Dealing with twins can be tough
צילום אילוסטרציה: איי פי
10 tips to raising twins
The editor of a twins website offers some hints about making the first year of twins manageable
1. Set priorities
Time is your most precious asset in the first year, and by organizing your day properly you are likely to save time. There is no standard recipe for doing this, since every family has its own priorities, different emphases in taking care of the babies and the house, and a different approach to how things should be done. Even so, it’s important to decide which tasks are high priority and which things can wait. This kind of planning is likely to reduce your stress and give you realistic expectations about everyday activities.
2. Ask for help and ask for more help
Ask others for help during the first year. This can be family, friends, neighbors, or paid help. Being assertive and directing the help to where it is most needed will minimize situations in which people around you try to help in areas where you’d prefer to manage by yourselves. In cases like these the help becomes a burden.
If you are alone with the twins at difficult times of day (meaning mostly the afternoon or evening), it’s a good idea to get help. An extra pair of hands makes all the difference.
3. Keep an open mind
The initial period of twins’ life is very intense, and being flexible will make your life easier. The large number of daily tasks that must be done makes it necessary to reorganize your time while giving up some of the principles and ideals that were appropriate in the “pre-twin” days. Finding creative solutions for different situations and being open-minded and flexible is likely to go a long way toward lightening the burden.
4. Make lists
The first year of the twins’ life is filled with activities and events and everything is doubled or more: feedings, baths, outings, drugs, developmental stages, and the like. It’s nearly impossible to remember everything, so I strongly recommend writing everything down: who ate what and when, who got medicine today or an iron supplement and at what time, who started walking and when. For those who like nostalgia, keep these lists as a souvenir.
5. Set up areas with baby equipment
It’s a good idea to set up a number of areas in the home in strategic locations, some for diapers and diaper accessories, some for toys and games, some for pacifiers, and some for food. This means you won't’ have to run all over the house looking for these items.
6. Divide night duty between the two of you
Sleep is essential for daily functioning, so I recommend that you divide up nights between the two parents (if the babies are not being exclusively breast fed). Divide up nights into shifts and have one parent get up at the beginning of the night and the other in the middle of the night. This allows each parent to get several hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.
7. Get out of the house
Getting out of the house, with the babies or without them, is likely to go a long way toward improving your mood, even if it’s a very short outing to the supermarket or a brief stroll along the street.
8. Maintain your sense of intimacy as a couple
The first period in the life of the babies is very stressful, and fatigue is liable to contribute to tension between the members of the couple. Try to keep communication flowing, talk about things that are bothering you, and if you can get out of the house together as a couple from time to time, I recommend that you do that. Going out together renews your intimacy after it gets pushed aside a bit when you are parents working time-and-a-half.
9. Get support
Support should help a great deal and make life easier when you are coping with the difficulties of the initial period of raising twins or triplets. You can get support by contacting the twins and triplets’ organization, or from professsionals or workshops for parents of twins and triplets.
Another way, no less important, is getting support from other parents of twins or triplets, who you can meet in places such as internet forums, groups for parents of multiples, or even by walking up to them in the park or any other place (most of these parents can be identified by their double stroller and they’ll usually be happy to talk with you and to help you).
10. Don’t be in a hurry
Your world is turned upside down after the birth and you’re liable to feel that nothing is the way it used to be. It’s going to take time until you find the right way for you as a family and a routine that suits your outlook and way of life. Until then, take your time. Every family has its own pace for adjusting.
The writer is the author of a guide to pregnancy and birth with multiples, and the editor of the twins’ website
