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).

Taking your toddler twins on a road trip requires some planning and patience.

We recently took a road trip across the country that ended up being 54 total hours in the car. Our family of six with toddler twins in tow did great and yours can, too.

Think Attention Span

Road trips with toddler twins are all about maximizing their attention span. Instead of a few activities or distractions that could occupy lots of time, think about lots of activities that have short durations.

Change Seats

Try shuffling car seats around during your trip. Perhaps this can be done every day you are driving or whenever you stop for a meal. We found that when the kids had a new environment in the vehicle, it helped keep them happy. The bonus was that when the kids argued over who got to sit where, we could appease them with the promise of moving seats later.

Road Trip Toys

Your toddler twins probably already have tons of toys. The toys that will best serve you on a road trip are new ones. New toys seems to grab your kids’ attention more easily than one they have been playing with the last several weeks. (That being said, if your twins are attached to a favorite toy or stuffed animal, don’t force them to give it up in favor of something new.)

Try digging up some old toys they haven’t seen in awhile. Alternatively, go to the dollar store and pick up some cheap new toys that would be easy to play with in the car.

Don’t give all the toys to the kids up front. Pull them out strategically during the road trip so you can maximize their distracting power.

Road Trip Books

As with toys, bring books your kids either love or haven’t yet discovered. Visit your local library and load up on books that you can take on your trip. If your kids don’t independently look at books of their own volition or if you get carsick sitting backwards and reading to the littles, try read-along CDs. You remember those, right? The ones with the chime when it’s time to turn the page? They can be found at just about any bookstore as well as at libraries.

Road Trip Music

Have favorite songs that your toddler twins like to listen to in the car around town? Time to make a Road Trip Playlist. The scenery will pass more quickly if the kiddos have a groovy tune or two to sing along with. Add a few of Mom and Dad’s favorites and introduce the kids to songs you like while you have a captive audience. Get loose and maybe even a little silly, and you’ll make some good memories with your kids.

Road Trip Games

Toddler twins might be too young to enjoy traditional road trip games like Road Trip Bingo or the ABC game where you look for letters on signs and cars. Nevertheless, they can probably look for trains, cactus, windmills or other obvious features that you can turn into an ‘I Spy’ game.

Food

Pack some healthy snacks that you can pull out at the opportune moment during the trip. You don’t want to have to stop every time the kids are hungry. Load up a cooler or bag with food to help you get further down the road before you have to stop. Food is always a good bribe for good behavior as well.

Put a Parent in the Back

Traditionally, Mom and Dad ride up front in the car. On road trips, try putting one parent in the back with the kids. This will work more easily if you have a mini-van or SUV. The kids are distracted because “Hey, Mommy is sitting by me.” The parent can then play with the kids or read stories to them.

Be sure both Mom and Dad take turns rotating with the kids to help maintain parental sanity.

Movies

When all else fails, you can use movies. Get a portable DVD player or iPod or whatever you have and let your kids watch movies. On our 54-hour road trip, we managed to go all but the last six hours before we needed to pull out the movies. We simply kept our toddler twins (and their older brothers) occupied with the aforementioned activities.

It won’t take long before your kids realize that there’s a difference between driving to a play date and spending a significant amount of time in the car on a road trip. It’s okay to let them get a little bored. It’s okay for you to not be thrusting the next activity in front of their faces as soon as the current one is over. You’ll smile as you see them get creative with entertaining themselves.

Good luck and happy trails!

Even though you will be in a fog most of your twins’ first year, you will eventually want to go out on a date with your wife.

You’ll need a babysitter if you want to leave the house without the twins.

Getting a babysitter for twins is a little more complicated than with a singleton.

Make it Easy

If you still struggle with singlehandedly taking care of both your twins, then think twice about leaving them with a teenage babysitter from down the street.

Many of the dates that my wife and I took in those early days of twins started after our girls were asleep and in bed. It was much easier to have a babysitter come over and simply watch the house (and sleeping kids) than leave her with a handful of child care.

So if you have to “cheat” by going on a date after the twins go to sleep, that is just fine.

Prepare Your Twins

Regardless of your twins’ age, a key to getting them ready for a babysitter is to have a regular bedtime routine you follow. A babysitter will be a new unknown in their space so falling back to the safety of the known routine is critical.

Talk to your twins (repeatedly) about your date night and that you’ll have a babysitter coming over to play with them and help them get ready for bed. Setting expectations early (even with very young children) will help eliminate, or at least reduce, the surprise and shock when the babysitter actually walks through the door.

Ideally, your twins would meet the babysitter before the actual date night and in a forum where mommy and daddy are still around. Introduce your kids to the neighbor or a potential babysitter during the normal schedule you already keep. Familiarity will help comfort your twins when date night arrives.

