lucky I’ve always wanted twins”
“Are you sad one isn’t a boy?”
“
“Do twins run in the family?”
“Did you plan to have 2 at once?” (the best one yet haha)
Don’t get me wrong, we secretly love life as twin parents and the attention they bring (especially from friends and family) but when a total stranger approaches us, lifts up the covered sheet on the pram and sticks their hands in to touch the girls we get really shocked, and usually a polite “Oh please don’t touch them we wouldn’t want to wake them up” follows.
Author: Amber Waugh
My twin story started a little over 4 years ago at my 12 week pregnancy scan. My husband, Chris and I already had a son, Caden, who was about 18 months old at the time. Chris had only ever wanted one child, and with me wanting three we decided to meet in the middle and have one more child to complete our family. Well as fate would have it, I seemed to get my way that day. We were very shocked to hear we had two little beans nestled inside me, each with their own sacs and placentas. We later found out that they were identical, via genetic tested after they were born.
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Author: Jess Hanrahan
Nobody tells you what it’s going to be like, having twins. Probably because not many people know. But even other multi mums will only tell you how amazing and special it is. Because it is. But nobody tells you about the depths of struggle that you are about to experience. And yes, the joy really does override it all. But you best be believing that the hard times are real AF too.
I packed up my girls at 5 weeks old and fled with what little belongings I had the strength to gather up at 5 weeks post emergency C section slash nearly dying slash two weeks spent in hospital. They had no idea that Mummy shouldn’t be driving, or that Mummy was about to become a 30 year old solo twin mum, or that Mummy was, for the first time in her life, genuinely afraid. They also had no idea what a happy, harmonious home life looked like or felt like, so I held that in the fore of my mind while all the other “hards” battled it out for top spot in the back.
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