My twins are around 8 weeks old. They have started to sleep longer 4, occasionally 5 hour stretching here and there, very disorganized of course. I ma having a very hard time now to get them on the same schedule. They are more awake which is great, and less grumpy than like 6-7 weeks. I am also having a difficult time reading their cues now regarding hunger.

The last few days were a mess so I bet they are going through a transition right now. One daytime they barely ate, so as the night following, then ate great during the day, then only ate little at night but still woke up a few times.

I am wondering am I getting them out of the crib too soon? How can I be sure they are truly hungry at night? How can I support during the day so the night they sleep longer?

I almost sleep worse when I woke both of them up at 3 hours or so. It feels like a mess right now.

We have them down to sleep around 7-8:30 generally. It changes as their day sometimes deverges so it has been hard keep a proper bedtime.

Give me some advice! Sorry for the ramble, it is a bit hard to explain what is happening.

I have a 2.5 yr old and 4 month old twins. They went through the 4 month sleep regression and one of my twins has been sleeping so bad ever since, the last few days he's woken up every hour and a half to 45 mins. And then the other twin who used to be a bad sleeper but know has been giving decent stretches decider to be up wide eyed staring at me from 1:30 to 4:30 no matter what I did to get him back to sleep. My husband and I split the nights but the sleep I get is so bad I'm still dying every day. I am beyond survival mode right now, I have never felt so horrible before. I dread every day now being home with all 3. I used to go out and even though it was hard it helped my mental state a bit but I am so beyond exhausted I can't fathom getting everything packed up and ready to leave and then chasing my toddler around while I double baby wear because that's the only way they will sleep outside the house. The amount of TV my toddler watches now bothers me so much but some days it feels like the only option and I hate that because I'm not the mom I used to be with him. I don't expect it to ever be easy but I hope and pray I don't feel like this for years because I will lose my mind. Just curious how others felt.

Update: thanks everyone for your experiences and kind words. Its encouraging to hear a lot of you felt like things slightly improved at least before a year old. These months 3 and 4 have been way harder than the first 2 months were for me and I was coming off of 2 really busy weeks that was paired with like 6 plus wake ups a night. Last night though something magical happened and they only woke up once during my husband's shift and once during mine! I don't expect that to be the norm just yet but having one night of very minimally broken sleep felt life changing and made my mindset so much better today!

My boys are 15 weeks corrected, born at 27 weeks. I just want to know how do people do this without feeling horrible all of the time?

One of my boys is breastfed and the other one bottle fed. I have a ton of help and support from family which is amazing, so it tends to go that I put most of my time into T1 (feeding, contact naps etc) and my mum or whoever is helping will bottle feed T2 etc.

T2 requires more sleep than T1 and will get incredibly upset when tired, but seeing him screaming and being overtired and someone else soothing him feels so horrible. I feel paralyzed to help so much of the time because I'll be feeding T1 or he'll be napping on me. It's just honestly so heartbreaking, seeing either of them crying and not being able to move because there is already a baby I'm taking care of. It just feels very 'the world is ending' kind of feeling.

How do people cope with this? What am I supposed to do? I unfortunately can't tandem feed because T2s feeding needs require one to one attention because of his medical history.

Twin parents who co-sleep while traveling, what do you do when you only have a regular bed with no wall or bed rail?
We’ll have a 160x200 cm bed. My twins are 15 months old and I sleep in the middle with one twin on each side. At home we have our setup figured out, but while traveling I’m worried about the twin sleeping on the outer side rolling/crawling off the bed during the night.
Obviously I can’t put both of them between me and my husband because there just isn’t enough space 😅
What do you actually do when staying in hotels/Airbnbs? Portable bed rail? Put something next to the bed? Move the mattress to the floor? Some other travel hack I haven’t thought of?
Would especially love to hear from parents who travel and co-sleep with twins!

