Wife pregnant with twins..
Discussion
SBDJ said:
Miocene said:
Monochorionic covers 66% of all identical twins. We went rarer... much rarer at 1% and had monoamniotic too. One is still in NICU at 6 months old (coming home soon thankfully, albeit with nursing care).
Glad to hear they are both OK 
My story is well documented on here but since the OP has confirmed this won't be a problem I won't go over it again!
Unfortunately things aren't entirely okay, the smaller twin suffered a restriction of oxygen early on in the pregnancy and has therefore suffered an insult to the brain. So far she's beating all expectations, which is excellent, but it's a long long road and this isn't the thread for it.
Mine were born a week ago yesterday, two boys.
Like the other said, breast feeding is pushed like its the new PPI. My wife had a C-Section, so it takes the body a while to catch up.
The lack of sleep is intense, along with the overwhelming feelings of pride, love, responsibility and fear.
Make sure you have more of everything that you can imagine, 4am trips to Tesco hurt.
Like the other said, breast feeding is pushed like its the new PPI. My wife had a C-Section, so it takes the body a while to catch up.
The lack of sleep is intense, along with the overwhelming feelings of pride, love, responsibility and fear.
Make sure you have more of everything that you can imagine, 4am trips to Tesco hurt.
My lads are nearly 22 tears old now, Both very different. One is 5'8" the other 6', one left handed , the other right, When born, one was blonde the other dark. I jokingly said to the midwife, One looks like me, the other looks like the milkman. The wife thought it funny, but the Midwife didn't.
They were born a week early 5lb 8oz & 6lb 1oz and were delivered naturally (with as little help from the Salad scoops & sink plunger).
We opted for bottle feeding, much quicker when both of you can get the feed done in a short space of time.
Transport was fun, Obviously 2 of everything had to be taken around. With the pram/buggy thing, that was damn expensive. We started off with a tandem type buggy. which was quite heavy for the wife to push around. then we opted for the side by side one when they were a little older. This was over 20 years ago, so there are probably very good ones on the market now.
If you are not fussy then check out the free ads, Gumtree etc. for baby stuff.
Don't be afraid to ask for discount, some places will give away items to new 'multi-birth' parents.
Don't stress out too much either, The first few years are actually the easiest. and enjoy the moment.
and lastly 'Good luck'
They were born a week early 5lb 8oz & 6lb 1oz and were delivered naturally (with as little help from the Salad scoops & sink plunger).
We opted for bottle feeding, much quicker when both of you can get the feed done in a short space of time.
Transport was fun, Obviously 2 of everything had to be taken around. With the pram/buggy thing, that was damn expensive. We started off with a tandem type buggy. which was quite heavy for the wife to push around. then we opted for the side by side one when they were a little older. This was over 20 years ago, so there are probably very good ones on the market now.
If you are not fussy then check out the free ads, Gumtree etc. for baby stuff.
Don't be afraid to ask for discount, some places will give away items to new 'multi-birth' parents.
Don't stress out too much either, The first few years are actually the easiest. and enjoy the moment.
and lastly 'Good luck'
Im currently on paternity leave. Week 2 of 3.
Second time around. So things are very different. Different feeling with this one as she has slotted into our lives rather than appearing like a bomb going off!
Little and poor quality sleep is a killer. Im sure I was hallucinating in week 1.
So much of this thread is true. Especially the trusting your instincts.
Dont buy everything new. NCT sales seem a great place to buy stuff. Also
car boot sales. Id never been to one until recently but lots of baby stuff sold at these places.
No 2 turned up rapidly as expected. 1hr 15 mins from a few twinges. No pain relifef etc. Wife was a hero.
1st was breast fed for 13 months. No dummy. Cried lots with collic and it was pretty grim the first 12 weeks. I didnt want another. Boots own collic mixture was our saviour. Oddly the wainwrights stuff didnt work.
Read up on sleep training. Also routine is key. We sacrificed our lives for the firsts routine ie back in time for 6.30 to start bedtime. We got a decent night sleep fairly quickly. Friends with similar aged children still dont years on.
2nd is very very different. She is tounge tied so destroyed the wifes tits after 10 days of feeding. Very reluctantly she swapped to bottles. Wife very upset about this. However after a week or so its great. Baby is much more portable and I've taken them both out without er indoors for the day. Even to the pub!
Reluctantly tried a dummy and this one takes it. 1st woukdnt. The house is quiter this time around. Know we've got problems to deal with further down the line though.
Bottles, dummies.. All we need to do now is go for tea at McDonalds and get her ears pierced!
Buy a decent kettle. You'll need it to make a decent brew and for water for sterilizing stuff.
Good luck with twins.
My snip booked in for March. Oddly looking forward to it.
