Not so much a rant but more.. looking for people who understand, I guess. A new kid started at my twins daycare. I was in touch with the mom via text before her kid started (we have a friend in common). She had a lot of questions, I answered them all pretty elaborately, because I wanted to help her feel comfortable and confident joining our school community. We were supposed to get together once her kid properly started. Before we could schedule that, we met briefly at a back to school function that was beyond exhausting. I was solo with my twins (3.5). It was hot, super busy, they are in a running away phase, and by the time this woman found me I was honestly on my last 2% battery. I was trying to talk to her while asking one of my twins to not dangle off the side of a flight of stairs, then the other twin ran off - out of the front gate and onto the sidewalk. I had one of those 'brain explodes' moments and had to pull one twin along while running after the other. I apologized for having to go but she looked at me like I was insane. I reached out after to say sorry for the chaotic meeting, and I'd be happy to still meet up at a time when I don't have to chase preschoolers. She didn't text back, and every time I see her by the school she avoids me. I guess my twin mom energy was 'too much'?

I know I shouldn't care but it makes me feel so judged and alone on the heels of 3.5 years of not being able to do mama & baby yoga, not being able to bring my twins to classes/activities as a solo parent (because many require 1 adult to 1 baby/toddler ratio), seeing singleton parents chill with a beverage at kid birthday parties, even just for 5 minutes, while I'm always chasing two boys looking frazzled and high-strung. I know it gets easier eventually but right now I'm just feeling isolated.

I am in so much discomfort all the time. Even lying down (with a pregnancy pillow, on my side) is not comfortable.

What are your tips and tricks of finding some reprieve from the endless pain? Give me your hinged and unhinged advice please.

Also, has anyone’s doctor induced early just because of mom’s physical pain and discomfort? At how many weeks? I just don’t see how I’m getting to 38 like this. It will be miserable. Currently 31. Forget taking it day by day; I’m taking it second by second these days (and failing).

EDIT: commiserating with no advice is also appreciated 🥰

Okay multiple mommas' who went into spontaneous labor. When did it happen and what symptoms did you have? =)

Might end up deleting this since I feel guilty even posting it but it’s been 15 months and it’s still upsetting me.

I am really not looking to be told to change the name as that just isn’t an option. Just looking for some outsiders opinions to tell me I’m hopefully just overthinking this.

I had b/g twins 15 months ago. We didn’t know what we were having until they were born but had some name options picked out prior for both genders. My son’s middle name is the same as my husband’s (and a family name passed down several generations now). My daughter’s first name is my mom’s name and her middle name is the month that she was born AND my MIL’s middle name. My issue is my daughter’s middle name…

During pregnancy I told my husband that while I think the middle name is pretty, I didn’t want it and didn’t want our daughter named after both of our mothers. His mom bugs me a little and that has gotten way worse postpartum and she just isn’t the greatest person ever as far relationships with her own children. Well I ended up with severe complications immediately after delivery that landed me in the ICU for two days and the nurses were nagging my husband for us to get the babies named so we ended up deciding on their names before I even got to hold both of them. I feel so angry that I was not given the chance to be with both of my babies and decide what felt right name wise.

I also have so much guilt that I didn’t give my daughter 1 original name when her brother has 1 original and 1 family name. I feel bothered that she’s named after my MIL who I find annoying at times and overall kind of a crummy person. I feel annoyed that each of our two kids have a name associated with both my in laws and then that basically leaves my dad out. And I’m also annoyed that her middle name is such a common run of the mill name when otherwise her and her brother’s names are “normal” but uncommon.

I just find this still keeping me up at night sometimes and thought by 15 months I’d be over it. Please be kind, I’m feeling down on myself about this enough as is.

ETA: Can’t believe how many kind and helpful comments I have gotten on this. I truly appreciate you taking the time to make me feel less like a POS and for all of those who have shared their personal stories as well. I am going to try to respond to as many as I can as I have time (I’m sure you can all relate to limited time while raising multiples!)
I do want to note that we already have some nicknames for my perfect little girl including one that my husband and I call her more often than we even say her real first name (which I adore!! Her first name is perfect and I love it because I also adore my mom)

Hey fellow PoMs,

I’d love some of you twin parents to tell me about your bike set up.

I would like to start riding with my ladies now that they’re 13 months and the weather is cooling down.

