Fourteen to sixteen feeds a day – sixteen to twenty changes a day – no more than forty minutes consecutive sleep a night for you – Welcome to twin babies.
Don’t rush to leave hospital.
If these twins are your first babies, even if they have been in the NICU for weeks or months, the more help you can get learning how to care for them, with professional help standing by, the more help getting into a routine, the more confidence you can gain, the better.
You will also have easier access to high grade equipment for expressing milk for tube or top-up feeding. Premature twins are often released home with tube feeds or just after coming off them. If you feel that you need more time to master either tube feeding or breastfeeding your twins, say so. Most moms feel incredulous that they could be released to home and unleashed upon an unsuspecting newborn or two without so much as a Brownie badge. It’s natural to feel nervous about going home but don’t be pushed, jump when you are ready.
Once at home, never never promise to be anywhere with your twins before midday.
When I had been home with my twins for 3 or 4 days, I was asked to take them to the baby clinic for a check up at 9:30 one morning. At that time, my twin babies were taking 90 minutes each to feed and wind, they were still 5 weeks before their due date and they were so sleepy that they weren’t even crying yet. We were preparing dozens of bottles to top them up when they became too tired for the exhausting labor of breast feeding. I had never taken them out anywhere before and needed to check and re-check my backpack several times In short, I got up at 3:30 a.m. in order to get all those jobs done and be out of the house by 9:00. Of course, by the time I was ready, they were ready to be fed again.
When they first arrive home and for the first few months have one crib downstairs and one upstairs.
For some months they will both fit in one crib and, indeed, find some comfort in being in it together. It means that you can put them down for a nap and keep an eye on them without traipsing up and down stairs. Don’t worry about it being noisier downstairs, small babies sleep better in noisy environments than in quiet ones and the more they become used to this sooner the better.
Have nappy changing scattered throughout the house.
This will save you having to desert one twin to change the other or having to cart them both off. It cuts down wear and tear on your already over worked legs looking after your twin babies.
