The early days with newborn twins are a physical, mental, and emotional challenge. You’d be wise to recruit some friends or family to come and help you during the early months with your twins.

What should you ask them to do? Anything you currently take for granted or where extra hands would make things easier.

1. Watching the Other Kids

Your older children may be neglected when the twins arrive. Set up play dates for your kids with their friends.

2. Taking the Night Shift

The true test of how much your friends and family love you is whether they will take a turn with the babies overnight. Will they help feed the twins, change diapers, and get them back to bed when they wake up during the night?

The beauty of this service is that you can get a full night’s sleep, which is a rare and precious commodity.

3. Babysitting

You can’t stay in your house forever. You’ll need a mental break from the drag of your routine. Invite your friend to come babysit your twins while you go out on a date or even just for a walk around the block.

4. Helping with Doctor’s Visits

Taking your twins to the doctor’s office for well baby checkups is a juggling act. You always need extra helping hands to get babies ready for measuring and examination. Plus you’ll need to soothe them after any shots or uncomfortable examinations.

5. Hold the Babies

Who doesn’t like to hold a little baby? They are so cute! Exactly. Recruit your friends to come over and hold your babies, soothe them, and while they are there they can be called on to help with other tasks.

6. Feed the Babies

Regardless of whether you bottle feed or breast feed your twins, it is hard to feed both by yourself. A helper can bottle feed one baby while you feed the other. A friend can help bring babies to and from Mom for feeding and take care of burping and changing.

Just Ask

Your friends and family are willing to help you with your twins. You just need to ask for help. Reach out to them with specific things they can do and they will respond and come to your aid. If you ask for general “help” you’ll never seem to get what you need.

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The safety of your twins should be one of your top priorities. As such, twinproofing your home is something you need to do.

What is Twinproofing?

Twinproofing is how you childproof your home when you have twins. Having twins in your home requires special safety considerations.

You Need Basic Childproofing for Twins Too

The classic tips on how to childproof your home also apply with twins.

As a basic strategy, try to prevent your twins from accessing, reaching, touching, or discovering anything that can do them harm. Expand your mind as you look at your home.

Get down on your hands and knees so you are at your kids’ level and look around. Analyze your home and see what trouble you can get into and what things you can reach that you didn’t think about before.

The kitchen and bathroom are areas where you need to be very cautious because of the overabundance of potential hazards (water, chemicals, sharp objects, etc.).

In the rest of the house, look at power outlets, cords, drawers, shelves, window blinds, and anything else that can be reached by your twins.

Regular Childproofing Isn’t Enough

While general advice on childproofing your home works for twins, you can’t stop there. Twinproofing your home requires extra vigilance and prevention.

Singleton babies can only do so much damage by themselves.

Twins, on the other hand, take mischief to a whole new level.

Keep in mind that each of your twins is an individual. This means that each of your twins has their own thoughts, imaginations, and crazy of ideas of how to get into trouble.

If one your twins doesn’t come up with a creative way to get into trouble, his or her sibling will. Once that idea is formed, it will be immediately shared with the other sibling and you’ll have double trouble.

Two little minds working together to reach the forbidden object or open the off-limits drawer can quickly invent a method or solution to get what they want.

Twins Enable Each Other’s Mischief

Your twins will be each other’s partners in crime. Twinproofing means you need to account for what your twins can do, not just by themselves, but with each other’s help.

Twins will help push each other up to places one can’t reach. Twins will combine their strength to break things. Twins will both squeeze into places only meant for one.

Look at your house from a new perspective: your twins’ view. What trouble could you cause if you were their size and had a ready accomplice to join your adventures?

One danger zone to consider is the door. Your twins will chase each other around the house and one will turn and slam the door on the other twin. Little fingers or toes can easily be smashed when this happens. Childproof your doors with simple finger pinch prevention devices you can buy at the home improvement store that keep the door from shutting all the way.

You’ve got your work cut out for you. Start twinproofing your home today and you’ll get a head start on your curious, and often mischievous, twins.

Picture by Cheryl

As a father of twins, you want to bond with your twins and build a strong, lasting relationship.

The key to this bond with your twins is to spend one-on-one time with each of them individually.

If you spend all your time with both twins, your attention will be divided.