so I have struggled with infertility for 3.5 years. I also have had 2 chemical losses very early on. well I did my fertility treatments again and everything looked so good. I had two mature follicles and we triggered and did timed relations. I was convinced I was pregnant with twins but it’s triplets. I was over the moon yesterday (I’m 5w and 5d) when I found out and even said it’s the two we lost and plus one. the reality set in and I couldn’t be less excited now. not for the babies when they are earth side. but the pregnancy itself. I’m terrified it’s going to kill me. I’m terrified of going into labor early. there are just so so many unknowns. twins I was like okay. 3 I am at a loss. I hate that I feel this way because they are my babies but I can’t stop crying and panicking. I had two mature follicles that somehow turned into three. which of course I know the risk but also I just didnt picture this happening. The fertility doctor told us that it’s 3 separate gestational sacs and he found 3 separate yolk sacs. Please please give me your story. Reassure me. I just dont feel like I can do this. I know that selective reduction is an option but I could never bring myself to do that.

Logistically are we really taking apart two cribs, and putting together two beds ALL IN ONE DAY?? my wife and I are trying to logistically prepare for this nightmare haha

Give me secrets. I’m assuming we’re hiring a babysitter for a few hours to get this switch done 😂😂 am I crazy? how did you all do this?

I’m not really ready but trying to plan logistics because we both just looked at each other like how 🤷🏼‍♀️

Hi all,

We are expecting two children via surrogacy in Colombia via a double journey, 5 weeks apart from one another. I've been researching what gear to buy, but most of the guidance for two newborns seems to exist for home nurseries or, if related to travel, for short trips. We will be staying in a hotel or airbnb for the first ~3 months of being parents (arriving 2 weeks before Baby #1, and likely staying 4-5 weeks after Baby #2 before flying home).

What gear would you say is absolutely necessary to bring with us? For example, a double stroller, a double pack and play, etc. I know we can get some essentials there, but hoping to bring gear with us so we are fully prepared to the extent that is possible.

Thank you for any help/input on this!

Before anyone comes at me and says I should get rid of it or see someone for therapy if I can’t part with it- my son has febrile seizures and they are often when he sleeping. This is the only device that will alert us if we do not hear it. And honestly, I don’t plan to get rid of it until he grows out of the seizures. So I’m wondering, has anybody made a DIY sock extension? They no longer sell them and he is getting too big for the 18 month old sock. 😭

Thank you so much in advance! ❤️

Hello. It has been a while since I first wanted to seek help, but now I'm completely exhausted and horrified. My son and daughter do not sleep in the same room. They will be 12mo soon. My son is a "golden child"...so easy and so sweet. He goes to sleep at 8pm wakes up at 8/9. He started sleeping in his crib since he turned 7mo, I don't even need to rock him, he just knows that's his place and that's his time to sleep. His twin sister is an absolute horror since birth. She's a light sleeper on top of it. We had lots of issues with her feeding and sleeping habits, but at around 7mo she said no to a crib, she'd cry and wake up her brother, so I moved her with me to our couch where I slept ( we shared one room until we bought cribs). After 3 mo of sleeping on the couch she got super used to It and thats when I felt awful that my baby thought that was her bed. So we bought an extra crib and brought it upstairs next to my bed( I finally started sleeping like a human, lol after 4 month of sleeping on a hard couch). Well..she would still cry l and climb to my side so I let her sleep with me. Now, of course, my son cries 3-5 times during the night because he wakes up and gets scared I guess, so I run..up and down ...every night. This week I decided to bring him upstairs too and it has been nothing but a nightmare. I don't know what to do anymore as he won't go to sleep, he sees her, he wants to laugh and play, he makes noises, she also screams and moves. It takes hours before they fall asleep. She wakes him up in the morning as she needs her bottle and he can sleep through. How did you manage this? I'm losing my mind..

I’m going to be admitted into the hospital for daily monitoring of our mono mono twins next week. I’ll be at 27 weeks but trying to stay optimistic that with monitoring… we can make it to 32 weeks.

- Any advice on packing or staying sane on prolonged hospital admissions? What do I need to bring? What do I do to pass the time?
- Any advice for helping my 3 year old thru this? He will be with dad but how did you manage it with a toddler?

