Survival Tips for Parents of Twins
If you are blessed with twins, you will surely need these bits of advice garnered from childcare experts and parents who gave birth to identical twins.
When the ultrasound showed not one, but two, you must have experienced the strangest sensation in your whole life. You may not even have known what to think. There could have been fears besieging you. Yet there were others before you, and quite a few. They are glad to have been mothers of twins, after all, and willing to share the experience.
Twins can and should be different
Although they are twins, they remain individual persons whose expectations and preferences may be quite different. While you are reading a book, one is willing to listen, but the other would rather toy around with blocks. If you are worried about it, stop. Your kids are not vying for your attention and counting time – they enjoy their preferred occupations.
Draw up a schedule
While they are little, the twins ought to keep to bedtimes, nap times, and eat at the set time. By the way, if you have both of them sleeping on the schedule, you can have some time for yourself. You can spend these minutes doing the backlog of house chores or simply enjoying doing nothing – whatever you deem necessary.
Set a system for sicknesses
When any or both of the twins get sick, it’s important to set up a system for feeding and taking medicine. A notebook for jotting down exact time for feeding, food taken, medications with dosages will stand you in good stead.
Find a local club for mothers of twins
When you are a young mother of twins you will need all the support you can get – from other women who are in the same boat. Every new stage of development will bring up new questions, like what to do if somebody invites one twin without the other or if they go in for a sport and one falls behind. The advice of women who have been through all this can go a long way towards clearing up your position in the situation.
Ask mothers who have triplets
No doubt the twins will make you feel overwhelmed. Discussing it with women who bore triplets or more you will understand things in their right perspective.
Get things done right
Onlу one of the twins woke up during the night? Feed him and the other one too – if you don’t, the two of them can keep you awake through the night.
Plan outings carefully
When you plan to take them out, mind that you can spend a lot of time dressing the twins, zipping them up, putting on shoes and planting on the car seats. Sometimes when you don’t have the time you can let them ride in their pajamas.
No need to buy matching clothes exclusively
It’s totally up to you if you decide to dress your twins in matching clothes, but many twin moms don’t opt for the same kind of outfits. When they grow up, they may like it this way. Anyway, as the time comes for them to attend school, you can discuss the issue with them and decide whether they prefer to dress alike or each according to his own taste.
Help people distinguish between them
Always try to avoid other people mixing them up. If you dress the twins similarly, get them shoes of a different color, or think of a small detail that will help people tell one from the other. They may wear similar jackets but different shirts. Tell preschool teachers about any small dissimilarities which help in identifying each twin.
Make them feel special
Let them glorify in their special status and feel their bond, at the same time let them develop individually and encourage their personal interests.
Try not to compare them
It is not always easy to avoid drawing comparisons, but you should try. Make them feel individual without one feeling inferior to the other.
Buy groceries judicially
The good idea is to have a stock of the most popular food so you won’t have to make urgent shopping trips with the twins in tow.
Get help arranged effectively
Do you have many people offering to help out? Plan well in advance when you can best avail yourself of the kind offers.
Make sure you have time of your own
Parenting is a demanding business, so arrange for some time to take a breather and feel yourself again now and then.
Take photos
You will want to re-live those precious moments, so take as many photos as you can, but put down who exactly is in the picture.
…and finally, mind that time passes quickly
Years will fly, and your kids have all of a sudden become tall and angular adolescents. You didn’t even notice how it happened. So enjoy every moment of the present, for they will pass away like water under the bridge, never to return.