Prepare Your Babysitter

Aside from the normal instructions you’d leave a babysitter (how to contact you, emergency info, bedtime, etc.), twins require a little extra information.

Make sure your babysitter can tell your twins apart.

Let your sitter know which blankets, toothbrushes, and other “stuff” goes with which child. Often your twins will know and naturally grab the right item but this isn’t always the case.

Explain to your babysitter the routine your twins are used to and how that should play out in your absence.

Identify where your twins sleep and in which bed. If they are already asleep when you leave on your date, this is extra important, particularly if a given twin has special needs or is more likely to require attention.

First Time is the Hardest

Once you go on your first post-twins date and leave your twins at home with a prepared and competent babysitter, you’ll wonder why you didn’t go out sooner.

Enjoy your evening out and don’t wait too long before you go out again!

The Christmas season is a joyful time to spend with your family, including your twins.

Just how ready you need to be will be based on how old your twins are when December 25th rolls around.

If your twins are one year old or younger, then don’t worry too much. Just like with their first twin birthday, you can probably keep things simple and they (and you) will still be happy.

As your twins get older, you’ll need to adjust your strategies if you hope to keep a smile on your face. This applies not only to gift-giving, but to navigating the rituals and traditions of the season, as well.

Variety

Try to give your twins different gifts and not just all two of a kind. This will help them learn to share and they’ll even get double mileage out of the same toy.

Ask Them

If your twins are talking, ask them what presents they would like for Christmas. Don’t worry, this isn’t cheating. If they tell you, you can get it. Doesn’t that equal less stress right there?

After purchases have been made, you can employ one of two tactics: let them forget what they told you they wanted until they happily open it on Christmas morning, or get them excited about it by dropping comments to the effect of “Wouldn’t it be so much fun is you received such-n-such?”

Distract

If one or both of the twins are unhappy during a family dinner, party, or present opening time, don’t forget the powerful distraction technique. Pull out the hidden toy, fun song, favorite candy, or piggy back ride and quickly watch your little one get back in the groove.

This is particularly effective when you can use the positive peer pressure aspect of twins. Get one twin doing the right thing, and the other is more likely to follow.

Play

Enjoy your time with your twins. Perhaps you’ve been working too much and haven’t been able to see or play with them as much as you’d like. Enjoy your time off at Christmas to get to know each of your twin’s individual personalities and quirks.

Flexibility

Your normal routine will be interrupted during Christmas travels and celebrations. This will put stress on you and your twins. Roll with the punches and be flexible with what you will and won’t do.

Get Some Rest

Twins are a lot of energy and work, even if they are past the newborn stages. They will wear you out. If you’ve been isolated from them during the week due to work or other commitments, you will get a full blast of twin-induced tiredness over the holiday. Make sure you get some rest to compensate.

Patience

Two little people with minds of their own will not always want to go along with your plans. Be patient. Take a deep breath and try again and your Christmas with twins will be great.

Just because you have twins doesn’t mean you can’t go on vacation. It just means travel won’t be as easy as it was before they joined your family. Traveling on a plane with twins can be done, you just need to be prepared.

The extra cost of flying with twins is a major factor when planning your vacation.

The cheapest way to fly with toddler twins is to fly before they turn two years old.

Most airlines let kids under two fly free if they sit on an adult’s lap during the flight.

So traveling with your twins as “lap children” is your best bet to saving money via air travel with them.

Unfortunately, you’re probably stuck in a paradox. When the twins are infants, you’ll probably think that flying with them is the last thing you want to do. However, this is probably the time when they are easiest to carry as “lap children”: they don’t move much, are happy to cuddle on your lap, and can’t climb or run away.

With toddlers, they may be cheaper to fly free but they take more work. If you’ve got twinadoes at home, just imagine how twins will be on the plane and plan accordingly.

We planned a family vacation in the month before our girls turned two years old. While it was cheaper on our pocketbook, it definitely wore my wife and I out. Our biggest challenge was keeping the girls still and on our laps during take off, landing, and other “keep your seatbelt on” moments.

In fact, on a family trip we had made six months earlier, I promised myself that I would rather pay for them to have their own seats on the next trip than travel with them as lap children. However, when it came down to price we opted for the cheaper (free) fare and simply dealt with the mayhem in flight.

You should have a good idea of your twins’ behavior in confined spaces (think long car trips or stuck a shopping cart) and can weigh their expected behavior with the price of the extra tickets.

Happy Travels!

Buying toys for twins is always a challenge. Should you buy two of everything? Buy different toys for each twin? What if they don’t like any of them?

Remember, you don’t need double of everything with twins. This is especially true with toys.

