Any parents of twins?? Is my life over for 3 years??

I adopted my kids and we had two six weeks apart, so basically twins. They had complications from drug withdrawals but there were two things that saved us. First, we put them on a schedule. We didn't do it with our kids after them, but for the twins it was a lifesaver. We did the 90 minute schedule so we knew what they needed when. Honestly, that was the best advice we got from a life management perspective. Second, we let them cry it out at about 3.5 months. It took several nights. My wife cried next to the door hearing them scream for a couple hours. They've been champion sleepers ever since. Getting back to a six-seven hour sleeping block was the best.

They're now six and it's great. Once they sleep through the night it's much, much easier and basically not much different than having two kids. Now they entertain each other and are great friends. They have a bunk bed but choose to still sleep on the top one together, head to toe.

Thank you for this! If you can survive two sets of twins, I need to stfu and get through a few exhausting years. It could always be worse, right?

Bad Wigins wrote:

One thing I wonder is, do these stressed out parents ever forget which one is which and unknowingly switch their twins, until they eventually find unique traits to identify them?

What if rojo is really wejo and vice versa?

My mom claims she could always tell us apart. I don't think my dad has made that claim :)

I've never heard my parents say anything about how tough it was raising us. I should be a bit more appreciative after reading this.

My thinking two kids at once is not twice as hard as one kid and at some point it is easier as the kids can play with each other. Two kids at once seems easier to me than 2 one year apart.

And why don't more parents let the babies cry it out? I know nothing about parenting but seems like a good solution.

I have twins. Ours were born when we had a 19 month old, much like you. I always tell people they are like having one very high maintenance baby. If anything, it might be easier, since this is your second rodeo. We kept them on the same schedule with both feeding and naps. If one woke up and wanted to eat, we woke up the other one and fed it. Everything just took a little longer. When the twins were 17 months, we had our 4th... so 4 in the space of 3 years... and we survived!

I have twins. I feel like it was rough until theg went to preschool at 4 yrs for about four hours a day. Then obviously once they went to school it wasn't bad as they were gone all day from 9-4 so it was basically like just having two kids. The hard part is that there is no financial break- college happens at the same time, the kids want cars at the same time etc. But overall it's really not bad. Especially because one of my kids was really easy- slept 8 hours a night, took long naps, never cried.

Aridzona wrote:

We do have lots of family that live nearby that were willing to help, so that was nice.

I was working way too much and

Fortunately my income is enough for my wife to stay at home, so it wasn't a financial burden.

You might have had 2 sets of twins (ouch!!), BUT.....you had family helping and you were working long hours with your wife and family watching the kids all the time. In other words: you weren't doing much as far as the kids were concerned. Really. I've done the stay at home thing for a few years (and at other times worked long hours). Unless you are taking care of young kids full time, you aren't able to judge the experience. I know some parents that work a ton of hours and they basically come from work and the kids are already ready for bed. They see their kids max 1 hour a day during the week. And the non-working parent wakes up most of the nights. How is THAT hard or how is life so different for that long-hours working parent??

Spend 60-70 hours a week (work-week, much more if you count weekends of course) being in charge of your young children and then report back on "hard it was." You could have 10 kids, but if you are not spending time with them (not your fault, you are the bread winner), your life has not changed that much.

(now of course once kids are in school, the stay-at-home parents have it EASY. I did the one year, but then was back to work full time)

The life saver was at about 5-6 months we just FORCED them to sleep through the night, it was like 3-4 nights of crying but after that entire NIGHT!

But yes as someone else mentioned! Do NOT ever ever let them get out of sync, if one wakes up you wake the other up to feed and change.

My wife and I used to do a round each at night, i'd take the first round around 12:00 and my wife would do like 4:00am or whatever. Have to get good and propping those bottles up with towels, pillow...etc so you can feed two at once!

It's a journey

Mine go to preschool next week !!!!

So freaking excited.

Weed & Alcohol definitely help!

Wowwwdude wrote:

Wife is due in 5 weeks... Currently have a 17 month old. Seriously, how many years of life will I be losing??

Dude.

You love your wife?

Probably, otherwise you wouldn't have impregnated her with children that could possibly see the extinction of their own species, as they'll likely be alive when the world's ocean's are predicted to die due to over fishing and pollution, in about 42 years.

You decided to bring children into a world where 50% of the population goes to sleep hungry every night, and 33% go to sleep penniless.

Not to mention sociopaths like Putin who just want a reason to set off a nuke. Or give one to Iran. Or any number of doomsday clock scenarios that even a carbon footprinter breeding idiot like yourself can reasonably envision.

So, I highly suggest that you get your ego out of your ass and stop worrying about losing Your Life for the next 3 years, and Start Thinking About How you Can Love and Help your Wife and those 3 wee ones as much as you can every waking minute after work.

The first years of life are the most important for building emotional / psychological resilience into a little human being.

I suggest you dedicate yourself to THAT. Research some things that could make it easier...like "the family bed." (Not that weird really, when you consider 100 years ago, that's pretty much what most people had to do. Just don't molest your kids or hutch like bunnies when they are awake.)

Oh, and get a freaking vasectomy.

My brother had triplets. He worked 5AM to 5PM, and then came home and took care all 3 of them while his wife had a "break" and cooked dinner.

The three little ones would lay on his chest and nap with him before dinner.

He learned to turn off the TV and help his kids with their homework. He learned to coach soccer.

They're all health adults now, having earned scholarships and been instilled with resilience and a high baseline state of contentment and happiness from parents you put their ego's away when they made the choice to breed.

Your kids didn't ask to be born. You owe them every moment you can give until they are launched with healthy lives -- and don't end up like Jamin, or one of the bipolar women dudes talk about here.

--Out.

Sounds like despite a heavy work load I'm a much more involved parent than you are. It was hard, and I did a lot of the work (still do). To say that I'm not "able to judge the experience" is stupidly incorrect.

Mucus Pus Dairy wrote:

Stay away from the vaccines

In other words, this guy is saying, "kill your kids so you don't have to take care of them." That's all non-vaccinators hope for. Give them vaccines and they'll live long healthy lives.

I believe my original post asked for any parents of twins. I don't need advice from crazy uncle Jimmy.

Cry it out... Wife didn't believe in it with our 17 month old and he is still a horrible sleeper. Hoping we can get on the same page with the twins.

Keeping them on the same schedule... We're planning on doing this. Makes so much sense in theory, I'm worried that one will be a good sleeper and we'll ruin what they are bringing to the table. We'll see!

I didn't realize there were so many parents of multiples on LR. Makes sense though since every LR poster is fast, rich, and has a hot wife/gf...might as well have immaculate swimmers too!

Wowwwdude wrote:

I didn't realize there were so many parents of multiples on LR. Makes sense though since every LR poster is fast, rich, and has a hot wife/gf...might as well have immaculate swimmers too!

The upswing in twin frequency over the past 10-20 years is largely the result of fertility treatments.

Triplets Uncle wrote:

You decided to bring children into a world where 50% of the population goes to sleep hungry every night, and 33% go to sleep penniless.

And a world where 42% of people make up statistics.

Think of the advantage you'll have of economies of scale and a shorter total amount of full-time care. Even if with twins and a child that will be 1 1/2 at their birth, that means that in just four or five years, they will all likely be in school full time, which is not bad at all (in fact, if you're like me right now, you'll be very sad about that and miss all that time with your kids). In my case, it took nine years for both kids to be in school full-time, because they were five years apart (and when the first child was four, she was only in school about 3 1/2 hours a day, as they don't have full day public pre-K in this state).