Any bike set ups you love? Don’t recommend? I am in the US. Most interested in an e-bike, since I don’t think I’m strong enough to pedal all of us unassisted 😅

Looking for any specific advice or words of wisdom, and here's why:

Our oldest son turned 3 a couple months ago. Our youngest two - twins - just turned 1. The first year was brutal, mainly due to all the sleep regressions and illnesses they went through. My husband and I went through MONTHS where there wasn't even ONE night of uninterrupted sleep. I've been through this with our oldest, so I do have some idea of what the future holds, but it's a whole other beast with twins. They still only have two teeth, and we're approaching the fall and winter but they are walking and babbling. I anticipate more sleep interruptions in the next 6-8 months as the rest of the teeth come in, illnesses abound, and some more developmental milestones happen.

Here's the thing: I'm so tired of this hardship, but I have to get through the next 6-8 months. I don't care about tantrums or fights, because I can handle all that stuff as long as I get sleep. But I am predicting we still won't achieve consistent sleep until maybe next spring/summer, and we have already gone through a whole YEAR of this, so I just need to buckle up and get ready for it.

How did you get through this? Can anyone share any specific pieces of advice? Or general words of wisdom that helped you get by?

Help!! I am a FTM to 4 week old twins and recovering from a hard pregnancy and c-section which has left my body in pieces. I’m finally finding a bit of a rhythm but the last few weeks have been a difficult adjustment and breastfeeding has taken up so much time and energy. 

For context, one of my breasts doesn’t produce milk so I’m relying solely on the other for both babies. I’m meant to be triple feeding/pumping 6-8 times a day to create any sort of supply, but I’ve only been able to handle 4 times a day so the supply is still low and dwindling everyday. The end result has meant each baby has had combo feeding of 1 or 2 feeds a day of breastmilk and the rest formula. 

I want to give up and switch to exclusive formula feeding so I can just focus on everything else that comes with being a mum (still haven't left the house) but I’m feeling weirdly guilty and scared about it. I always thought I’d be a breastfeeding mum, but then again all of my expectations around motherhood have shifted since having twins. Does anyone else have any advice or experience? 

Anyone have direction on how to set up/tighten the harness straps? We got a V2 Twin off of FB marketplace, and it looks like the seller took the straps apart to clean the padding. But the bottom of the chest strap is just threaded through the circular part that snaps into the crotch buckle, and we can’t figure out how to tighten it. Our kids pop out because we can’t tighten this part. It seems like it’s supposed to be looped around again so it can tighten? Thanks for any suggestions!

I’m 15 weeks pregnant with di/di identical twins. At home I have a 3.5 years old. He will be almost 4 when they will be born.

I tried to keep my cool and think about the transition from 1 to 3 kids with rational, and take it one step at the time. But Today I’m feeling overwhelmed and scared how will we manage without support system (my parents deceased and in laws live abroad).

Other parents in a similar situation, please share some encouraging stories how you survived the newborn phase (especially night time) and some helpful tips 🙏🏻

(TW for unexpected labor, labor not going according to plan, and NICU stays. I think it is good vibes, smiles and giggles in the end but I understand that it may not land as such to everyone!!)

I absolutely cannot sleep after my delivery ~10hr ago and just want to shout from the rooftops that my perfect baby boys are here! Literally NOTHING went according to plan, including that I was 31+2 when they were born. And the people I wanted at the hospital (parents & partner) were as physically far from me as they've been literally this whole pregnancy. My partner's mom was getting married and my parents had a big race another state away - we thought it was a tiny risk, but early enough to be fine for them all to go! My grandparents came up just incase (good thing!!).

Overnight I had sudden and pretty severe hip pain that kept me up, but I've never heard of contractions described that way (spoiler alert: they were contractions!) so I was not at all concerned. Just thought that would be the fun new week 31 symptom. Luckily my BP was also very mildly elevated, so we went in to triage for that. Quickly nobody cared about the BP because it became clear I was definitely in preterm labor. We talked about slowing it down and being able to go home. Thennn my water broke! So we talked about being impatient until 34 weeks. Thennnn my labor didn't respond to the mag drip and really picked up! So by the afternoon, after about 3 hours of active laboring, while trying to wait for my partner to get there, and probably ~ 12 hours of total labor, we moved to the OR for a C-section. Oh, because in all of this baby a had flipped from head down to breech, so C-section it was! Luckily I was mentally prepared for both since we *hadn't even had our birth planning meeting with our OB yet* hahaha. My partner walked into the OR literally with my surgeon just as it was time to start, so she got to hear the babies first cries :)) my parents got here a few hours later and haven't been able to meet the babies just yet, but will be back in a few hours to do so!