Remember that your twins are individuals and each has his or her own personality and quirks.

Bonding with Infant Twins

The best time to bond with infant twins is when you are helping with their daily necessities.

Take the opportunity when you are feeding, changing diapers, or dressing your twins to talk with them and focus on them individually.

When our twin girls were still infants, I loved to take turns feeding each one. As they slowly drank their bottles, I could study their faces and expressions and talk with them about the great future that was (and is) ahead of them.

Bonding with Toddler Twins

My favorite bonding activity with toddler twins is to take them out one at a time to lunch. You can have father/son or daddy/daughter lunches with each of your kids too. I’ve found that getting out of the house with one of the twins helps focus all my attention on that one child and is a great way to build and strengthen my relationship with each child.

If lunch doesn’t work for you, consider other outings with just you and one of your kids. This could be a Saturday activity, an errand to the store, or another time together that best meets your schedule.

Make these one-on-one times a routine event and your kids will look forward to this tradition with Dad.

Regardless of the age of your twins, you can make time for each individual child. This time focused on each child will be the foundation of a strong bond and lasting relationship with your twins.

(Picture by redagainPatti)

So you’re expecting twins and they will be your first children. Congratulations!

Naturally, you’re a little nervous about the whole thing. It is natural to be nervous or a little scared about having twins.

You’ll have two big challenges: the learning curve of being a father and the learning curve of having twins.

The good news is that in your eyes, it is just one big learning curve!

Here’s what you can do to overcome your nerves and stress related to being a first time father of twins.

Learn

You need to learn the basics of caring for a baby. This includes holding, swaddling, diaper changing, dressing, feeding, burping, etc.

Before our first child was born, we took a basic baby care class at the local hospital. You can inquire for a similar class in your area. An infant child care class will arm you with the knowledge you need to handle the basic logistics of keeping your babies alive and well.

Practice

If you don’t practice what you learn, you won’t really learn and master those skills. Borrow a friend’s or relative’s baby and practice what you learned in your class.

During your twin pregnancy, volunteer to babysit a friend’s baby. It will give you some real-world practice before your twins arrive.

Discuss Responsibilities

Discuss with your spouse the child care responsibilities that will need to be handled when the twins arrive. Set clear expectations with each other of who will be doing what and when.

Clearly communicate with each other so there are fewer surprises when the time comes for action.

Things to discuss include: Who will change diapers? How will you feed the twins? Who wakes up during the night to feed and change the babies?

Adapt

Every twin pregnancy is different. Every set of newborn twins is different. Don’t get so caught up in a plan that you can’t change when change is required.

Be flexible and willing to adapt to the situation as required. Be willing to shoulder more responsibility if needed. Be prepared to work and support your wife. She may be recovering from a c-section or postpartum depression. Your job is to keep your twins (and wife) alive and well.

By the time your twins arrive, the nervousness of being a first time father will fade. You’ll be so busy and engaged with the present situation that you won’t have time to think about the hypothetical situations you worried about before.

Picture by Ankur P

How can grandparents help with the twins and effectively support their children in this new adventure?

Once your parents find out that you are having twins, they will want to help. Depending on your parents’ style, that may be forceful help or more subtle in their offers to help you.

Naturally, you’ll need to adapt how you apply these principles to your family situation to involve the grandparents when your twins arrive.

Set Expectations

The grandparents want to help you. They just don’t know how to do that. Perhaps they’ve had grandkids before but twins may be a completely new challenge for them.

Have frank and open conversations with your parents and ask how they would like to help and discuss what help you need.

Consider the following areas:

Supplies

Twins require a lot of baby supplies. Diapers, wipes, clothes, bottles, blankets, cribs, car seats, etc. Having twins is a financial burden. If the grandparents are financially able, ask them to help stock your home ahead of the babies’ arrival. My wife and I were blessed to have our parents help pay for many of our twin girls’ major purchases like cribs and car seats. This required that we talked with both sets of grandparents and coordinated who was purchasing what items.

Child Care

Grandparents can play a critical role in child care with twins.

Newborns

The early days of twins will be a physically demanding time. An extra set of helping hands will greatly ease the burden on the parents. Invite your grandparents to come over and help care for the babies. Ask if they can stay the night and take turns caring for the babies while you sleep. Balance the grandparent’s physical capabilities and limits with what you ask them to do.

