Dad's Guide to Twins

Episode 291 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Damari Gupton, father of fraternal twins (girl/boy). Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Raising 7 kids ages 11 years old down to 6 month-old twins Supporting Mom as she breastfeeds the twins Struggles of twins’ schedules not being in sync Balance parenting the twins and other children Taking time off work and career choices based on family needs Establishing routines for housework and employment Risks and challenges of comparing the twins Making room for twins in the house and more… Check out Damari’s book: The Answers I Never Received: A Fathers Guide to His Legacy Podcast Transcript This is transcript auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:05 Today we are continuing our father twins interview series. With the father of seven children, including fraternal twins. He has some great insights into how to juggle all the demands of a busy family life. work responsibilities, taking care of your partner and some great insights into how to interact with your children to foster those relationships, even when you’re trying to manage so much at the same time. Intro 0:28 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:42 Hi everybody this is Joe Rawlinson. Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast as always, you can find me online at twindadpodcast.com. You can find the show notes for this episode and listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads it’s called Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins. This book will guide you through the first couple years of raising your twins. You can learn more about this book at raisingtwinsbook.com Today I would like to welcome to the show father of twins Damari Gupton. Welcome to the show Damari. Damari 1:08 How are you doing Joe? Thank you for having me. Joe 1:10 Doing great thanks for being here with me today. So Damari, you’ve got quite the crew. You’ve got seven kids including twins, right? Damari 1:18 Yes. Joe 1:18 What’s the age range for those children that you have? Damari 1:21 My oldest is 11. And my youngest well my twins they are six months today actually quite the household. Joe 1:30 So when you when you found out that you would be having your twins. What was your reaction like when you got that news? Damari 1:35 I found that I had the twins that I was having twins. I actually started breaking out in sweats. And me and my wife we have right now with two year old so at the time he was you know about to turn one. And you know we wanted to have him a running me. Somebody grew up with that he know he found out she’s pregnant. She was pregnant and okay cool. You know, then we went to that first appointment. You know I watched the ultrasound. You know, since this is not my first rodeo, I know how ultrasound looks. So when I see you know, two different spaces with two different surgeons and I’m like, oh, man, like, had access to those twins. Someone asked me the nurse didn’t even want to look at me. You know, my wife asked me like you know, you’re playing you know, you’re playing you know, almost fainted, you know, sitting down almost fainting. So it was it was a big surprise. Big surprise. Joe 2:37 Especially, especially being a father already and having kids already you knew and what you’re getting into it’s just another childhood to have to have to at the same time. What were some of those thoughts you had right away? Like I was just going to be different than than what I have already. Damari 2:51 Um, I don’t think it was really nothing you know, to be different. It was just that nobody to have to, you know, so I know there’s a part of you don’t go to work. I started making up my mind did I know I was gonna have to be home. You know, I was gonna have to do a lot more instead of just you know, working and taking care of household I knew I had to be in the house and you know, managing things a little bit more and being more hands on and you know, helping my wife with you know, what was actually going on with it. Joe 3:21 What were your other kids reactions to finding out that you would be having twins? Damari 3:25 Oh, this was definitely shocked. You know, he he’s, he’s 11 Right now it’s time so at the time he was maybe 10. But now it’s it’s all great news and you know, he loves it. He loves being a big brother. You know, he loves to switch you know, I can have an I have XRV now my daughter into you know, FM five and five minutes can have z my son you know five minutes and you know he likes it. He likes being older

Episode 290 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Brad Myers, father of identical twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Having twins when they already had a 2 year old When one twin is smaller than the other Made it to 36 weeks of pregnancy then birth via c-section Hiring a night doula for a couple nights a week Finding au pair that was a good fit from Argentina Au pairs live in the home and you set the schedule Hosting and adjusting to life with an au pair Traveling with young twins Challenges with twins vs a singleton Getting twins on the same schedule When twins don’t succeed with breastfeeding and more… Connect with Brad via email [email protected] Podcast Transcript This is transcript auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe Rawlinson We’re continuing our father twin series with a father who shares their experience of hiring an au pair to care for their twins plus their older son. So we dive into all the details of how they found an au pair, kind of the work requirements, expectations, living arrangements and all that. So if you’re interested in that type of childcare for your twins in your family, stay tuned. We’re going to cover that and much more about his twin journey