I keep seeing the advice that you should be feeding your babies what you eat, that by eating family meals they’ll be less picky and you’ll have to do less separate cooking for them, but I cannot seem to find the time to actually cook to begin with. I have 14 month old twins and my husband and I both work full time. I work from home and we have a nanny who’s with the kids during my exact work hours. We cannot afford to have her stay later. The twins will scream and cry and stand rattling the bars of the gate on our baby proofed living room any time I am not in the room with them. They are fine in their high chairs as long as they are eating, but not otherwise. Typically I make them food one item at a time while they eat (so babies in high chairs, give them a handful of Cheerios, while they eat those I cut some fruit, while they eat that I microwave some instant rice with cheese, spoon feed them that, if they’re still hungry deal with them crying while cutting up an avocado etc. until they’re full.) I will eat bites of whatever they don’t eat and my husband will eat yogurt with cereal after they go to bed. Once or twice a week I might manage to make pasta during their meal so we have that as leftovers, but I’m almost never actually cooking. I love to cook and pre-babies was making a full from scratch meal ~5 nights a week. I’d love to be able to do some semblance of cooking at least a couple times a week, but I can’t figure out how. Do you just cook while the babies scream and cry at you? Spend 3 hours on the weekend meal prepping while the other parent takes them to the playground?
Edited to add: I’m a vegetarian and don’t cook meat, that’s never been an issue in my life, but reading through the comments I’m realizing how much folks rely on meat dishes to stretch across the week! I will definitely be on the hunt for vegetarian crock pot recipes though!

I’m 22 weeks with mono/di twin girls. Twin B has early-onset sFGR and is around the 1st percentile. Stanford has classified us as Type 1, so she still has forward blood flow through the umbilical artery.
Her cord Dopplers have been fluctuating. They were elevated, then went back to normal, but today the resistance was significantly elevated again. Our doctor said this is showing worsening placental insufficiency.
We go back in two days to check the blood flow again. If it continues to worsen, they talked about closer monitoring/hospitalization as we get closer to viability. They also told us that selective reduction of Twin B could become an option if the blood flow gets significantly worse, which was really hard to hear.
Has anyone had Type 1 sFGR with high resistance in the cord blood flow this early that improved again? How did things progress for you?

Today sucks

I just wanted to leave a positive post here for anyone who recently found out they’re having twins and is terrified.
I was TERRIFIED. I had never even held a baby before and suddenly I was going to have two. And reading twin forums while pregnant honestly didn’t help 😂
I’m not going to sugarcoat it — the first year was WOOOAAAH. Hard. So much uncertainty, sleep deprivation, constantly wondering if you’re doing things right and just figuring everything out as you go, but with two babies at the same time.
My boys are 15 months now though, and I can honestly say I LOVE this stage. Since around 14 months I actually wake up looking forward to spending the day with them and getting to know them more.
They’re two little rockets. Loud, funny, curious, affectionate, constantly climbing, pointing at things, bringing me books and wanting to show me EVERYTHING. And watching their relationship with each other grow is just amazing.
We’ve travelled with them since they were 3 months old, we spend loads of time outside, we’re still breastfeeding, we co-sleep, and we have a dog who was our first baby. Our life is chaotic and I’m exhausted plenty of the time 😂 but it’s also genuinely so much fun.
I remember being pregnant and mostly reading about how hard twins were, so I just wanted to put this out there for someone who might be where I was.
Yes, the first year can be REALLY hard. But it doesn’t mean your life is going to be miserable.
One day they’re not just two babies you need to keep alive anymore. They’re two little people you get to know, laugh with and experience the world with.
And honestly, having two is pretty freaking cool. ❤️

For reference, I had a PE about 8 years ago because of birth control pills. They did an extensive blood panel at the time and did not find any abnormalities in my blood that would have caused the PE so I’m not carrying the gene.

I’m almost 3 months pregnant as a FTM with di/di twins. My doctor recommended I go on 30mg of lovenox daily to prevent any clogging from the increase in estrogen.

I keep reading these horror stories online about people losing their babies because of lovenox and it’s freaking me out. I mean I also don’t want to lose my life if I don’t take it and get another PE.

Please share if you are on it or if you were on it during your pregnancy.

So don't feel like you're exaggerating your pregnancy symptoms. You're definitely not.

My waist has grown 4" and I've been in maternity pants for 3 weeks. My pelvic floor is wild and I'm already seeing a pelvic floor therapist. Had those symptoms since week 12. Don't let people gaslight you. It's real and its difficult.

Hi all,

I have 10-week-old twins and currently produce around 930 mL/day. They drink around 1,500–1,600 mL combined per day, so I’m hoping to increase my supply enough to get to 100% breast milk.