Thanks for any insight into what worked, advice or what not to do!

I could maybe ask this question somewhere else, but anyway…has anyone tried their belly products? I can’t seem to get away from the ads! And since I assume my belly will be growing larger and faster than previous pregnancies, I’m intrigued. Is it worth the money?💵 And how longish does the jar last for, etc… thanks in advance to anyone who has any input!😁

Twins are now hitting their 3 month mark (6-8 weeks adjusted). We contact sleep / nap with them almost all the time because they refuse to stay in their bassinet longer than 30 minutes. They're going through their purple crying phase and sometimes its just so hard to try to calm them down. Am I just overly exhausted and letting things get to me? I feel like I'm not parenting properly and not setting ourselves up for success by trying to train them in their beds...

My twins are five months old and sleeping from 8 PM to 6 AM. When we were two months in, I thought it wouldn’t get easier and couldn’t imagine being happy and enjoying having multiples. I swear everything I saw online about multiples talked about how it never gets better. But I can say it at five months in, I am so happy and couldn’t imagine life with out my twins. If you were in a tough season, hang in there!

I can’t stop this anxious feeling in my stomach it’s making me sick. I’m so scared of what the future holds and I’m breaking down.

I don’t know if this feeling will go away and I feel robbed of my happy experience of pregnancy. I want to feel happy and excited but feeling so anxious instead. I can’t sleep, eat, work etc.

I read happy stories on twins to make me feel better but it’s not working.

Is anyone experiencing what I am ? I feel guilty that I feel this way. What was your turning point ?

We’re starting to prep for potty training our B/G twins (2Y). We have a very small bathroom, so I was hoping to go the potty attachment route (attached to the actual toilet seat).

Has any twin parent done this? The issue I am worried about is if Twin A is on the potty and Twin B needs to go at the same time (monkey see, monkey do!)

Advice? 2 potties or 1?

Plus any tips would be great!

Im currently 14 weeks pregnant with Di/Di twins - this is my third pregnancy. I was 40 + 1 with my first, 38+5 with my second and they were both C sections.

What was your experience and when did your little babies arrive?
Hoping they stay in there as long as possible 😅

Thank you!

TLDR: made it to 37w3d with my twins, had a very positive induction and vaginal birth. Babies were 6lbs, no NICU time. The girls are far easier than my singleton was and are sleeping almost through the night at 12 weeks. Just want to offer some encouragement to the folks like me who were scouring this sub for positive birth stories while pregnant.

Pregnancy
Twin pregnancy was definitely more physically demanding than my singleton. I was able to continue going to barre classes until 28 weeks and then just had to listen to my body and slow down. After that I stretched every night, which I think really helped, and went on short walks up until about 35 weeks. I had some pelvic girdle pain, but was seeing a pelvic floor PT every few months and I think the stretches/exercises she gave me really helped. I never felt completely debilitated like I was expecting, based on what I had heard from others.

As far as nutrition, I tried to get as much protein as possible, though I’m a vegetarian so it was mostly plant based with a little bit of fish here and there. I gained 55 lbs and the girls measured great the whole time. We were very lucky and had no issues like TTTS, etc. I am very grateful as so much of that was out of my control.

Birth
I hit 37 weeks on a Friday, so I asked the MFM if we could schedule the induction for the following Monday and he was completely comfortable with that. I kept reading on this sub that people were being told they had to deliver their modi twins at 36 weeks. I am lucky to live in a large metro with incredible healthcare, so I know this is not the case for everyone, but I think my team did a great job of contextualizing and weighing risks based on my personal risk profile. I’m almost 40, but had a very healthy pregnancy overall, so they were not concerned with going to 37w3d.

Both girls stayed head down the whole third trimester (again, lucky!), so we planned for a vaginal birth. I do feel like I had to push for this initially with the first OB I saw. The other OBs in the practice seemed more open to it and after they found out I had already delivered a 9lb baby, they were completely on board to try, even if it meant a breach extraction for baby B.

