Our twins are 12. My advice for when they get mobile is know what they are up to all the time. You are dealing with two brains feeding off one another and some off the **** two toddler minds come up with is mind boggling.
Having Twins - General Advice
- Thread starter rpcyclone2013
- Start date
totally agree - baby bathtub, swing, sit me up seat, jumper, toys - FB is full of that stuff. And makes you feel better if the baby hates it.
In the end, you'll know your babies best and what you are comfortable with. You may decide you're fine with CIO or you may decide you're not. You may want to move them to their own room at two months or eight months.
I do recommend registering multiple places (even if you don't publicize it!) Babylist is a good one often overlooked. The big thing is many, like Babylist and Target send a no-strings attached welcome box that includes pacifiers, bottles, swaddles - guessing you'll be bottle feeding at some point and those welcome boxes are a nice way to get to try ones you may not have bought otherwise.
Lucie's List is a great resource on picking items and has a whole section on twins.
https://www.lucieslist.com/twins/
Have a set of four-year-old twin boys. Best of luck, get as much sleep as you can and short term memory loss for the first year or so is normal...to me at least!
What kind of stroller do you use? Front/back that the car seats could click/snap into.
What kind of bassinet did you buy? One regular bassinet; ours preferred the swinging chair things.
How long did they sleep in your room (if at all)? Never in our room; we had a two camera baby monitor.
Did you purchase 1 or 2 cribs? 2 cribs
What kind of pack and play did you buy? 2 of the standard ones I believe.
Should I buy a minivan? Don't go down that road; don't be a minivan guy!
It's a lot of work and even more so for the wife. Be supportive, be ready for the numerous stupid questions when you take them in public and be prepared to exist on less than four hours of sleep (in total, not all at once) for the first year or so!
What kind of stroller do you use? Front/back that the car seats could click/snap into.
What kind of bassinet did you buy? One regular bassinet; ours preferred the swinging chair things.
How long did they sleep in your room (if at all)? Never in our room; we had a two camera baby monitor.
Did you purchase 1 or 2 cribs? 2 cribs
What kind of pack and play did you buy? 2 of the standard ones I believe.
Should I buy a minivan? Don't go down that road; don't be a minivan guy!
It's a lot of work and even more so for the wife. Be supportive, be ready for the numerous stupid questions when you take them in public and be prepared to exist on less than four hours of sleep (in total, not all at once) for the first year or so!
Thanks for the advice. Have a colleague who has twins (one boy and one girl) and she said she gets asked all the time if they are identical.
Target tip - if you don't have RedCard, get it now. You'll get two registry completion coupons to use. One in store, one online. Have the baby shower(s) early enough to be able to return anything and do an in-store visit to get anything you know you need. Target let's anything get that completion discount so when you get close to due date time - go and get everything. Paper towels, shampoo, floss, toothpaste, garbage bags, post partum supplies - anything you don't want to think about buying for a few months and are cool getting 20% off on.
Then, after the babies are born and you see how things like nursing and sleeping are going........use that online completion offer to stock up on anything you need more of or want to get once babies are home.
And when the kids grow up, the sliding doors prevent door dinging other vehicles in parking lots.
Also, I'm going to take a shot and guess you are legally eligible for FMLA. Take as much time as you can. You are able to use that time during the first 12 months - so you could do something like 7 weeks to start and then take two more if /when your wife goes back to work to ease transition to daycare.
But take as much of that 12 weeks as possible. It will pay dividends in your relationship with your wife and give you lots of time to learn how your babies operate - so it doesn't just become mom who knows how to soothe/swaddle/feed.
But take as much of that 12 weeks as possible. It will pay dividends in your relationship with your wife and give you lots of time to learn how your babies operate - so it doesn't just become mom who knows how to soothe/swaddle/feed.
I am a twin too, and my parents did the same thing. I am glad they did.
They also gave us very different sounding names... would not recommend naming your twins Tom and Tim, Bill and Will, etc.
Unfortunately my wife is starting her job next Monday so she won't qualify for FMLA. We're working on the details of what that means in terms of time off, but will definitely try and take as much time off as possible.
if it's not too late - she may want to try to negotiate some leave (paid or unpaid) into her offer.
Fantastic news, congrats!
My twins are 7 now and I would say the best advice right out of the gate is to remember they are different people. Mine are virtually identical looking but completely different in every other aspect.
Recommend 2 cribs
Never used a bassinet.
Our kids had MSPI so swings and bounce chairs were life savers for us and our sanity.
We had a standard pack in play which we used all the time.
Do your best to keep them on the same schedule with food and sleep or you won’t sleep.
I had a mini van and liked it tbh, kinda miss it now sometimes
Rather than have the kids sleep with us, we would sometimes sleep in the recliner we had in their room.
Don’t be afraid to ask family for help, especially if you have colicky babies like we did.
Best of luck!
Don't be dissing Minivans. I'm a single guy and own two of them. Granted, one is the tailgating / people mover van and the other has no rear seats and I use it like a truck. That generation of minivans from Chrysler will run forever if you take care of them and avoid the rust.
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Better make sure the look into daycare availability. Seriously. We lucked out with my son and managed to get into a good one here with him. Pretty much as soon as we announced to people that we were pregnant with my daughter, we got her signed up for daycare.
Don't fall for the gimmicky baby products. No, baby does not need a butt wipe warmer. No, baby does not give a rat's rear end about a custom-embroidered diaper bag. Pretty much everything they wear (and you wear) and touch will soon be covered with some sort of baby-created fluid.
And avoid things like the Dock-a-tot. They're apparently trendy, but co-sleeping with an infant in your bed is a terrible idea.
Don't fall for the gimmicky baby products. No, baby does not need a butt wipe warmer. No, baby does not give a rat's rear end about a custom-embroidered diaper bag. Pretty much everything they wear (and you wear) and touch will soon be covered with some sort of baby-created fluid.
And avoid things like the Dock-a-tot. They're apparently trendy, but co-sleeping with an infant in your bed is a terrible idea.
We put our deposit down at the daycare so we're covered there. Thankfully the place had availability. Definitely not co-sleeping. They'll be in our room for the first couple of months so don't need them in bed when I toss and turn all the time.
We were always asked if they were conceived naturally, if twins ran in our family, or assisted methods. We were always polite but never understood why people wanted to know. I always thought that would be like me asking parents of a single kid if the pregnancy was via doggie or missionary.