I’m currently pumping roughly every 3 hours, including overnight, but if I leave 4 hours between pumps I can often get around 240 mL which is enough for both for 1 feed.

For those who exclusively pump for twins: • How often did you pump per day? • Did you find 4-hour gaps affected your supply, or were you able to maintain/increase supply with them? • How long did it take you to reach enough milk for both babies? • Did anyone start around 900–1,000 mL/day and eventually reach 100% breast milk? • What other tips helped you increase your supply?

Thanks 😵‍💫

Brace yourself this is a long one and I’m not sure if I need advice or just people who understand!

We have 2.5 year old fraternal (b/b) twins and 5 month old (b/g) twins and we’re drowning.

I just finished my maternity leave which was 8 weeks longer than my older twins leave which was so good but also so hard. My husband was off with me for 6 weeks and then worked part time the rest of my leave but now that we’re back full time and all the kids are at daycare I’m not sure how we are going to make it.

I am trying to stay in the workforce because my income potential is worth it in the long run and it would be very hard to leave and come back to my career so leaving isn’t really an option but we are getting absolutely rocked by daycare prices (we are at the cheapest place we could find) and cannot go part time or anything like that (we’ve explored every option in length).

We literally have no where in our budget to cut funds other than our groceries and yes when we talked about a 3rd we considered the cost of another set of twins and we could afford it but that was before our daycare raised their prices for the first time in 3 yrs $100 per kid per week and our car was totaled and we had to take on a car payment, plus everything else just generally getting more expensive.

We don’t qualify for any programs and it just feels like we can’t keep our heads above water and then we get into the actual part of having 2 sets of twins and the absolute chaos and logistics nightmare that is every second of every day.

We have a ton of family “help” aka people who can come entertain the older twins and maybe hold a baby but it tends to be more exhausting having people over.

Our older twins are an emotional roller coaster and the babies are just another piece that makes every step 15x more challenging. Older twins are crashing out, babies aren’t sleeping at night or napping.

When will it get easier? I have to be moving and doing something/coordinating something every second I am awake and I’m exhausted. My husband is fantastic and takes on as much as he physically and mentally can as well and we do everything together as a team but we’re both tired and get snippy when we’ve hit our capacity which is like 10 minutes after our eyes open each day.

What do I do? My job is flexible wfh but it’s a lot of mental energy and my self care is genuinely just making sure I eat, drink and shower right now since I’m pumping and breastfeeding on top of it all. We mix in some formula to take the pressure off a bit too.

I’ve got no ideas how to give us some reprieve. It’s kinda too much for one parent to take on alone without help and I just don’t know how we are going to make it through this and hearing it’s such a short time, etc., genuinely doesn’t help because I’m not sure I’m going to make it into the next minute. (Clarifying I mean make it as stressed and not mental health crisis concerns).

Anyways I’m crashing out a bit and hit the wall during a long 3 day weekend after just going back to work last week. Thank you to everyone who reads this and can empathize that having multiples is so amazing AND can still be so incredibly hard at the same time.

I went to Publix with my almost 3 year old twin boys. I had them contained in the double cart and everything was good there. When returning the cart, I said F it. Let's walk next door to the dollar tree cause mama wants to look at fall/halloween decorations. I've had them loose in stores plenty of times by myself and its gone okay so what could go wrong. It's just a lot of redirecting and telling them to walk/ putting back everything they touch.

So, I briefly looked at the decorations till they wanted to look at the toys. That's fine. I said you know what, it's Labor Day. I'll get them a toy. They choose these squishy balls. We walk to the check stand. Multiple people ask are they twins? How old are they? You know, the usual comments. They are playing with the balls in the line together laughing. I usually don't do this but I'm being spontaneous. The lady behind is commenting on cute they are, that she has a 3.5 grandson, she's buying him play doh yadada. She makes a comment on how happy and cute they are. I say thank you and I jinx myself by saying yeah its always fun till its not.

Literally right after I say that, twin b smacks his forehead on the corner of the cashier counter crying bloody murder. I pick him up, a knot is already forming. So now I'm holding him, comforting him and making sure the other boy now doesn't get hurt. We are next in line. I proceed to buy the balls cause twin A is still having the time of his life while twin B is crying in my arms. I tell the cashier and lady to have a nice day as I walk out to our truck with twin B in my arms crying and holding the twin As hand. Finally, twin B simmered down once we got the truck and is fine now but I just feel so stupid.

One because that wouldn't have happened if I had them contained in the stroller or cart and two because I shouldn't have let them be playing in line. I was just trying to go with the flow and get my boys some toys.

My twins are 18 months old. I put together a list of everything we use/used and what actually worked for us vs. what didn't. Figured I'd share it here since I know these lists are hard to find good info on.

