I'm not going to sugarcoat things. Caring for newborn twins
was the most exhausting thing Joey and I have ever experienced in our whole
lives. Because of their tiny tummies, the twins needed to be fed every few hours
round the clock. One of them even had spit up issues which made feedings
longer. And when we finally got them to sleep, there were a lot of other chores
waiting to be done. But with 11 months of twin parenting under my belt, I can
say that it truly gets better and eventually your twins will learn to sleep
for longer stretches. In the meantime, here are some tricks that helped me and
Joey survive caring for newborn twins.
Accept that you're on call throughout the night.
Getting up two to three times every night for feedings was
such a huge change for me but once I learned to accept that being on call
throughout the night was my new normal, I was able to come up with ways to make
those night wakings more bearable like eating my favorite snack or playing a
quick game of Restaurant Dash on my iPad once feeding, burping and pumping breastmilk were done.
This small change in mindset helped me adjust better and made me less cranky.
Shop online and buy in bulk.
We saved so much time and effort by buying things online in
bulk. This meant no more advance scheduling, dealing with traffic, hurrying to
be back home or worrying about suddenly running out of diapers in the middle of
the night, which gave us more time to complete other chores and sometimes even
sneak in a quick nap.
Keep a baby log.
This is a trick we picked up from the twins' NICU stay where
the nurses recorded everything including the weight of used diapers. I'm
thankful we continued the practice when we brought the twins home because it
was challenging to remember every feeding and diaper change in our
sleep-deprived (and postpartum for me) state. To avoid getting confused about
who needed to be changed and/or fed, we kept a chart of their activities which
contained feeding, nappy changing and sleeping times as well as medicine intake
when needed. This helped us avoid the horror of feeding one baby twice while
leaving the other hungry by mistake. The chart also helped us learn their
individual patterns in order to provide for their needs better.
Make feedings quick so you can go back to sleep right away.
If you're breastfeeding, try to master tandem breastfeeding.
If you're bottle feeding, get feeding pillows that can help you bottle feed both
babies at once. We only decided to get feeding pillows when the twins were a
bit older and I really regret not getting them earlier. They made feeding
easier because they provided good support for the twins while feeding. I could
also tell they were more comfortable because they were less fidgety compared to
when they fed while being cradled in our arms. The pillows also kept them in a
semi-upright position which helped avoid spit ups which also saved us from
clean-up time.
Accept help.
In my 5 Truths About Twin Parenting post, I mentioned that the
first few weeks with twins is a three-hour repeating cycle of feeding, burping
and nappy changing. This means you don't really get that much down time. So
if anyone you trust volunteers to watch
your twins, accept the offer and use that time to nap. Based on experience, an
hour-long nap in the afternoon can really help you power through those long
nights caring for newborns.
Surviving your twins' newborn phase is hard. But I'm sure
you will get through it just like Joey and I did. Hopefully these tricks will
help you get started. Just always remember that this is just a temporary season
and it will pass like all seasons do.
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