Other Children

If you have other children in your family, they will need special attention when the twins are born. Grandparents are great candidates to help take care of your older children. Often, with grandparents, there is already a relationship of trust with your kids and it is easier to leave your kids with them. The grandparents make great candidates for taking care of your other kids while you are in the hospital for the twins’ birth.

My mother-in-law came and stayed with our boys while my wife and the girls were in the hospital. This was a great help to us and a similar arrangement might work in your family too.

Support

Grandparents need to support their kids in whatever decisions they make as new parents of twins. Parenting twins often requires unorthodox methods that might be foreign to grandparents. Just because they did it one way, doesn’t mean you have to do it that way.

Space

Grandparents are attracted to newborn grandkids like a magnet to metal. This can lead to problems with too much grandparent time. In our case, we were grateful for the helping hands. At the same time, you may want some space to establish your family routine. Just clearly explain your desires to the grandparents.

Grandparents can be a great resource in helping with your twins. Be sure to talk with them and see what involvement they can and are willing to do.

Picture by AIBakker

Having twins and surviving the newborn months is one of the hardest things that your marriage will have to endure. Realizing that this is the case, many of you have written to me and asked for advice on how to keep your relationship with your wife strong and ensure you have alone time once the kids are born.

The good news is that once your twins get past the newborn phase, start sleeping through the night, and fall into a more friendly schedule, life does get back to a new normal. In that new normal, you can reestablish dating and alone time with your wife.

During the newborn months is when you have to be creative, patient, and selfless.

Here are some things my wife and I found successful in keeping our relationship strong despite the heavy demands of newborn twins:

Schedule the Babysitter

As soon as your twins start to fall into a predictable pattern of feeding and sleeping, you need to plan a date with your wife. This date may just be an hour away from the house to run an errand or go out to eat. Nevertheless, be sure to schedule this time or it will never happen. Getting a babysitter for your twins isn’t too hard if you do a little prep work.

Help with Feedings

Your wife will appreciate help when it comes time to feed the twins. Use this time to talk with your wife and stay connected emotionally. Middle of the night feedings may not be so conducive to conversation since you’ll likely be sleep walking through the feeding. However, the mere act of you helping with feeding and caring for the twins will strengthen your relationship with your wife and lighten her burden.

Take Advantage of Naps

When the twins are sleeping, you have two options: take a nap or do something else. I typically advise that you take a nap. You’ll likely be sleep deprived and need all the rest you can get. Nevertheless, you may also consider the twins’ nap time as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship with your wife. Even if you are home-bound, spend time together talking, watching a movie (yes, you might fall asleep), doing chores together, etc. When the house is quiet, don’t just run off to your corner to work on your projects. Spend some of that time with your wife.

Realize this is Temporary

The first year with twins is a blur and very challenging. The good news is that it is also temporary. Your kids grow up and many of the challenges of feeding, sleeping, changing, and constant care fade into the past. Talk the situation over with your wife frankly and acknowledge that this is just temporary and that any lack of attention isn’t intended as a personal statement. It is simply a necessary part of this phase of parenthood.

Alone Time

There will be a lack of marital intimacy after the twins are born. In due time, the physical demands of newborn twins will ease up and you can get back in your routine. As with getting out of the house, you’ll likely want to schedule alone time with your wife too or it won’t happen.

Your marriage can and will survive newborn twins. Set clear expectations with each other. Take every opportunty to spend time together. Actively work on your relationship and it will come out stronger than ever.

After your twins are born, when should you bring their siblings to the hospital to meet them? How should you prepare them for meeting the infant twins and seeing Mom in a hospital bed?

When our twin girls were born, our other boys were 3 and 1.5 years old. They knew that baby sisters would soon be joining the family and we were excited to introduce them. Here’s how you can get your other children ready for the introduction:

Setting Expectations

Leading up to the delivery, talk opening and clearly with your children about what is going to happen. Regardless of the age of your other children, they should know that Mommy has two babies inside her. Your children should know that they will soon have two new babies in the family.

