Category: Babies and Toddlers

Looking after twins can take up most of the day. With changing nappies, feeding and settling your babies to sleep, plus all of the washing of baby bits and bobs, we estimate it can take up to 19 hours a day.

Looking after twins: How many hours a day does it really take?

The quick answer is – all of them! This sounds like the start of a bad joke, or a very scary story. But seriously, if you are facing the birth of twins or multiples you might really want to know how much time it can take up.

You can probably imagine that it does take many hours of the day and night to look after even one newborn, let alone two (or more). You need to consider fitting in the following tasks:

• Caring for your babies directly
• Caring for any other children you may have
• All of the indirect ways you care for your babies and family such as food preparation, bottle washing, and laundry
• Caring for any other children you may have
• Looking after your own basic needs
• Looking after your pets
• Spending time with your partner
• Looking after your house
• Any time for fun or friends

Your priorities will probably be in that order, and you will only get down to spending time on yourself and with your partner when everything else is done first (which many days it won’t be).

But how much time does this all actually take?

And how can you manage your time better to magically find a little more of it up your sleeve?

Author: Paige Bell-Male

I started expressing for my twins less than six hours after they were born.

Both were in the NICU at the time and neither were really up to nursing (although they could both suck feed). While I reduced output at work I didn’t take a break there and was back working two days after they were born while still in the hospital.

To hire or buy a breast pump for twins?

I purchased the Spectra S2 shortly before hospital discharge. It ended up arriving on the day I was discharged (with Twin A who was readmitted the next day) but I didn’t know that at the time. So I’d organized to hire a pump for a fortnight so I had time for my pump to arrive.

Author: Jade

Congratulations they said
You’re now a mum
Little did they know
What I’d actually become...
 
Crippled with feelings
Eating me up inside
Not wanting to leave the house
In the bedroom I would hide
 
I’d do my face
Cake on lipstick so red
Little did they know I felt safer in bed
 
A mask to hide behind
From what I did not know
Trying to be everything to everyone
a super mum, go go go
 
You look beautiful they said
You’ve recovered so well
I’m so scared of dying I wanted to tell 

Yes the baby is great
She growing for sure
But my chest is heavy
And breathing’s a chore
 
Frightened of leaving
I’d picture my death
Each day each movement
Scared it’d be my last breath
 
Things were hard
This had never been so true
Desperate for help
But didn’t know what to do
 
Hardly eating or drinking
Not a thought for myself
Not realising my lack of appetite
Was my deteriorating mental health
 
I felt so stupid and so dumb
I couldn’t concentrate
Unable to connect my thoughts to my tongue
 
The old me was there
A picture hanging on the wall
I’ll find her someday
 And dance once again without a care
 
So lonely so raw I needed some help
Not cooking not cleaning
I needed so much more
 
You’re not a bad mum
You’re not to blame
This parenting gig It’s one hell of a game
 
You’re not alone
Once you speak up you’ll see
These feelings I had It wasn’t just me
 
Postnatal anxiety
Is this you too
Speak up and shout it loud
There’s help waiting for you .....

Author:  Danielle McGregor

We went into our scan, like many multi parents, holding our breath, just hoping and praying for a heartbeat! As the doppler grazed my stomach, it was clear that there were two sacs and, in fact, two babies. I cried and cried (happy tears – two strong heart beats!) and my husband simply didn’t speak!

As we got into the car his head immediately went to logistics – we would have to move, what car would we get, how could we afford to live on one wage with three children … However, my mind went to one place – Spencer.   I was worried about introducing a toddler to newborn twins after ha had had my full attention his whole life.

Mother guilt when pregnant with baby number two…….and three!

At that stage our first born was 2 years and 8 months old. He was going to go from being the only child, to a brother of twins! The mum guilt hit hard! I wondered how on earth was I going to spread my love evenly between three children? How could I prepare my baby boy for an upheaval on his life? How would Spencer understand that he would no longer receive 1:1 attention?

Author: Anke

Fingerprints have been used as a means of identification for over 100 years as they are permanent and unique structures.

When are fingerprints formed?