today. Intro Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe Rawlinson Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always you can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com. Where you’ll find all previous podcast episodes. Today we have a great chat with a father of twins, whose identical twin girls are nearing the 20 month old mark some of the challenges he’s overcome welcoming twins into the family with a toddler singleton already in the family. Some of those dynamics, as well as a lot of great details about childcare option which you may want to consider for your twins and that is an au pair. We’ll dive into those details in a second. Before I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads of twins. It is called Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins. You can pick up a copy for yourself at raisingtwinsbook.com Today, I’d like to welcome to the show father of twins, Brad Myers. Welcome to the show, Brad. Brad Myers: Great. Thanks, Joe. Nice to be here. Joe: Right How old are your twins right now and what’s something exciting about this age Brad: so the girls are identical twin girls are 20 months and exciting about this age. Most most exciting is that we I feel like we’ve weathered some of the worst worst of the twin privilege of having twins in their early years, but they’re just super excited about life and kind of developing their own personalities. So that’s, that’s really fun to see. Joe: It’s fun when they get past that baby stage and they really start to express themselves and you see the personalities kind of foster and develop between and how unique they can really be. Yeah. So let’s go back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? And how was that news received? Brad: Yeah, so we, at the time, we had a two year old boy, and we thought that it might be time to try and see if we get add to our family and lo and behold we definitely added to our family. I can still remember that first appointment is it’s usually pretty standard. You go in, you find out you’re pregnant and then you kind of leave and the moment that the OBGYN was like oh my gosh you guys and so just that element of surprise on her end was enough. You know, and then she quickly followed it up with you guys are having twins and I think for us was like in that exact moment. I can remember looking at my wife Alex and I think both both of us shed like a single tear of like, okay, um, this is both cool and very stressful at the time because I mean with the two year old as well, it’s, it felt like our family just kind of exploded in an instant, Joe: especially having been a father already. And you’re in the middle of toddler craziness with a two year old. And we had a very similar experience where we I mean, we had two boys already when our twins were born, but we knew what a lot of all the efforts that they required, you know, to very young children, so when it’s when they’re like hey, you’re having twins I’m just thinking how we’re even going to manage the craziness. So two years, two years old, he was probably too young to really kind of grasp what was happening. Brad: Yeah, it’s true. And I think that, you know, one of the takeaways and for fathers for your listeners this it

Episode 289 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Zach Starr, father of identical twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Mom developing liver cholestasis during pregnancy Water broke at 33 weeks in the middle of the night Natural delivery of twins when they thought it would be a c-section Staying positive with each milestone girls reached in the NICU Getting twins on the same schedule Dealing with the witching hour in the evenings Challenges of breast feeding the twins Successfully sleep training the twins Finding a babysitter to help with kids during the day Having a third child when twins were still under age 2 Road tripping with lots of little ones Dental tips for young children Developing a strong bond with your twins and more… Connect with Zach via email [email protected] Podcast Transcript This is transcript auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe: Today we’d like to welcome to the show, father of twins. Zach Starr, welcome to the show. Zach. Zach, how old are your twins right now and what is something really exciting about this age? Zach: My twin girls will turn four in about two weeks and something that’s really exciting about this age is they’re constantly learning new phrases, and they’ll say things to you that you would have no idea how they would know about how to say that or what it even means. But they’re always coming up with something new. Joe: Is one of your girls, usually the first to come up with a phrase or they just kind of take turns? Zach: They take turns on they are identical but they have extremely different personalities. And that can change. It’s not like one always does one thing or one does the other. But in terms of milestones, there was definitely one who seemed to achieve those maybe a week or two before her sister, technically the younger of the twins. But they have different interests and different styles. Big thing for them right now is clothing and accessories and shoes and hair bands all of that. Joe: It’s so fun when they start to have an opinion about what they wear, what their what their sister’s wearing, and we’ve gone through all that as well. Let’s rewind back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like and how was your reaction to that news? Zach: Sure. My wife and I had been married for about three years. I wouldn’t say that we were trying to have kids but we also weren’t trying or weren’t not trying to have kids. So we found out my wife was pregnant. This was in 2018, late 2018 And we went to the first ultrasound appointment at a regular OB and I