Talk about what will happen when the twins are ready to be born. Your other children need to know that you’ll be going to the hospital and that they will likely be cared for by some one else while you are away. That caregiver could be Grandma, a friend, or neighbor, etc. Whomever you choose, the kids need to know that in advance.

Describe (in an age appropriate way) what happens when you go to the hospital. Siblings should at least understand that when the babies are born, the doctor checks the babies to make sure they are healthy. The babies then sleep a lot. Mommy will rest in a bed to recover. Mommy may have tubes (an IV) attached to her and will be very tired.

Tell your kids what a hospital room looks like and what they can expect to see when they come to visit.

When You’re At the Hospital

During labor, delivery, and the initial recovery, you’ll be busy and won’t have time to be with your other children. During that time, make sure that their caregiver knows (ahead of time) to reinforce the expectations you previously set. When the kids ask their caregiver, “where’s Mommy and Daddy?”, he or she should be able to reinforce the hospital story you’ve been telling your kids all along.

When to Bring the Kids for a Hospital Visit

When our twins were born, we took a day in the hospital to recover before bringing the kids over. My wife had gone through a c-section to deliver the twins and needed some time to physically recover.

Since every twin pregnancy and delivery is different, don’t commit to any visitors until the twins are born and you’ve settled down in the hospital. Last minute complications can arise that will squash any firm plans.

If your twins go to the NICU, be sure to reset expectations with their siblings. Your other children need to know that their new twin babies will be hooked up to lots of machines and that they won’t be able to hold or touch them.

Prep the Hospital Room

To younger kids, a hospital room is like a playground. There are so many things to discover and climb on (like the fully adjustable hospital bed) that you’ll need to at least do a first pass at kid proofing the hospital room. Dad, this is your job since your wife will still be recovering physically. Tidy up before your kids arrive to meet their twin siblings or you’ll spend the entire visit trying to keep your kids out of trouble.

Welcome the Siblings

We had purchased some “gifts” ahead of time that would be from our twin girls to their brothers. Your twins will get all of the attention from everyone. This will create an attention gap with your other children that they won’t necessarily like. Before the twins, your child or children were the only show in town. Now that the twins are here, you need to be mindful of making sure your other children still feel loved and appreciated.

Our boys were excited to meet their twins sisters and really excited to get presents from them. It worked well in our case but you should consider your other children’s ages and needs and plan accordingly.

An expectant father of twins asked me: “How do I help my wife with feeding responsibilities, especially since we have a 1.5-year-old as well?”

Even though feeding time with twins can get crazy, I enjoyed the opportunity to help feed my infant daughters. With our previous singleton births, my wife was able to handle the feeding and I never really got to participate. With twins, the extra work necessitated my help, and it was a rewarding experience to be able to hold my daughter and feed her (yes, even in the middle of the night).

How can you help your wife feed the twins?

It depends on how you’ll be feeding them. Will your wife be breast-feeding the babies or will you be bottle-feeding formula to your twins?

Breast-Feeding

Consider all the steps your wife will need to take to breast-feed your twins simultaneously. Here is a simplified list:

• Get seated
• Position the pillow(s) to support the babies
• Pick up and position one baby on one side
• Pick up the other baby and position her on the other side
• Get baby #1 to latch and start feeding
• Get baby #2 to latch and start feeding
• When baby #1 finishes, mop up any spills and help burp
• When baby #2 finishes, mop up any spills and help burp
• Return babies to original location (crib, blanket on floor, etc.)

Sorry, Dad, you won’t be able to breast-feed your babies. However, in this case you will play a critical supporting role. As you’ll notice in the list above, many of the steps can be handled by you. You can help bring the twins to your wife and get them positioned. You can help clean up and burp your babies. And you even get diaper duty.

Ideally, your wife would breast-feed the twins simultaneously. Otherwise she will feel like she is always feeding your twins without any breaks.

If for some reason your babies aren’t able to breast-feed directly, your wife may end up pumping breast milk that can then be bottle-fed to your babies. There will be greater opportunity to help here as well.

Bottle-Feeding

Whether your babies are drinking breast milk or formula from a bottle, the logistics of feeding are almost identical.

The big difference is in the preparation of the bottles. Formula may be a powder that needs to be mixed up. Breast milk may come out of the freezer and need to be warmed up first.