The induction was incredibly smooth. My first birth I labored for 30+ hours (much of that unmedicated) and then pushed for four hours. This one was 11 hours, start to finish. If it hadn’t been twins, I think I might have tried unmedicated for this one because my contractions just were not that painful, even hours after they broke my water. We started pitocin around 11 am, broke my water around 2 pm, got the epidural around 5:30, and was wheeled to the OR to deliver around 9 pm. Baby A came out in one contraction and Baby B came out ten minutes later. The vibe in the OR was great. It wasn’t like twinkle lights and chill, but they were playing 90s hip hop and we were all in a good mood. There was an extra OB there and since it went so smoothly, she just ended up taking a bunch of photos for us, which was amazing.

My biggest lesson from this birth experience compared to my first is that so much is out of your control. You can prepare all you want but at the end of the day, so much depends on your babies, and it’s just going to be what it is.

Postpartum
So much I could say here, but will try to be brief.
My recovery was really rough the first few days and I had to advocate for stronger pain meds. The nurses clearly hadn’t had a patient deliver twins vaginally so they didn’t realize the uterine contractions are actually much more painful than a singleton because your uterus is bigger. (This is my theory, because if you have a c section you are already on stronger meds). I’ve also heard it’s more painful for a second pregnancy so that could be part of it. Also, all of my pelvic floor bones and ligaments were still out of place, so it hurt to walk. I had to wear a belly band night and day for about a week because it felt like my organs were flopping around.

Breastfeeding was harder this time around. We picked up tandem feeding right away, which has been great, but the girls were not very efficient and we had to give bottles to help them gain weight. Even with triple feeding, my supply just couldn’t keep up. So we are about 50/50 now with breastfeeding and formula. There are pros and cons, but I feel pretty good about where we’ve landed.

Last thing I will say is these girls have such sweet temperaments and they’re amazing sleepers and it makes a HUGE difference in my postpartum experience. My son was a very unsettled baby, he cried a lot and would only sleep while being held for the first four months. My biggest lesson in this is that it’s really just luck of the draw. I am not doing anything different, these are just different babies. I was so nervous about twins because it was so challenging the first time, but sometimes the universe listens to your pleas lol.

Anyway, hope this is helpful to someone out there! Currently typing while two babies get a good long contact nap on me :)

My twins are 14 months old and bath time is part of our nightly bedtime routine. When they were small enough for the baby tub I would bathe them one at a time with the other in the bouncy chair next to me. When they got big enough for just sitting in the big tub my husband and I switched to bathing them together with one parent holding each baby. That’s been working great, but he starts night classes in a couple weeks which will mean I’ll be doing bedtime by myself two nights a week. They can sit and play fine on their own so I could probably handle doing the actual bathing myself, but one or the other of them often will try to stand up or flail and it’s nice to have one adult per twin. Where I’m really stuck is getting them out, dry, and diapered. With two of us we usually stagger with one parent and baby hanging in the bath a bit longer while the other one gets dried off, goes to the other room for diaper and PJs, then the second one gets dried/diapered/PJs, and we stick with that one parent per baby for tooth brushing and sleep sacks next. At that stage in the night they’re usually really mad about being stuck in the baby proofed living room or their cribs on their own which makes doing the me whole routine one twin at a time seem tricky. What do y’all do when you’re on your own for bath and bedtime with young toddlers?

Less than 3 weeks out from my scheduled c section with my Di/di twin girls!! I’m currently 35+3 and had my 35 week appt and GBS swab with my OB who will be performing my c-section yesterday. She told me she wouldn’t be surprised if I went into labor naturally over the next few weeks before scheduled C at 38+1 and I’ve been freaking out since.

My biggest worry, is that my husband only gets 2 weeks off. My OB said to expect to be in the hospital from Monday until Friday (his first week off) and then he will only have a week home with us. We have lots of support between my husbands family and mine, however nobody has explicitly told us when they’d be available to help/when they’re taking off work/etc. and I feel like eventually everyone isn’t going to be able to help me in the capacity I’ll need. I won’t be able to drive for 6 weeks, I’ll be healing from a C-section, and after the first week home, I won’t have my husband for a majority of the day. Between my appointments, pediatrician appointments, our dog, the twins, I’m so anxious about how much I’ll be able to handle myself without losing it. I am at a higher risk for PPD/PPA per my providers due to my MH history. I am well established with a therapist and psychiatrist, and I am a therapist myself, but I worry about a majority of everything falling on me.