remember just being a little nervous because I hadn’t ever done something like this before. And I remember the tech left the room and then came back in. And when she came back in she had brought the doctor and that’s when they told us that there were twins and they showed us on the screen. And I remember they brought out a textbook because they couldn’t figure out what the how many eggs there were and how many sacks there were based on the way the ultrasound looked. But they ended up being monozygotic dye amniotic twins. And the OB told us also that the hospital that he had privileges that didn’t have a NICU that was sufficient enough for possible complications. So they offered to still kind of see us but they weren’t going to be able to deliver the babies. So they referred us to an MFM a maternal fetal medicine doctor that was located more downtown in our metro area. And we ended up going there and they connected us with their own OB who would deliver the twins. Joe: Okay, so you do switcheroo there in the beginning. How was the pregnancy for mom and for babies? Zach: Everything went pretty smooth. You know for the most part, I would say probably in between the second and third trimester. My wife developed liver colon stasis. So she was retaining some of these liberal bribe byproducts that she shouldn’t be in it caused her to become very very itchy. And you know, I’ve never experienced anything like that but she was pretty miserable until this liberal stasis was diagnosed and they ended up putting her on a medication called her sidai All which basically took all those symptoms away. And the pregnancy was going really well. The the obese had strongly encouraged a scheduled C section at 36 weeks. That’s what they were wanting to do for identical twins. But my wife’s water ended up breaking at just about 33 weeks. Joe: So where were you and where was she when that happened – when her water broke? Zach: Yeah, I mean, it was pretty classic. Like out of the movies. It was the middle of the night. She woke me up and she said Hey, I think my water broke. It was technically a Monday morning. She was supposed to work that day. W

Which baby monitor should you get for your twins? What is the best baby monitor for twins? Here I’ll share recommendations from several twin parents so you can get an idea of what would be best for your family and household situation. Types of Baby Monitors for Twins First, let’s talk about the broad categories of baby monitors: Audio-Only dedicated baby monitors – you can hear your baby but you can’t see them. Video dedicated baby monitors – you can pull the video feed up on your phone or on a device and see what’s going on in your twins’ room. Security Cameras used as baby monitors – these are cameras that aren’t necessarily baby monitor cameras, but maybe they are home security cameras or things of that nature that you can dual purpose for a baby monitor in your twins’ nursery. Twin Must-Haves for Baby Monitors It is important to note that there aren’t twin-specific baby monitors. However, there are many that can help you keep tabs on both your twins at the same time. Be sure to look for baby monitors that: have two cameras or you can position one camera so you see both twins if they are video baby monitors, can you do a split screen and see both twins at once? are you able to mount them on the wall or out of reach of the twins’ cribs? Do you need two monitors for twins? Not necessarily if you can see and or hear both twins with one device. Can you use two baby monitors in the same house? You’ll need to double check the specifications of your baby monitors. If you get two identical baby monitors there is a chance of inference between the devices. However, some baby monitors have ways to adjust the channel or frequency used so avoid interference problems. If your twins are in the same room, you should be fine with just one twin baby monitor. Do you need a twin baby monitor with app so you can monitor your twins on your phone? Make sure you double check the specifications of the monitors to see if they have a mobile app compatible with your mobile device or if you can only monitor the babies within the same house on a dedicated viewing or listening device. Twin Baby Monitors that Twin Parents Use Let’s talk about some recommendations from twin parents to give you some ideas of what might work for you and your twins. What twin baby monitor is best? Here’s what your fellow twin parents have to say via the Dad’s Guide to Twins Facebook page: Owlets for Twins Can I use owlet with twins? Yes, you can. Darrell says that they used outlets for their twins. Audio-Only Baby Monitors Mark says that they had just one audio-only monitor for both sets of their twins. Like this one from VTech or this alternative. Pat says they had an audio-only baby monitor and that their twins shared a room so they just needed one monitor. Sarah says they had a single sound-only monitor. It was plugged in close enough to both cribs that they can hear if either baby cried. Video Baby Monitors Joe says the Vava baby monitor for twins (like this one) with split screens and it was hands down excellent with great night vision. Matt says they used a Motorola twin baby monitor with two cameras – one over each crib. Security Cameras as Baby Monitors Melissa said they used the Wyze cam, which is a security camera. They used to have two Wyze cams in the nursery but then they moved their twins to toddler beds and they could get away with just one camera because they could see the whole room. Brett used the Amazon blink camera. Daniel says that they used the Arlo as a baby camera. Get Creative for Monitoring Your Twins Mark says they didn’t even have baby monitors. They just checked it on the babies like clockwork to make sure that everything was going smoothly. Richie used