Different Likes

Even if you have identical twins, each twin will have a unique personality with distinct likes and dislikes.

This means that you can buy two different toys and one would appeal to each child. Granted you have to be paying attention to your twins’ unique preferences for this to work.

For example, one of our daughters loves swings. When saw a Little People playset with a swing at the toy store, we knew she would love it.

Attention Span

When you buy different toys, you can help offset the short attention span your young twins will have. They will most likely rotate through the toys one by one.

Diversity

Having a diverse set of toys will give your twins some stimulating activities and help avoid boredom and toy fatique.

Stack the Odds

As well as you think you know your twins, you will probably buy some toys that aren’t your kids’ favorites. This is fine as long as you stacked the deck in your favor by buying different types of toys. This way, if one toy flops, the others can save the day. Just like you’d want a balanced portfolio in the stock market, you need a balanced toy mix for your twins.

If you feel the need to buy two of the same toy, stick with the time-tested and tried-and-true favorites, like push poppers or Magna Doodles. These toys are still around because children have been consistent lovers of it over time. It’s probably a safe bet that both of your twins will, too.

Your twins will have to do a lot of things together as they grow up. Since they are the same age and maybe even the same gender, they will likely share the same clothes, room, toys, friends, classes, and more.

Your child’s birthday should be a celebration of him or her. However, this celebration gets a little complicated with twins.

You’ll be tempted to do a two-for-one birthday party for your twins.

It would be easier to just have one joint party, one cake, one birthday song, one shared present, and one of everything.

You’ll probably be able to keep your twins’ first birthday really simple, however, they will quickly start to have an opinion as they get older. You need to be ready for the subsequent years of birthdays.

You’ve got twins and each of them deserves attention, especially on their birthday.

Here’s some ideas on how to help your twins celebrate a birthday so they each feel special:

• Have two birthday cakes. Let each twin pick what type of cake they want.
• Sing “Happy Birthday” to each child individually.
• Get a thoughtful and unique gift for each twin.
• Pick or let each child select an activity that he wants or likes to do.
• Encourage any guests to bring cards or gifts for each twin.
• If you like to have a special birthday meal, let each child select what they’d like to eat. This may mean one picks for lunch and the other for dinner.
• Keep the celebration simple. This is mostly for your sanity but will also help keep things focused on your kids and not all the logistics around the celebration.

Take the extra effort to make your twins’ birthday a special one. You have other opportunities to group your twins together the rest of the year. However, on this special day do what it takes to show your kids you care about each one individually.

One of my regrets about our twins’ first year was that I didn’t get more pictures with both my girls.

You may have a similar problem. If you don’t actively make the effort to get pictures with both of your twins, it just won’t happen.

It may seem a little silly to plan for pictures, maybe a little contrived, forced, or posed. But if you don’t plan for it, you won’t get any pictures of you with your babies. Why? Numerous reasons:

• Perhaps you are the one that always takes the pictures. If you are behind the camera, you’re not in the picture.
• If you’ve got other kids, they will be asking for attention, too, as soon as they see the camera.
• The bigger your twins get, the harder it is to physically pick both of them up at the same time for a picture.
• You can’t take a self-portrait by holding out the camera in one hand while holding a baby in the other since you’ve got two babies.

How do you make sure you get pictures of you and your twins?

Plan for it.

Keep it always on the front of your mind.

I found it helpful to make a point of getting pictures with my twins on major events and holidays. For example, every holiday and birthday I try to get pictures with my twins. Do I always get pictures on these days? No. But if you don’t try, then you’ll never get them.

The hard pictures to get are of you and your twins in everyday settings. The trick here is to keep your camera out and nearby.

When you see your twins doing something cute, funny, or spectacular, don’t just think, “Oh, that’s awesome.” Go get your camera (or ask your wife to grab the camera) and take a picture of you and the kiddos.

There are a lot of things about life that are fleeting. Documenting life with photos is a great way to preserve the memories.

Although I had sworn to never take my kids to Disneyland until everyone was potty trained and they were all tall enough to ride all the rides, we somehow found our family at Disneyland with our four kids, ages 4 and under.

When we went to Disneyland, our twins were 10 months old.

We had a blast and you can, too.

Pick the Right Park

Some amusement parks are more kid-friendly than others. Take time before you arrive at the park to spec out things like restrooms (particularly family-style ones), mother’s nursing lounges, stroller parking areas, and if there are any courtesy refrigerators where you can store food or milk. Most parks have maps online that you can study and map out your strategy. A little bit of prior planning will help the day go so much smoother. You don’t want to spend the day sitting on a bench with your crying twins, wondering why you came in the first place.