Between the 10^th and 24^th week of gestation in the womb, the skin on the underside of the foetus’ hands, fingers, feet and toes develops and goes through rapid growth. The growth causes a huge amount of pressure and strains on the skin, causing it to buckle into folds. These folds reach all the way to the inner layer of the skin, i.e. the dermis, where it becomes anchored in place. The skin forms a complex friction ridge pattern and is the foundation of our permanent fingerprint.

What role does genetics play in determining fingerprints in identical twins and more?

The friction ridge pattern is determined by both genetic and unique physical conditions.

Genetics generally decide the timing and the position of the skin as it grows and buckles, which is why you end up with potentially similar looking fingerprints to your siblings and your parents. The similarities primarily occur on what they call 1^st level friction ridge detail; the overall flow of the ridges.

You can have loops, arches and whorls as overall ridge flow. A loop shows the ridges entering on one side of the finger, looping around and then exiting on the same side of the finger. An arch has a ridge flow that enters on one side of the finger, goes up, and then down as it exits the other side of the finger, like a wave. A whorl formation looks like a circle or sometimes an ‘S’ shape.

What role do environmental factors play in determining fingerprints in identical twins and more?

When you start looking a lot closer at the fingerprint, you start noticing 2^nd level detail such as a ridge ending or a bifurcation (where the ridge splits). These little details are called minutiae and when you compare your fingers to someone else’s, you will find that the patterns formed by these minutiae are different, no matter how similar the 1^st level detail looks. 

This is because innumerable environmental factors are thought to influence the formation of fingerprints, such as blood pressure, hormone levels, the exact position of the foetus in the womb and the complexity and density of amniotic fluid. A huge number of variables decide how each ridge is formed. The complexity of the conditions within the womb prevents fingerprints from developing exactly the same way in any two foetuses.

Study:  A Computational Discriminability Analysis on Twin Fingerprints

Sharing similar genetic traits makes the investigation of twins an important study in forensics and biometrics.

In 2009, a study was done where fingerprints from both fraternal and identical twins were compared to test whether fingerprints from twins were more similar to each other than to those of the public.

298 pairs of twins were studied, and the results showed that 1^st level detail between twins were highly correlated in ridge flow and pattern (62.78% for both fraternal and identical) compared to the public (32%).

Minutiae characteristics (2^nd level detail) were similar between twins, however there was still a significant discriminable difference between twins and non-related persons despite having similar pattern types and ridge flow.

(Liu, Y. & Srihari, S.N. (2009) A Computational Discriminability Analysis on Twin Fingerprints. IWCF 2009 pp. 43-54)

Images of fingerprints in identical twins and more

The images of (a) and (b) are the index fingers of identical twins, while image (c) is the index finger of an unrelated person. You can see that the twins have very similar looking fingerprints and have more points of similarity between each other than compared to that of an unrelated person with similar fingerprints.

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Author: Jodi Collins

My two, his two, our two.  Between us, my husband and I have six kids.  Thank God, only the twins are in car seats.  But still…  that’s A LOT of bums on seats!   

So, shopping for our plus-size family car was a sobering exercise in ‘if you find a shoe (or in my case, a car) that actually fits, just bloody take it!’

What I wanted was…  a car with enough room for the eight of us, four school bags, a double pram and a shopping bag or two.  USB ports and lots of cup holders. Oh, and, anything BUT a Kia Carnival. 

Author:  Emilie Upson

Twins born at 28 weeks

Our journey with health issues for the twins started straight away. They were born at 28 weeks and weren’t breathing so were resuscitated, I didn’t get to see either twin until hours later.

NICU journey for twins born at 28 weeks

During their 12.5 week NICU stay we dealt with quite a number of things, blood transfusions, jaundice, feed intolerance, infections, CMV diagnosis for both twins, sepsis, a surgery for torsion of testes on twin 1 and laser eye surgery on both eyes to repair twin 2’s ROP.

However, the most prominent was the frequent, and never ending, apnoeas and bradycardic episodes which meant they stayed on oxygen.  They started with the ventilator, then CPAP for quite some time, then onto high-flo and finally we were onto lo-flo and I thought we were fine. But at 36 weeks they were both diagnosed as having Chronic Lung Disease and I was told they would probably come home on oxygen. 

Note from Twinfo: Please see HERE for a list of common NICU terms.