Old iPhones with the Bibino app. Getting the Right Baby Monitor for Your Twins As you can see, there are tons of options for keeping an eye (or ear) on your twins. You can choose a do-it-yourself option like using a couple of old phones to create your own baby monitor system, a security camera like a Wyze, a dedicated baby monitor via video or audio, and more. The only important thing is that you can monitor your twins in a way that works for you. That way, you can help in case something goes wrong or if nap time is over. What We Used to Monitor Our Twin Girls We didn’t even use a baby monitor unless we were traveling. Our twins shared a room that was right next door to our master bedroom. So whenever they started to cry, or move around, we could actually hear them and we can go in and take care of them. We’d leave our doors open at night so we could make sure that we could hear and take care of them as needed. But when we’d travel, say we’d go visit grandma’s house and the twins were in a whole different part of the house, that’s when we set up an audio-only baby monitor so we could more easily check on the babies. If your twins will li

Episode 287 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Rob Kaercher, father of identical twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Raising 21-month old identical boys Watching the twins improve their verbal communication Staying on schedule with toddlers Six months in parents room for breastfeeding Transitioning from a DINK lifestyle to having twins IVF journey to twins from one viable embryo Moving while pregnant with twins Twin A’s sac broke at 31 weeks Didn’t know they had TTTS during pregnancy until delivery Twins in the NICU for 3 weeks One twin came home 24 hours before the other Getting up together to feed twins during the night for months changed to taking turns Dad off for two weeks and then worked from home for a month After maternity leave, couldn’t find day care for both boys at same place Dad decided to be a stay at home dad Some challenges of being a stay at home dad Keeping marriage strong while parenting twins Finding a babysitter for twins Making one on one time with twins Connect with Rob via email [email protected] or on Instagram or Facebook. Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. [00:00:00] Should you be a stay-at-home dad of your twins? How do you even decide if it’s you or your partner that stays home? Plus what happens when your twins are born early? We discuss all this and more as we continue our Father of Twins interview series today. [00:00:12] Welcome to the Dads Guide to Twins podcast, the podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. [00:00:19] Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. [00:00:27] Hey everybody. My name is Joe Rawlinson. I’m the founder of dadsguidetotwins.com where I help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Welcome to the podcast. As always. You can visit me online at dadsguidetotwins.com. [00:00:37] Today we’re having another chat with a twin dad that share some of his insights that he’s gained along the way. His twin journey from pregnancy to now having toddler twins. But before we jump into that interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dad’s. [00:00:52] It’s called Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins. You can get a copy of this book for yourself raisingtwinsbook.com. It will guide you through the first several years of your twins, from birth to crawlers, to toddlers and beyond. You can get your book at Raising Twins book dot. Today I would like to welcome to the show Father of Twins, Rob Kaercher. [00:01:14] Welcome to the show, Rob. [00:01:16] Thank you, Joe. Thank you so much for having me. [00:01:19] My pleasure. Rob, how old are your twins right now and what’s something really exciting about this age? [00:01:25] So my twins are just days away from being 21 months, and I think the most exciting part of this stage is the very recent development of. [00:01:39] Just better verbal communication. It’s constantly changing it and increasing week by week, and it has certainly made our lives a little easier while trying to just facilitate what the boys are, you know, trying to ask us what have [00:01:52] they been saying or how’s that communication been improving. [00:01:54] So they’ve slowly been stringing words together. [00:01:57] If they see something and we walk by it, they may say, bye. Chuchu, we have a train that runs close to our town, which they love to go and watch when we play at the playground. And as it’s leaving, they’ll say, bye, choo. Or, you know, Dad. Dad, bye mama. It’s been a lot of fun telling us when they won something such as milk or blueberries. [00:02:19] So it’s, that’s been a lot of fun and it’s just been in the last handful of weeks. [00:02:24] Are your boys identical or are they fraternal? They are identical. So have they kind of reached the same milestones at the same. [00:02:32] It has been staggered for us, and it’s been fun talking to folks about you know, their twins and, and how they meet milestones. [00:02:39] But for our boys, we have one who twin a and true to twin a form, he is the go-getter. He is the hammer in every problem as a nail, and he will attempt something countless times until he perfects it, whereas his brother twin b is. Analytical and we’ll watch and wait to attempt something we think until he’s been able to study it. [00:03:01] So he’s normally always been about a week or two weeks behind his brother. [00:03:07] So Twin, I figured something out. Twin B observes and then mimics that behavior. [00:03:12] Correct. And that’s a whole lot of fun to watch. We had a lot of [00:03:16] that too with our girls. As soon as one would figure it out, the other would kind of study that, and then they were never too far.