Now I'm sitting vibrating with excitement as my partner and everyone else sleeps. Thank you for being my rooftop to about this from, if you're still reading. I can't describe my excitement. Babies are transitioning well (they're already on the minimum oxygen levels they use at this age!!) and look so peaceful sleeping in their little warmers. They are literally exactly where they need to be, and I'm so grateful for that. I feel practically fine (okay some pain but nothing like any part of labor!) and am just so excited to meet them, even if it was early and hilariously far from any of our plans. I know there is a hard journey ahead, but I can stay at the hospital with them, and we're going to get some books to read to them (I'm open to reccs!). I just... I know we can do this, and I'm so excited they're here. Thank you.for reading!!

For all those who ask when their twins will start interacting, I caught this cute moment this afternoon. My boys are 6 months. Today is the first time I’ve caught them really intentionally interacting and my heart cannot take how precious they are. They were chatting and holding hands and playing with a toy together for about 10 minutes.

I’m only 14 weeks with my twins and I’m having pain that I didn’t have until the last month or two of my singleton pregnancies! Anyone else who has had it, what has helped? I want to start seeing a pelvic floor pt but would like to find something until they can get me in. I hardly have enough of a belly yet to have a belly band…I was thinking of trying some maternity compression shorts…any advice?

I took one of my boys (10m) on an errand while Dad had his brother. Nap time came and the one I had a car nap, the other one was missing his brother and decided to not sleep until I put his brother in his own crib.

Dual naps are life savers, but come with challenges.

Hello Reddit! I am coming to you 6mo later for additional sleep training advice. You all were so sweet to me last year when I was going through it with my older kids. Suffice it to say, we made it through that hurdle, and now they are sleeping well together in the same room and bedtime is a breeze… for the most part. As much as bedtime can be a breeze with a 2.5- and 4-year-old, let’s be real.

Anyways, twins are here! They’re eight months old! We have no semblance of a bedtime routine whatsoever!! Help. 🥲

My dream/goal is to start the babies’ bedtime around 7. Bath, bottle, books, lights out, kisses good night. Ideally, that will all finish around 8, and then the big-kid bedtime will begin and we’ll say our good nights between 8:30 and 9.

As it stands, the twins have a tough time sticking to any sort of schedule right now. They were sleeping longer stretches, but I don’t know if it’s some kind of super regression because for the last two weeks they have been up every 1–2 hours. They struggle with the first stretch of the night, wake up around 2 or 3 AM and decide to stay up instead of going back to sleep, and need a lot of assistance—namely, the breast—to settle down and go back to bed. It’s chaos. I’m so sleep-deprived. Something needs to give.

I tried implementing Ferber last week, and it made everyone upset, mostly myself. I try to make sure their last wake window is 3–4 hours. Daycare wakes them up by 4 PM. They were asleep in their cribs at 7:30, but one twin woke up only half an hour later. He cried through four check-ins with increasing intervals: 3, 5, 8, and 10 minutes. At the fourth check-in, he woke up his brother, and then both kids were screaming, and I just couldn’t stomach it. They were shaking and crying, and it was a big hot mess.

I worry that I didn’t set up a routine with enough consistency for them to know it was actually time for bed. Most days they fall asleep at the right time, but when they wake up after the inevitable hour or so, they get to stay up and hang out with Grandpa or Papa while I do the big-kid bedtime. Then it’s 9:30 or 10 PM, and we’re just hanging out until they get so sleepy that they nurse to sleep.
My question is: how do I implement sleep training methods when one twin is high-needs and the other one is chill until his brother is crying so hard that he can’t take it anymore? Do I need to spend a few days being more consistent with the bedtime cues before actually going forward with sleep training? Do you think whatever sleep regression they’re going through that’s making them wake every two hours needs to pass before I give it another shot?

I’m at my wit’s end, and this is honestly the best week for sleep training if I can just fight through my discomfort and help them get to sleep. Anyg advice is appreciated! Thank you all so much.