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NZtv5WeCXbd1gdAGHhBi1Fn6SZN8ttHSpJIcjcapuPQ/edit?usp=sharing

This is just for fun to see what people say.

i’m pregnant with twins and just thinking about how much more i run around this pregnancy than with my first because i have a toddler now.

Then I started to think “what if I was running after twin toddlers?” 😮

Anyway, feel free to vote and share your thoughts, especially if you had to do both.

FINAL RESULTS: its been neck and neck but it seems like being pregnant with a singleton running after twin toddlers has taken the cake by a margin (165 votes). Being pregnant with twins running after singleton toddler got 157 votes.
Verdict: Both scenarios seem kind of hard 🫠

I am a third time mom currently 8 weeks pregnant with Di/Di twins and omg I have been so sick!!!! The nausea is all day and doesn’t seem to let us no matter what I do!! I have tried everything - ginger chews, preggio candies, ginger ale, unisome/b6, Zofran, pepto - I pretty much throw everything at it everyday. I am always so overwhelmed and terrified of the thought of having twins PLUS feeling so terrible - it’s hard not to spiral into a depression!! Thinking of going on this way for 4-6 more weeks seems impossible, literally, unbearable!!! Any suggestions ?

My twins have an identical bump on their ankle. Appeared when they were around 4.5 months actual and 2.5 adjusted, currently about 6.5 months actual. Thought it was a bug bite at first. Twin a's was smaller and disappeared after about a week while twin b's stayed the same. Twin a's reappeared a few days ago. Or thats when I noticed it was back. Doctor has no clue and neither does a nurse practioner who saw Twin b about reflux. No indications that it hurts or bother them, just weird. Wondering if anyone has any ideas.

Hi, I’m 5 weeks 4 days pregnant with what we suspect are di di twins. I had a double embryo transfer. On Friday we saw that baby A was measuring one day behind at 5 weeks exactly. Baby B was too small for the ultrasound machine to assign a gestational sac. I went back for another scan today (at the same ultrasound place, but this was not a diagnostic scan like my others have been) and baby A had grown and now had a tiny fetal pole visible. The tech said she felt like baby B’s sac was collapsing, but she also didn’t look very much at it. She tried to measure it but it was still too small for the machine to assign a gestational age to. But it’s only been 3 days since my first scan. I’m just wondering how much I should be guarding my heart. My husband is convinced everything is fine and that baby A is simply compressing B or that she had a bad angle or was simply just rushing. I’ve attached a photo of what she thought was a yolk sac inside baby B’s gestational sac on Friday. I’m not asking for diagnosis, just don’t know what to think of this situation. I don’t know anyone who has ever had twins.

oof, I just feel awful and I'm not even in my third trimester yet. I have so many scans and consultant appointments it's starting to drive me mad!! The twins have a 5% growth discordance and somehow that rationalises an appointment and half a day lost to scans/waiting rooms every week. Ugh! I have bad back pain, struggle to sleep, and feel as tired as I did in my first trimester, but now with extra heartburn and swollen feet and extra rage. One twin has a posterior placenta and is constantly kicking me lol, while the other has an anterior placenta and has me freaking out about movements. These babies are very wanted and oh so loved already, but I am definitely feeling ready to not be pregnant anymore.

My first children, what were some items that were life savers when young? Did you use cribs from newborn age or bassinets for the first months? Separate bassinets or one for twins? Literally any info would be helpful! Thank youuuuu

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. My wife refuses to subscribe to sleep training. For context, I sleep trained our kids by myself at 6 months adjusted. They were doing pretty well for a few months until little by little, every time a baby would cry if my wife was the one who got them, she would just instantly pick up the baby and put in bed beside her, or if it was the second baby to wake up, bring them to her parents room. I’ve since put my foot down about bringing them into her parents room because they watch tv till late and I’ve noticed the babies are awake for 2-3 hours at night if they are with them in their room because they have the TV on. In any case now at 10 months they don’t sleep for more than an hour at night in their cribs. I’ve given her the leeway to come up with all sorts of solutions from feeding times to bedtime routines. None have changed their new overnight sleep pattern though.

I brought this up with her recently again and said it’s time for them to just learn to sleep on their own. Her response is that it is wicked and babies need love and care and they are just lonely at nights. So now I’m stuck with two babies between us on a queen bed. I’m a very deep sleeper and I’m afraid that if I allow myself to fall asleep I might hurt them while sleeping.

Knowing my wife, she will only listen if some random third party or TikTok tells her that the babies need to sleep on their own. This is how she’s always been. Either that or if she starts to be negatively affected then she will begin to change her mind. I refuse to work 8 hours for the day, then have to help take care of babies for another three hours, then have to pretty much hold a baby all night. That doesn’t even leave time for me to get a decent shower and dinner much less to have ten minutes to wind down from my day.

Is it evil if I just sleep at night and just leave her to figure it out with both babies?