Will your twins personalities be totally similar? Or very different? From the outside, everybody assumes twins are the same in everything. The truth is, it’s the exact opposite. From my experience as a father of twins and talking to many other twin parents, I would say that close to nine out of 10 sets of twins are complete opposite personalities. Twins are very distinct and different individuals. Only in a very small percentage of times are the twins very similar. This is the same whether you have two girls, two boys, or boy/girl twins. The odds are your twins are going to have very different and distinct personalities. It All Starts in the Womb You will start to notice this during the twin pregnancy. Ask mom how she feels the different babies inside her. Is one baby more active than the other? Is one baby always kicking and pushing and the other one is kind of still? Are they both fighting all the time? These observations will give you a hint of the personalities that they will have after birth. I know with our girls, one of our girls was very active in utero, always in motion and the other twin, not so much. And turns out when they were born, that same pattern continued where one was a lot more active and always moving and the other was a little more still. So you may see the same pattern with your twins during the pregnancy. Think of it as kind of a preview of the type of twins that you’re going to get. Always Different A beautiful thing about twins is that even if they’re identical twins, they’re going to be different. Even if they share a lot of similar personality traits, they’re still going to be different enough that you can tell them apart by their mannerisms, movements, and speech. Subtle differences like these will shine out to you as a parent of identical twins. The truth is the personalities of your twins are going to be different and unique. While your twins may share a lot in common (like similar interests), there’ll always be some differences between the two of them. I mentioned at the beginning, a very small percentage of twins are going to be almost identical in their personalities. But that’s not uncommon and your twins may be that way as well. An interesting thing that I’ve observed with our twins, particularly when they were younger, is that they would switch personalities. For example, you get used to one twin being more vocal, outgoing, or active and the other twin being kind of more docile. And then before you know it, they’ll switch. Or you may get used to one twin, who’s good eater, eats anything you put in front of her and the other twin is a picky eater and then you know, after a week of that they’ll switch. Personalities can be fluid as your twins are growing up. So look for that, as you experience life with your twins. The post Will your twins have the same or different personalities? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

In this article, I’ll share examples from several twin parents about their experiences during delivery. It’s important to note that not all moms will go into labor when delivering twins. The majority of twin deliveries are performed via a cesarean section. This can be scheduled by 38 weeks of the twin pregnancy or earlier if there are any challenges or issues with the babies. However, some moms may go into labor and then end up having a C-section. Here are some specific examples of what to expect during a twin delivery: Joanna had an hour and a half of labor from the time her water broke to delivery. Abby had over 50 hours of labor for her twins born at 39 weeks. Nikki had 40 hours of labor for her twins’ delivery Samantha had less than three hours of labor, with her twins being born just two hours after her water broke. Lucy had a slow labor of 23 hours. Cindy had 18 hours of labor. They ended up having a C-section as Cindy never dilated enough. Eric’s twins were delivered via C-section after Mom’s water broke at 2 am, and the twins were born at 6:30 am. In some cases, complications may arise and a vaginal delivery may not be possible. The twins are monitored during labor for their heartbeats and if there’s any sign of danger, a C-section may be performed. Shannon had 10 hours of labor at 38 weeks and delivered her twins 14 minutes apart. Brittany had a seven-hour induction with 15 minutes of pushing. Linda had a natural delivery after five and a half hours. Labor during twin delivery can be short and quick or take several days. Some moms may start with labor and end with a vaginal delivery, while others may start with labor and end with a C-section. The most important thing is to have a healthy delivery for both the twins and the mom. The post How long is Mom typically in labor during a twin delivery? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

Episode 285 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Tyler Chesser, father of boy/girl twins. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Early twin delivery after Mom’s water broke at 32 weeks Twins’ time in the NICU before coming home Adjusting to life with twins Different twin personalities from the beginning Breastfeeding twins – what worked and what didn’t Day in the life of 13-month old twins When twins crawl in different ways Balancing being a business owner and sleepless nights Finding a nanny for the twins Looking at life with gratitude Connect with Tyler via his Elevate Podcast or Real Estate Investing Firm. Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. [00:00:00] Today we are continuing our Father of Twins interview series with a father of boy/girl twins who just turned one year old. Additional proof that yes, you can survive the first year with twins. Welcome to the Dad Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. [00:00:19] Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Hey everybody. This is Joe Rawlinson. Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. As always, you can find me online at dadsguidetotwins.com. Today we are having another chat with a fellow father of twins. But before we jump into that interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com. [00:00:43] Where you’ll find dozens of t-shirts designed specifically for you parents of twins. We have t-shirts for moms, dads, and the twins themselves. Head on over to twintshirtcompany.com. Today I’d like to welcome to the show Father of Twins, Tyler Chesser. Welcome to the show. Tyler. Joe, thank you so much for having me. [00:01:01] Great to be here with you. Tyler. How old are your twins right now and what’s something exciting about this age? So they’re a little over a year. In fact, in a few days they’ll be, I guess, 13 months. And man, this, this age is really fun and exciting because every single day is they’re doing something new. [00:01:18] And I know that it seems like that’s been the experience over the past almost 13 months. But, you know, now they’re, they’re just so curious and, you know, so full of energy. Getting into everything. They’re, they’re crawling around. So my son is crawling around. My daughter is scooting on her butt, you know, everywhere. [00:01:32] It’s, it’s just funny to see the differences in their personalities and approach and, and growth, but they’re into everything. Like my, my son is, you know, currently he’s into carrying around his you know, a bottle of lotion everywhere he goes. And that’s the coolest thing in the world. And then my daughter in particular loves to. [00:01:50] Move from one piece of furniture to the next. She’s, you know, holding onto everything to stand up, and then she’s moving onto the next and she just thinks it’s the funniest thing and greatest thing ever. And, you know, all the dances, dance moves and silliness and goofiness. So, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of fun things that are going on right now, but we’re, we’re certainly en enjoy enjoying the journey. [00:02:09] That’s fantastic. Yeah. It’s fun to watch the little milestones, see how they’re progressing and growing and even how they’re very different. Like you mentioned, one’s a a scooter and the other one’s a crawler. Both of our girls were bump scooters. I think one of ’em figured it out first and then the other one just kind of followed. [00:02:25] So who, who figured out what first between your son and daughter who figured out the crawling first? So my daughter, or I’m sorry, my son figured out crawling pretty early on, a few months back and we were surprised that our daughter didn’t pick it up soon thereafter, cuz you’d think that, well, they’re gonna watch each other and they’re just gonna, you know, pick up all these skills, you know, just simultaneously. [00:02:45] And she still has never crawled. I don’t, we don’t really think that she will, we think that she’s just gonna go straight. To walking. We’re thinking that that may happen at any time soon. But he has been like all over the place and just super rambunctious, starting to climb on stuff. And, you know, she, she kind of watches and you know, a little bit, but she’s not, you know, she’s not in trying to do that herself, which is pretty interesting. [00:03:07] Yeah. Our girls, they scooted on their bums and they never crawled in a traditional sense, so they went straight from that to crawl, to walking like, like you might see w

How much does daycare for twins cost? Let’s talk about costs and how that varies based on your location and the age of your twins. We know twins can be expensive. In fact, one of the biggest expenses that parents of twins face is that of daycare for their twins. Let’s talk specifically about childcare centers where you drop your kids off, maybe when you’re going to work and you pick them up at the end of the day. Location is Everything The biggest factor of how much you’re going to pay for childcare for your twins is where you live. If you live in a big city, if you live on the west or east coast of the United States, you’re going to pay significantly more than if you’ve live in the Midwest, the central U.S., or a small town. And if you’re outside the United States, costs vary as well. One twin dad from Sweden told me that he pays only about $250 a month for both twins to be in daycare full time. But that is heavily subsidized by the government (and taxes). Now let’s talk about here in the United States and what you can expect to pay for daycare in your neck of the woods. I share a few examples of different locations around the country. These examples may or may not be close to where you are so consider the size of the city or area compared to where you live. Twin Day Care Example Costs Ohio: $335 a week which that comes out to about $17,000 a year Buffalo, New York: $24,500 a year for childcare for twins New Jersey: $22,000 a year for child care for twins Maryland: $486 a week. That’s $25,000 a year. Oklahoma: $270 a week, that’s only $14,000 a year. Prices range all over the place from a couple hundred dollars a week in the middle of the country to extremely high costs in big cities and on the coasts. The bottom line is that your expenses can sway anywhere from $10,000 a year, up to 25 to $30,000 a year for daycare for your twins. Is Day Care Worth the Cost? These twin day care costs can be too much for a family to bear. Oftentimes parents will decide that it’s just not worth it for both parents to be working just to take the majority or all of one parent’s paycheck to pay for daycare. Twin dad, Chris Jackson says that they never