Are you expecting twins? Have you had them already and are wondering what you can do to make life a bit easier? If so, keep reading! My sweet little girls are now just over a year old. The newborn/infant phase is still fresh in my mind, but I’ve had a little time to work out some of the kinks. Now, some of the challenges I face are related to having two other children, but I think my perspective can still be of help.
One thing I do remember feeling when first home from the hospital (okay, maybe for much of the first year), was hearing people give advice and thinking “you have absolutely no idea how little energy I have, do you?!” You think I should go out for walks with all four children, do you? Moving us all from one room to the other felt like I climbed Kilimanjaro wearing nipple clamps, so no, I won’t be doing that.
I get that, I really do. Some of the tips I give below might require a bit of work, or brainpower, on the front end, but will save you tons of energy over all. If you aren’t healed enough to get to some of this, then either give it some time, or send this to someone who loves you and say “can you please help me get some of this done?”
Here’s a list of the topics covered below if one in particular catches your eye:
- Be mindful of the physical toll of growing twins
- Set yourself up to get more sleep
- Don’t let your high expectations keep you from accepting help
- Create systems to minimize work and enable routines
- Have multiple safe play areas for both twins
- Keep things simple
Be mindful of the physical toll of growing twins
One thing I don’t think most people understand is how enormous the physical toll of growing and carrying twins is. Sure, there are women out there who seem like they could grow 12 babies and be out shopping two weeks later looking no worse for the wear, but I think for the majority of us, it takes a while to recover. If the pregnancy and/or delivery of your twins was rough, be extra patient and kind to yourself as you heal.
If you’re in the newborn stage, keep your life as simple as possible so you can spend the time you need to take care of yourself while you take care of your family. Your body likely used a lot of your body’s nutrient stores to grow those babies. If you are breastfeeding, it continues to do so. Feed your body the nutrients it needs, so your body can function well. The stress of little sleep, the emotions of expanding your family, and any physical healing needed, is a lot for your body to handle, and if you want to feel good, nutrition is crucial. Not just getting enough calories, which is also important, but making sure you are getting all of the building blocks your body requires (proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, etc).
Set yourself up to get more sleep
Sleep as much as you can. Easier said than done, I know. One thing I found was that people would pop in, offer to watch the twins for 30 minutes or so for me to have a quick nap, and that just felt so overwhelming to me. At that time, I was pumping every 2-3 hours, and it took 30-40 minutes each time. Both babies weren’t on the same schedule yet and so it felt like every time someone offered to help, it would have made me miss one of the steps in my routine, which would have made things more challenging.
I’d usually say something like “well I would need to pump first and that takes a while so I can’t really nap right now.” What I could have said was “I could really use a nap. Would you mind coming over/staying longer after I pump and I could get a bit of sleep then?” or perhaps having a plan well in advance so that you could prepare for- milk for the babies ready, pumping already done, etc. so that you could actually rest without creating issues for yourself.
Don’t let your high expectations keep you from accepting help
Along the same vein, don’t let your high expectations of yourself keep you from asking for help. This was difficult for me, because I carried a lot of guilt and embarrassment over not handling everything perfectly. I was a mom of brand new twin babies with a four year old and a six year old and I was sad that the house wasn’t spotless and I wasn’t up to cooking much. It sounds ridiculous when I look back, because I shouldn’t have expected that of myself. I know nobody else did either.
However, my feelings were real and they were valid. I mourned my ability to keep up. Being forced to slow down was hard, and I wish I would have just given myself permission to relax even if the laundry piled up. Even if we had pizza for dinner for the third time that week. The stress of your high expectations will prevent you from resting even when the chance arises. It will diminish your ability to savor moments of quiet peace and steal the joy to which you are entitled to during this time. Release yourself from those expectations.
Create systems to minimize work and enable routines
After some time, and that length will be different for each mama, you will start a new routine for the family as a whole. Life does move on, and if you have older children, it moves on quickly. When adding one baby to the family, it’s fairly simple to carry them with you as you go about your day. With twins, it feels easier to get the babies set up in one area, and have the family adjust to be in that space the majority of the time. Depending on the makeup of your family, this can work for a time. If you have older children, they will tire of this quickly, and you’ll probably feel bad about doing the work to constantly move from place to place. Or maybe I’m a lazy bum, but it certainly used to feel like a LOT of time and effort.
Eventually I learned to set up systems to make it easier to move the babies from place to place. Make sure there is a safe place to leave one twin while going back to get the other (or of course have a safe option for carrying both at once). Have duplicate items you may need to care for them in the most frequented areas, or keep them all in one tote bag so you don’t have to round it all up each time. It’s not always feasible (or advisable) to have ten of everything, so at least making it easy to cart around will help immensely. Keep it simple but functional.
Have multiple safe play areas for both twins
Depending on the twins’ ages, and if you have other children, it may be important to have a place where the babies can lay/play safely while you spend time with the older children. Whether it’s homeschooling, playing a game, diffusing a fight between siblings, handling an emergency, etc., there are times when you need to be able to focus more intently on something else. It will be much easier to do if you know that the babies are safe while you do.
In fact, I am currently in need of a new solution for my backyard- as the twins are so mobile now (and no longer afraid to touch the grass), I can’t just park them on a blanket and expect they will stay there. I’d like to be able to push my son on the swing without fear of the babies roaming too far. Playpens, activity jumpers, etc. can be both a source of fun and entertainment for babies, as well as a safe holding place.
Keep things simple
Have I mentioned keeping things simple? One area I was surprised to find caused extra stress was the amount of baby items we accumulated. I will never stop being grateful for the generosity of family and friends when we were expecting our twins. My mother was enormously helpful in rounding up all kinds of gear, and it’s been very useful. We were gifted clothes others’ precious girls had outgrown, and received many gifts. There can be, however, too much of a good thing. Considering that we didn’t go out much, I didn’t really need an entire dresser full of newborn clothes. The overabundance of clothes and crib sheets and receiving blankets made staying organized very difficult and it contributed to stress. Having enough- but not too much- would have been much better, in hindsight.
There are probably ten more things I could list that could help, but for now I’ll stick to these. To sum up, I’ll leave you with this. Don’t expect too much of yourself. Keep things simple, put things in place to save yourself work, and take all of the help you can get.