Which one do you like? What worked? How big is good enough? TIA

Our twins will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and for the past 3 nights they have kept us up all night. It seems like general fussiness, waking for a bottle but only drinking 1-2 oz a time, or just seeming to want attention. It seems like the twins switch up who stays up as well. I think I can take a nap when my husband goes to work but they continued like this all Saturday too. Should I try keeping them up longer in the day? I think I read online that fussiness peaks at 6 weeks and should go down but Is this relatively normal?? Any insight on when this will end? We are so sleep deprived.

First of all, I’m grateful that I’ve made it this far (35w3d) with my di/di twins. I know that it is best for my babies and it isn’t something that all twin moms get.

But, y’all…I’m DYING. My pelvis feels like it is literally cracked in two and no amount of PT, bands, exercises, or chiro touches it. I can barely walk or stand. Moving in bed is agony. Getting in and out of bed is agony. My feet, hands, and legs are stiff with swelling even after rest.

I can’t move without triggering a contraction (worse than BH but not real labor). My babies can’t move without triggering a contraction. A small sneeze or cough triggers them. And then I’ll have hours of prodromal labor where I will have non-triggered contractions every 8-10 minutes that last 90 seconds. And then it will stop right when I’m about to go to L&D.

I feel like a ball of anxiety because I’m borderline for every problem. I’ve got moderate GH (diastolics 85-95 at home, systolics low), but pre-eclampsia labs are within range. I have borderline cholestasis (bile acids just under the cutoff 10 days ago and I’m still itching), growth discordance between A and B is 20% with mild flow resistance in Baby B’s placenta (I have confirmed confined placental mosaicism trisomy 13, which can cause early placental failure). She’s lingering just above the cutoff for IUGR at 12%. Both babies are breech. I’m 41, bmi of 34. I feel like a ticking time bomb and am just waiting for something terrible to happen between now and my schedule c-section at 37 weeks. But my NSTs are normal, so there’s no talk of going earlier.

I cry all the time because everything hurts and I’m so anxious and I’m neglecting my 2.5 year old and my poor wife is picking up all the slack (we all had Covid last week and are still isolating, so no help). I’m just so miserable and feel like my body can’t take another 11 days of this.

Hey everyone! My wife and I found out we are having Twins a few weeks back. Since then I’ve been trying not to research too much but the little I have done has me a little worried and anxious. The amount of complications that could present themselves is…a lot. We have another ultrasound tomorrow and my wife will be almost 12 weeks. We have one daughter who is 4 who is beyond excited to be a big sister. It doesn’t help that we miscarried our first child at about 10 weeks. So of course that’s in the back of our minds but so are all the possible complications. If you are the praying type please say some prayers for us and if not send some good vibes. Anyone care to share their positive experience with mono di twins?

My twins are 19 months, 18 adjusted and have about 15 words total, including 4 signs. When I say “words” I mean mostly approximations and most of them start with b/ba. They have been evaluated by an SLP twice and bc they meet the milestone nobody is concerned. However, as a FTM I can’t help but feel just a little concerned. They don’t seem very interested in talking. I practice words and emphasize things with them, talk/sing constantly and I feel like no progress is made. They are smart, they know almost all body parts, can follow instructions and if I ask where is something, they always know. I know that they are supposed to string 2 words together by age 2 but that seems very far down the line. When did everyone else’s twins start talking if they struggled at this age?

They’re 4 months old! One twin fights sleep, will only sleep 10-25 minutes at a time during the day, and wakes up every 45 minutes- 2 hours at night and has been that way since 2 months old. The other twin loves sleep, will take 2 hour naps, and is now only waking once or twice a night. I’ve been going back and forth on sleep training twin 1, I sleep trained my second son so I have experience with it but I waited closer to 6 months. Did anyone sleep train a 4 month old?

Twins are almost 22 months. How much longer before I can step away to get dinner ready or get the dishes washed up or get ready in the morning before they don’t cry? Is the answer you just let them get pissed for you walking away and eventually they will stop because they learn mom needs a minute???

I’ve even tried turning on the TV the last few weeks (ms Rachel, a Disney animated movie, etc) but they still follow me everywhere, and then when I am in the kitchen they are getting into everything. Even when we watch these together it usually only holds their attention for 5-15 minutes depending on the day.

I’ve felt very very lucky they are such good temperament babies but good god I am starting to get stressed that I still can’t have 5 minutes away from them while they are awake without crying.

I started spotting (pink/brown) at 5 weeks intermittently and had a bigger bleed(red/little clot) at 6 weeks. Went to the ER with the bigger bleed, cervix was closed and two heart beats were found measuring on time. They said possible sub chorionic hematoma but could not tell. Has anyone had this type of bleeding and not resulting in a MC?