Second time around. So things are very different. Different feeling with this one as she has slotted into our lives rather than appearing like a bomb going off!
Little and poor quality sleep is a killer. Im sure I was hallucinating in week 1.
So much of this thread is true. Especially the trusting your instincts.
Dont buy everything new. NCT sales seem a great place to buy stuff. Also
car boot sales. Id never been to one until recently but lots of baby stuff sold at these places. No 2 turned up rapidly as expected. 1hr 15 mins from a few twinges. No pain relifef etc. Wife was a hero.
1st was breast fed for 13 months. No dummy. Cried lots with collic and it was pretty grim the first 12 weeks. I didnt want another. Boots own collic mixture was our saviour. Oddly the wainwrights stuff didnt work.
Read up on sleep training. Also routine is key. We sacrificed our lives for the firsts routine ie back in time for 6.30 to start bedtime. We got a decent night sleep fairly quickly. Friends with similar aged children still dont years on.
2nd is very very different. She is tounge tied so destroyed the wifes tits after 10 days of feeding. Very reluctantly she swapped to bottles. Wife very upset about this. However after a week or so its great. Baby is much more portable and I've taken them both out without er indoors for the day. Even to the pub!
Reluctantly tried a dummy and this one takes it. 1st woukdnt. The house is quiter this time around. Know we've got problems to deal with further down the line though.
Bottles, dummies.. All we need to do now is go for tea at McDonalds and get her ears pierced!
Buy a decent kettle. You'll need it to make a decent brew and for water for sterilizing stuff.
Good luck with twins.
My snip booked in for March. Oddly looking forward to it.
Only skimmed the thread but congratulations.
My daughter was born on the 9th, honestly the first few weeks haven't been that bad, she just eats, sleeps, and poos- a lot. It's helped having both of us off work.
Only advice I can really offer is don't try and take on all of the many conflicting pieces of advice you'll be given, just be yourselves and get on with it. We're pretty much designed to be parents and after about 20 minutes of emotional chaos in the delivery room "dad mode" will probably kick in and everything will be fine. The only thing really challenging has been adapting to the lack of sleep, but that's not too bad.
Might be different with two, though.
My daughter was born on the 9th, honestly the first few weeks haven't been that bad, she just eats, sleeps, and poos- a lot. It's helped having both of us off work.
Only advice I can really offer is don't try and take on all of the many conflicting pieces of advice you'll be given, just be yourselves and get on with it. We're pretty much designed to be parents and after about 20 minutes of emotional chaos in the delivery room "dad mode" will probably kick in and everything will be fine. The only thing really challenging has been adapting to the lack of sleep, but that's not too bad.
Might be different with two, though.
Butter Face said:
If you bottle feed you need one of these.
http://m.direct.asda.com/on/demandware.store/Sites...
Best £60 you will spend, press button for boiling water, add powder and mix, press button again, add top and shake and bottle done. It makes 3am feeds bearable!
These things are brilliant. Takes a lot of the guesswork and timing out of things.http://m.direct.asda.com/on/demandware.store/Sites...
Best £60 you will spend, press button for boiling water, add powder and mix, press button again, add top and shake and bottle done. It makes 3am feeds bearable!
milner993 said:
E36GUY said:
OP - I have PMed you but I think the system is broken right now. If you're interested I have a fully functioning iCandy Apple parambulator with the 2 seat system in borderline perfect order if you might be interested in saving many hundreds of pounds.....Just bought a place in Cambs too so reasonably local I think.
Thank you for the offer but we wanted to stay away from prams that had the seats one on top of the other, I have heard from a few people I've spoken to in passing with twins that they ended up changing this type of pram due to arguments later on, who gets the top seat being the main complaint, I don’t know if you ever experienced that? Thank you once agian.milner993 said:
Thank you for the offer but we wanted to stay away from prams that had the seats one on top of the other, I have heard from a few people I've spoken to in passing with twins that they ended up changing this type of pram due to arguments later on, who gets the top seat being the main complaint, I don’t know if you ever experienced that? Thank you once agian.
We didn't have any arguments as we had our kids 2 years apart so it never raised. Notwithstanding, we only used this when they were babies. As soon as they were able to sit up reasonably well (6-9mts+) they were transferred to the MacLaren with the fold down seat back (so they can still sleep therein) and you can get those with seats side by side. From three years they can walk themselves. We've not used any buggies since youngest turned 3 in October. Got the boot back!Congratulations. Twins are great fun, if hard work.
There has been loads of great advice here. My twins are now 2 and lovely little rascals. A few thoughts (excuse the stream of consciousness style post):
Do what is easiest for you. Twins are hard. We have a daughter who is 3 years older than the boys so have something to compare with. If bottle feeding works for you then do it. We all know boob is better but sane mother is more important still. This was the consensus among the medical staff we dealt with - the same that were fervently pro-breast when we had our daughter. People are much less judgemental about these things when you have twins.