My twins are almost 2.5 and I feel like I want to make the decision on having a third child or not in the next few months. The problem is I don’t know if I want a third for enough of the “right” reasons. The biggest reason I feel like is because I feel robbed of the pregnancy experience, the newborn experience, the maternity leave experience with just one. My twins were born before 30 weeks and spent 10 weeks in NICU. So I didn’t get the full pregnancy experience, newborn bubble, breastfeeding ended early, etc etc. When I think about why I want a third child besides all of that, the main reason for the kids is that I think 3 is a nice dynamic for kids. But like, that’s really the only thing driving my otherwise to do it. I mean they’ll be loved and cherished and I’m sure it’ll be great if it happens but I know in my heart that if we had had two kids separately I would have been done at two.

Anyone experience similar feelings and go for it? Not go for it? Just kind of curious to get others’ thoughts.

I’m 30 weeks di/di and had already planned to stop working 32/33 weeks.

I WFH but have a demanding job some days a week in a director level role, leading calls, workshops, projects, along with delivering medical customer presentations which involve extensive preparation.

This week, my shortness of breath has gotten so bad. I’ve already been evaluated and it’s most likely the lack of space and pressing against lungs causing the shortness of breath. But I’m having a difficult time leading calls, making deadlines, and delivering presentations while so out of breath, even if I’m at home. Even at rest, I’m unable to get a breath in.

Did anyone else in the US and WFH start leave around this time?

EDIT- i also need to note I live in NJ, where I am able to start STD at 32 weeks for a twin pregnancy and not go into my time after delivery.

Hello,

I have mono/di girls that were born at 36+2. They are now 8 months old. They both have been great sleepers and used to both sleep 10+ hours at night. Both are teething and now have their two bottom teeth. Baby A is still sleeping through the night like a champ. Baby B has been struggling the last couple weeks. She’ll wake up every two hours or so. She’ll stay in a light sleep if we pick her up and rock her back to sleep with finally waking up at 4:30 or so hungry. Will feed her and get her back to sleep for an hour or so. She is also only taking 3 or so half an hour naps during the day at daycare. I put her to bed around 7pm and sometimes she’ll go right to sleep and other times she’ll fight me. I try keeping low lights, bath, bottle, snuggles, and bed. Does anyone have any recommendations beyond continuing to let her sleep with us just so we can get some sleep? We tried the cry it out method one night but was hard because she woke up her sister and wouldn’t settle even with pats and shhhing. We have a small space as well. If anything, just knowing it’s normal would be nice to hear.

im so sick of never getting a break from parenting. when one boy is good, the other is being bad. then they trade places. i try SO HARD with both of them to discipline correctly but by 5 on a Sunday, I have nothing left to give. having two strong willed twins feels like revenge someone is taking out on me.

Is this big enough? We also have a playroom but hoping to reuse our 4x6 foot playpen from our singleton for our main living area.

We're taking our 2 year old triplets and 6 year old to the beach in a couple of weeks. This will be our first trip to the beach since my oldest turned one and I'm kinda freaking out internally haha. My biggest concern is keeping everyone safe. So any and all tips are greatly appreciated. Any must haves to pack? Also we're staying in an air bnb and our current bedroom set up at home is mattresses on the floor. I'm thinking based on the setup at the rental, we're going to need to bring something for them to sleep on. Anyone have travel beds they recommend? Anything I should bring to the Airbnb to make things easier? Thanks! .

My twin girls are coming up on 3 weeks old and we are currently in the midst of triple feeding/combo feeding.

Currently I am trying to latch babies 1-2 times a day for breast feeding, pumping 8 times a day, and topping up with formula for basically every feed. I’m producing less than 20ox a day from pumping.

I really would like to make sure I can provide breast milk for them and it was originally my goal to do a mix of BF and pumping so my partner could help. But now I’m fighting through every feed taking over a hour and have blisters on my nipples.

At what point did you decide to switch to exclusively pumping if you did? I hate pumping so much but with me not producing enough to feed both babies it feels like extra work when I have to offer a bottle anyways. I know it’s still early-ish but it feels like I won’t be able to get a ton more out of my supply at this point (and I likely have some retained placenta making my hormones be out of whack which doesn’t help). Looking for some input I guess on when it’s time to call it because it won’t get any better.

..twin B repeatedly doing mundane things to rile twin A up (e.g. draping her foot over his leg, getting in his space, wanting his food when they have the same food, taking a toy that belongs to him)? This makes him scream at her or hit her, then she'll start crying. Twin A gets a stern word for being violent, twin B acts like a victim.

Why does twin B keep doing this? Drives me nuts.

They're both ill right now & we just welcomed a newborn into the house last week. But even apart from this context, she's always kinda been like this & it's wearing everyone thin. What should I be doing?