Because our daughters had a hard time latching on for breast-feeding, we ended up bottle-feeding them. Most of the time we’d have each adult feed one baby. If you are able to mimic this same pattern, you as the father will be able to easily help your wife. You can prepare the bottles and feed a baby while she helps with the other.

If you have helpers staying with you, you can rotate overnight feeding responsibilities. Or if it is just you and your wife, you may want to take turns with the night shift to let each other rest.

What Happens With the Other Kids?

When you have other kids in the house, things get complicated. They will need attention during almost every feeding, except perhaps the middle-of-the-night feeds.

In these cases, your responsibility may be to take care of the siblings instead of directly helping with feeding the twins. When you remove the burden of the other children from the person feeding the twins, feeding time becomes a little easier.

You Can Help Feed Your Twins

Even though Dads aren’t built to directly feed babies, you can still be a great help and assistance to your wife regardless of what your babies are eating. Talk through feeding options with your wife and clearly state how you want to help. If you leave the decision to the last minute, when the babies are crying in the middle of the night, you won’t be able to make a clear decision. Decide now how you will feed your babies and what your role will be.

If you are lucky enough to have young children in the house when twins join your family, you get the bonus of an extra adventure.

A big challenge in this case is: how do you keep the older kids busy while you tend to the babies?

Here are some things you can have your twins’ older siblings do to keep them busy while you tend to the twins.

Get Helpers

The best option for your older children is to get a family member or friend to come help you. The extra person can play with or entertain the older kids while you tend to the twins. Consider even getting a babysitter to come over and help you when things get crazy. During the summer months, it is typically easier to recruit school-age kids to help since they are available during the day.

Kid Swap

Talk to other parents and see if you can swap kids. They take your kids one day and you take theirs the next. If your older kids can play independently with friends, having the extra kids in the house may not be a big deal. In fact, if they are so busy playing, it will seem easier than when you just have your kids running around.

Something New

Kids are always distracted by something new. This is a trick we use when we travel on long trips. Pull out a new toy, book, or activity that the kids haven’t seen or haven’t done in a while. This will likely keep their attention for at least a few minutes while you tend to the twins.

Have Them Help

If your young children can physically help with caring for the twins, let them help! Our oldest son was 3 years old when our twin daughters where born. He loved to help by bringing us burp clothes or diapers or picking things up so we didn’t have to bend down with a babe in arms. Take advantage of the often selfless desires and love your older siblings have for their newborn twin siblings.

Before you need your kids’ help, make sure that you teach and show them how to do the job you need before the actual need arises. This way they are prepared and ready to help when the moment arises.

Food

Our kids are always the most quiet and still when they are eating. Keep a supply of healthy snacks available to distract your kiddos when you have to take care of the twins.

Try some of these options and you’ll buy yourself a least a few moments to tend to a fussy baby, change a diaper, or feed your newborn twins.

What have you found that works with keeping your other children occupied while tending to your newborn twins?

One of the great challenges of parenting twins is that you never get out of the house without them. If this goes on too long, it directly impacts your sanity and happiness.

In fact, one parent of twins wrote and asked me, “Do you ever get to go out without kids again?”

When it comes time for a date or evening out, what do you do with the twins? Can you even leave the house?

The answer is yes. You can get a babysitter for your twins.

The underlying question becomes, “How long before you can go on your first date post twins’ arrival?”

The first thing you need to do is reconsider your definition of a date or getting out of the house.

With infant twins in the home, you have to start with low expectations for getting out of the house without them.

Start considering your get-out-of-the-house plan when you start to see a repeatable pattern with your twins sleeping. When you put them down at night, how long do they sleep?

Consider getting a babysitter that comes over once you’ve put the babies to sleep. You can then go out for an hour or two. Maybe grab a quick dinner and return home. If you are worried about the kids, don’t go too far and be sure your babysitter can reach you via your cell phone.

If you are lucky, your first date will have the babysitter watching over a quiet house with your twins sleeping the entire time.

As soon as my wife and I got a babysitter to watch our sleeping kids, we wondered why we hadn’t done it sooner.

As your twins start to sleep longer stretches of time, you can lengthen out your dates, go farther from home, or even do things that are hard to quickly return home from (like a concert or play).