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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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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Guest post for KidSpot

Author:  Twinfo

It’s Christmas.  Again.  I am not sure why I am so surprised, seeming as it happens on the same day every year.  It just seems to come around faster every year!

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas.  Not many of our family live in the same city as us, so we usually travel to them.  I don’t mind, as it means that we can just sit and relax, and not try to do the endless jobs around the house that the extended time of work would usually lend itself to.  Plus there are often relatives who are happy to entertain your multiples, giving you an opportunity for a break for an hour or two.

Children make Christmas so much more fun.  And having twins, triplets, quads or more makes Christmas multiply more fun!  Christmas is a great time to relax and spend some time with your multiples.

Twinfo have put together some tips to help you survive the festive season with your multiples.

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Author: Twinfo

Many families worry when they take their babies home from the Special Care Nursery (SCN). SCN is for sick and preterm babies.  A lot of multiple birth babies do not need to ever go to SCN.  Some may have to go just for a few hours for monitoring; others may have an extended stay in there.  If your multiples are in there as a result of being preterm, then you can usually expect to be able to take them home around the same time as their projected due date.  While there is great relief in finally taking your babies home, it is also the start of a different set of challenges.  It is perfectly normal to have conflicting emotions.  Remember, the hospital won’t release them until they are confident that the babies will be fine at home with you.  Hopefully this also means your babies will no longer require any medical equipment, such as oxygen or feeding tubes at home.  The hospital will have been “preparing you”, maybe without you even being aware of it, by getting you to do as much of the babies’ cares as possible.  However, in saying that, it can be very overwhelming.  Do not feel ashamed to reach out for some help, be it from family or friends or from professionals.

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