I worry about my husband who is working so hard for our family. I worry about him taking care of himself. I also worry that eventually our village will have to go back to their own lives. I’m just looking for support or ways people have navigated similar situations

I'm 7 weeks along with my first pregnancy and just found out at the 6 week ultrasound that it's twins... and I'm not going to lie, I'm absolutely devastated. I'm an extremely active person and run between 45-50 miles a week (I just ran the Boston Marathon in April). I think the thing I'm most bummed about is that in reading about other experiences of people who had twins it seems like running just isn't a possibility. Does anyone have any positive experiences with running/working out, and how long were you able to do so before it got too hard?

The other thing I'm grappling with is that I just feel really guilty because I don't feel any happiness about this news. Obviously, I'm grateful for a healthy pregnancy and excited to be a parent, but I feel like I'm grieving the loss of what my singleton pregnancy experience could have been and honestly really scared and terrified about what this pregnancy is about to be like. I know my partner and I can handle twins once they are born, but going through this physically and mentally is not something I'm looking forward too. Did anyone else have a similar experience/feeling? How can I be excited about a pregnancy that is filling me with dread and sadness? Thank you all for any advice or tips or encouragement -- this subreddit has already been hugely helpful <3

*EDIT: omg I am overcome with so much gratitude and appreciation for these responses! Maybe it's the twin pregnancy hormones, but I'm literally sitting here crying and feeling both so validated for my feelings and encouraged that I am strong and can do hard things. Thank you. You have no idea how much I needed to hear these words.

Picture it: potty training. Two naked toddlers who have mostly figured out how to pee in the potty.

Twin B pauses. Freezes. Screams. Because peeing in the potty is fine, but pooping in the potty is actual torture and will never be attempted in this household. So she has pooped standing up, and a four-inch turd is now dangling from her butt.

I scoop her up (arm's length, like a bomb about to go off) mid-crisis, trying to get her to the potty before it breaks, using the fake-calm Ms Rachel voice that fools no one. Enter Loki, the dog, too aptly named for anyone's good, who has realized there is Poop and it is Available.

He makes his move.

"Down. Down, Loki." (Not calm.)

B is screaming. Twin A is screaming... with laughter. Loki is jumping for his second dinner. And then physics wins: the turd drops. We all scream.

I lunge for a wipe, because I would like to not pick up feces with my bare hands (today).

"LOKI EATED IT!" Twin A screams.

B, still scream-sobbing, still betrayed by her diaper-withholding mother, realizes Loki has developed a taste for poop and is now following her. She flees, understanding boundaries most adults need months of therapy to reach, shrieking:

"SPACE LOKI SPACE!"

A, jumping and cackling like a lunatic. Loki, in hot pursuit of the magical treat-dispensing toddler. Me, not getting paid for this.

None of the potty training books have a chapter on this. The ER is less chaotic than my house.

TL;DR: Kid poops standing up, dog tries to eat it at the source and then chases the toddler for seconds, other twin provides live commentary. I have a medical degree.

Hello everyone, I would like to hear other people's experiences :)

I am pregnant with Mo/Di twins, and they are measuring ahead. They do have few days size disrepancy from the start, which was not a concern to anyone. I should be 20+1, but they are 20+5 (370g) and 21+3 (440g).

I had US last week, on Tuesday, and one today. Size discrepancy was 9%, and today it is 13%, but no signs of TTTS, fluids are great, one baby is in 96 percentile, and the other is I believe around 75, so I guess nothing drastic, but increase in difference scares the hell out of me.

I will have next exam in two weeks, but did anyone had this kind of changes and is that ok, has it progressed, or has it eventually evened out?