There are lots of prams, they are all expensive and they are all impractical in various different ways. We ended up with an (expensive) iCandy twin pram. Was much more like a normal pram than all the other doubles. Only now are the boys arguing & soon they won't be using it any more. The only faff is disassembling it to fold. That said We just chuck it into the boot of the SMax without folding it. Did I mention that it was expensive?
Join a local twins club and Tamba. Lots of discounts available through Tamba. Twins clubs let you meet other parents who are also finding it really chuffing hard.
If you people you are having twins then you will probably get given loads of free stuff as parents of singletons will feel sorry for you. Embrace this, it makes life easier (going back to first thing I said).
Twin nursing pillow makes feeding (bottle or breast) easier.
We never bothered with baby monitors as you will usually hear one of them kick off. Ours don't really wake each other up. It is a rite of passage to buy one and then not use it.
Amazon subscribe and save is good for nappies & wipes.
Don't be put off by random people loudly questioning how they were conceived and if there was any "assistance". It is an inevitable side effect of lots of people stopping you in public. Prepare the stock replies "yes they are twins", "no they are not identical/yes they are identical", "yes we do have our hands full". You will be regaled with stories of how someone knows someone else with twins etc.
Enjoy your p&q, you won't get it for the next 18-odd years!
There has been loads of great advice here. My twins are now 2 and lovely little rascals. A few thoughts (excuse the stream of consciousness style post):
Do what is easiest for you. Twins are hard. We have a daughter who is 3 years older than the boys so have something to compare with. If bottle feeding works for you then do it. We all know boob is better but sane mother is more important still. This was the consensus among the medical staff we dealt with - the same that were fervently pro-breast when we had our daughter. People are much less judgemental about these things when you have twins.
There are lots of prams, they are all expensive and they are all impractical in various different ways. We ended up with an (expensive) iCandy twin pram. Was much more like a normal pram than all the other doubles. Only now are the boys arguing & soon they won't be using it any more. The only faff is disassembling it to fold. That said We just chuck it into the boot of the SMax without folding it. Did I mention that it was expensive?
Join a local twins club and Tamba. Lots of discounts available through Tamba. Twins clubs let you meet other parents who are also finding it really chuffing hard.
If you people you are having twins then you will probably get given loads of free stuff as parents of singletons will feel sorry for you. Embrace this, it makes life easier (going back to first thing I said).
Twin nursing pillow makes feeding (bottle or breast) easier.
We never bothered with baby monitors as you will usually hear one of them kick off. Ours don't really wake each other up. It is a rite of passage to buy one and then not use it.
Amazon subscribe and save is good for nappies & wipes.
Don't be put off by random people loudly questioning how they were conceived and if there was any "assistance". It is an inevitable side effect of lots of people stopping you in public. Prepare the stock replies "yes they are twins", "no they are not identical/yes they are identical", "yes we do have our hands full". You will be regaled with stories of how someone knows someone else with twins etc.
Enjoy your p&q, you won't get it for the next 18-odd years!
Miocene said:
I've not seen your story, so will have a look for it. We might have had TTTS but that wasn't picked up during scans and ended up being small fry.
Unfortunately things aren't entirely okay, the smaller twin suffered a restriction of oxygen early on in the pregnancy and has therefore suffered an insult to the brain. So far she's beating all expectations, which is excellent, but it's a long long road and this isn't the thread for it.
Really sorry to hear that. Some of my experiences are documented in this thread: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...Unfortunately things aren't entirely okay, the smaller twin suffered a restriction of oxygen early on in the pregnancy and has therefore suffered an insult to the brain. So far she's beating all expectations, which is excellent, but it's a long long road and this isn't the thread for it.
There's a lot I left out, I've often wondered about collating my thoughts and experiences surrounding it into a single place, even if only for my own sanity!
milner993 said:
Dr Murdoch said:
Congratulations!
Echo the rest / sleep advice, enjoy it while you can. Time will not be your own for some time.
If you have any DIY jobs to do, do them now, you won't want / have time to do them once the nippers arrive!
If you don't mind me asking, are the twins the result of IVF? Often is the way with IVF treatment.
Some sound advice I've started the DIY jobs and the wife has bought the odd baby things nappies etc.Echo the rest / sleep advice, enjoy it while you can. Time will not be your own for some time.
If you have any DIY jobs to do, do them now, you won't want / have time to do them once the nippers arrive!
If you don't mind me asking, are the twins the result of IVF? Often is the way with IVF treatment.