At Disneyland, we were surprised by how many rides didn’t have a height requirement. We were able to wait in line together as a family and even ride the rides together as a family. Even with our baby girls in tow.

Stroller

You don’t want to carry your twins in your arms all day long. We saw plenty of tired parents who did just that.

Be prepared, take your double twin stroller. Aside from the obvious purpose of a stroller, the stroller also acts as a pack mule for carrying bags and souvenirs that will easily fit over the handles.

Just be aware that your heavy bags are counterbalanced by the babies in the seats. So when you take the babies out, expect the stroller to fall backwards if it is indeed that pack mule just mentioned.

The stroller will also double as the sleeping quarters about halfway through the day. Since your infant twins are used to taking naps, they will eventually get so tired that they will just fall asleep in the stroller.

Baby Carriers

In addition to our stroller, we took two Baby Bjorn front baby carriers. These turn you and your wife into pseudo-kangaroos with your babies strapped firmly to your chest.

These carriers were invaluable in being able to hold our twins without sacrificing our arms while we waited in line and even while we took them on some rides.

Plus, if you and your wife are walking or standing next to each other, you’ll get lots of “Oh, look at the twins!” comments.

I highly recommend the Bjorn baby carriers.

Food

Check that the amusement park you are attending will allow you to bring in food and water. Your kids will be used to certain foods and you need to have those on hand for consumption throughout the day. This is particularly important if your babies have started solids but aren’t past the pureed food stage.

Water is also key, especially since you don’t want to pay exorbitant prices for water once you’re in the park. You will need water to keep you, your wife, and the kids hydrated, as well as needing it to mix with formula for bottles.

Don’t Forget the Sunscreen

This may be stating the obvious, but make sure everyone gets a liberal covering of sunscreen throughout the day. Babies have thinner skin than adults, which is prone to burning faster. You don’t want to have a fun day at the park only to be up all night with crying babies who can’t move without their sunburn hurting them.

Have Fun

Going to amusement parks with little kids isn’t really for your entertainment. You will go on rides you won’t normally ride. But you will find joy not in the thrill of the ride but in watching your twins’ reactions to everything going on around them.

When you reach your twins’ first birthday, you deserve a little celebration. After all, both you and your twins have survived the first year. Congratulations.

You may be tempted to have a big birthday bash with dozens of friends, expensive gifts, decorations, and entertainment.

My advice: keep it simple.

You’ve worked hard over the first year to keep your twins alive and cope with the insanity that two babies can bring into your home. Don’t add to your stress by having a massive birthday party.

Fortunately, the first birthday is the only chance in your kids’ lives when they have no expectations of what a typical birthday should be like. Your twins’ first birthday is therefore your only chance to take it easy. So take it easy!

Presents

What should you do about birthday presents for your twins?

One of our daughters was interested in the paper and the other in the actual gift. This worked out nicely but your situation may be different.

You don’t need tons of gifts. Your babies will want to play with the wrapping paper, then the box, and ultimately, the actual gift. This is a new experience for them and they may very well act upset or frustrated if rushed to the next present.

The solution is to have only a few gifts. If you have multiple gifts, spread them out throughout the day to extend the enjoyment.

For example, our daughters opened their presents from their older brothers first thing in the morning. When the grandparents came to visit later that day, the twins each opened a present. We had dinner, and then opened some more presents.

Should you buy two of everything? It depends. By the one year mark, you’ll know your twins’ personalities and will know if they can share toys or fight over everything. Plan your presents accordingly.

Birthday Cake

We made a big deal of each girl having her own cake. After all, each twin is an individual that just happens to be sharing a birthday with her sibling.

While I think separate cakes will be a bigger deal as the twins get older, the first birthday could probably have done with just one cake.

There is one thing that you must do on your twins’ first birthday: get pictures and video of them eating their birthday cake.

Your twins won’t remember anything but you need proof that you did something for them on their first birthday.

Birthday Guests

How many people should you invite over for the birthday party?. My answer: as few as possible.

Your kids are too young to have any friends and they aren’t expecting to see anybody on their birthday besides those they see everyday.

So the people you should have at your twins’ first birthday party are the people that your kids are most familiar with and the loved ones that want to witness this big milestone (like grandparents).

Ironically, babies typically develop stranger anxiety right around their first birthday, and even grandparents can seem like strangers. If your twins are beginning to exhibit signs of stranger anxiety, you may want to take that into consideration as well when planning your guest list.

Enjoy It!

You’ve survived the first year of your twins’ lives. Now, cherish this day. Take lots of pictures and video. And don’t forget to have someone take a picture of you with your babies!

Soak in the sights, sounds, and yes, smells of the birthday because your twins will never have another one like this again.