Twin Tips: Surviving Your Twins' Newborn Phase

surviving newborn twins

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.


No comments