The twins were conceived the old fashioned way
no IVF involved. why does it matter?
And as for people coming up to you just to tell you they know someone whose had multiples, just go away.
Tony Starks said:
It drives me up the wall that this is everyone's first question when meeting someone with twins, after 2 years I've become incredibly rude to people who ask this.
why does it matter?
We were in the supermarket a few weeks ago and a woman in her 60's turned to her friend and said (very loudly) "I wonder how much their IVF cost them." It is bloody rude and makes a mockery of the pain & heartache experienced by anyone who has gone through IVF. (We hadn't for the boys, not that it matters in the slightest).why does it matter?
There has been some fantastic advice thank you all so much, keep it coming and your stories their keeping very much entertained.
I'm very excited for their arrival however I'm not sure if I'm more scared/nervous at the moment as I feel quite helpless, if the Twins were here I could protect them in some way if that makes sence.
I have found a local twin club so I'm going to make contact with them soon and my wife an I will make an appearance before my wife gives birth to see if they can offer any additional support seems like a good place to meet some people and maybe make more friends.
My wife and I watched a video before I posted this thread about Twins and one thing in particular which they mentioned was about the comments and questions you will get by your friends, family and the general public such as IVF, double trouble, rather you than me and random people stopping you in the street and in supermarkets etc, I didn't quite believe what they were saying and we wouldn't possibly hear any of that but I've been total surprised, I've had a lot of people say very nice things but alot of negative comments as well even abit of jealousy coming across from some people its been very strange so far I don't quite know what to make of it all.
Thank you to anyone offering to sell your unwanted prams I haven't received any Pm or have I been able to convince the wife about prams yet hopefully all options still open
I'm very excited for their arrival however I'm not sure if I'm more scared/nervous at the moment as I feel quite helpless, if the Twins were here I could protect them in some way if that makes sence.
I have found a local twin club so I'm going to make contact with them soon and my wife an I will make an appearance before my wife gives birth to see if they can offer any additional support seems like a good place to meet some people and maybe make more friends.
My wife and I watched a video before I posted this thread about Twins and one thing in particular which they mentioned was about the comments and questions you will get by your friends, family and the general public such as IVF, double trouble, rather you than me and random people stopping you in the street and in supermarkets etc, I didn't quite believe what they were saying and we wouldn't possibly hear any of that but I've been total surprised, I've had a lot of people say very nice things but alot of negative comments as well even abit of jealousy coming across from some people its been very strange so far I don't quite know what to make of it all.
Thank you to anyone offering to sell your unwanted prams I haven't received any Pm or have I been able to convince the wife about prams yet hopefully all options still open
Edited by milner993 on Friday 29th January 22:15
Not to put too fine a point on it, but **** them is my opinion
I used to get upset/annoyed/irritated by the looks I get from people because my son is 'different'. You'll soon learn to filter out the negativity, now it's only the more extreme comments like 'shouldn't be allowed out in public' that get my back up!
Enjoy it, time flies quicker than you'll realise!
I used to get upset/annoyed/irritated by the looks I get from people because my son is 'different'. You'll soon learn to filter out the negativity, now it's only the more extreme comments like 'shouldn't be allowed out in public' that get my back up!
Enjoy it, time flies quicker than you'll realise!
You become very good at replies and if people get you on a bad day can be very insensitive. I normally tell them they're actually triplets, but we left the ugly one in the car. And if you only take one out in the push chair be prepared to make it about 10' before someone tells you 'you forgot one'.
Good luck with the twin group, our one had a yearly subscription and all that paid for was the ability to moan about kids on a closed facebook group.
And be prepared for everyone in your family to think raising twins is like raising a single child. My MiL still thinks its the same but wont take them for the day on her own.
Now mine are 2 they're really developing their characters, our boy is a whiny s@#$ bag but loves mechanical things and our girl spends all day making tea parties and caring for her dollys and bossing her brother.
Good luck with the birth too, we were set for natural but the girls placenta erupted and they had to be sun roofed out under general. So I missed cutting the cords and seeing them born and my wife didnt really get to see them for about 6-7 hours before she woke up a bit.
Good luck with the twin group, our one had a yearly subscription and all that paid for was the ability to moan about kids on a closed facebook group.
And be prepared for everyone in your family to think raising twins is like raising a single child. My MiL still thinks its the same but wont take them for the day on her own.
Now mine are 2 they're really developing their characters, our boy is a whiny s@#$ bag but loves mechanical things and our girl spends all day making tea parties and caring for her dollys and bossing her brother.
Good luck with the birth too, we were set for natural but the girls placenta erupted and they had to be sun roofed out under general. So I missed cutting the cords and seeing them born and my wife didnt really get to see them for about 6-7 hours before she woke up a bit.
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