put their twins in daycare and that his wife quit when the twins were born and she started being a stay at home mom. So nine years later and two kids more, she’s still a stay at home mom since they couldn’t justify paying an entire paycheck to someone else to raise their kids. Great points. Likewise, twin dad Brandon says “my wife and I priced out daycare for our twin girls and couldn’t justify spending an entire paycheck and then some for daycare. We are fortunate that we were able to do this on one income, but it’s tight every month.” Take a look at your circumstances and your budget. When you run the numbers, you might say “there’s no way that we’re going to have one of us (mom or dad) work full time just to pay for daycare.” When you can just have one of the parents stay home and take care of the twins and gain the benefits, paid day care for twins might not be worth it. Plus you’ll get the benefits of having a parent home with the children during the day. Now it’s not always going to be easy. Like these twin dads said, you know it’s going to be tight on the budget. You’re going to have to make some creative financial adjustments. But don’t rule that out. Don’t just assume that you have to put your twins into daycare. Get Various Price Quotes You should reach out to the daycares in your area to get different estimates and quotes from each of them and see which one is the best fit for you. Just because someone is paying $25,000 a year on the east coast of the United States doesn’t mean that that’s going to be your expense for your twins where you live. Your Twins’ Age Impacts Child Care Pricing It will be more expensive, the younger the twins are because infants require more hands-on care, more attention, and more caregivers per child than when the kids are older. Expect expenses to be a little higher when they’re infants compared to when they are toddlers and beyond. Ask for the Twin Discount When reaching out to daycare centers for pricing, make sure you ask for the twin discount. They may or may not have the twin discount which may be known to them as the sibling discount. If you have other children that are also in daycare, try to negotiate such that you can get a reduced fare on each of your children. If you’re expecting your twins still or are in the early months with twins, I highly recommend that you pick up my book, Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins. It will help you through those first couple years with twins, overcome the common challenges, and help you see what’s coming around the corner from the stage of life that you’re in right now. The post How Much Does

What about raising twins is actually easier than you thought it was going to be? Looking back at my own experience and talking with dozens of other twin parents, I share what was a pleasant surprise about raising twins. Depending on who you talk to, raising twins is a nigh impossible task. Extremely difficult. Now, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, those first months with newborns and even that first year with twins is crazy intense, but it’s not impossible. And some things may turn out actually easier than you think they’re going to be. Built-In Friends Let’s get a common one out of the way to begin with and that is: the twins will have a built in friend a built in playmate to keep themselves entertained. This is true, but not in the very beginning. When they’re newborns, they’re just little lumps of baby and they don’t really interact with each other. But as they start to sit up, and they start to interact and become aware of their surroundings, and definitely by the time that they’re toddlers, your friend your twins may very well be good friends and enjoy spending time together and playing with each other. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to ever fight or argue – that’s always going to be a challenge. The fact that they’re always together does help encourage them to have good friendship and relationship with each other. Your Perspective is Everything What else is easier than you thought it may be when raising twins? This of course depends on your perspective. It depends on who you talk to when you’re expecting the twins. If you talk to friends who have twins and they just had a miserable time of it, that’s what you’re going to expect. On the other hand, if you talk to some friends or family that had twins and things went okay, that’s what you’re going to expect as well. So some things are going to be as hard as you thought they were going to be. Some things are going to be harder. And some things will be easier. Telling Twins Apart Many parents worry about telling their twins apart and then that’s going to be difficult. Particularly if you have identical twins or if you have same same gender twins, that can be a challenge. Of course the parents of fraternal twins or boy/girls twins are like “haha, yeah, we got this figured out.” But even when they’re newborns, fraternal twins can look a lot alike. So telling twins apart is not as hard as you think it’s going to be. There are always subtle differences that you as the parent because you’re with them all the time. You’ll notice even from birth, which twin is which twin, so you always know at a glance, twin A from twin B. Syncing Schedules Getting twins on the same sleep schedule and on the same eating schedule can make your life a lot easier. A lot of parents worry about the challenges of getting their twins on the same schedule. We found that this was little easier than we thought it would be by forcing the matter. When one twin woke up in the middle of the night to feed, we’d wake up her sister to feed her as well. And by continually doing that, it helped sync them both up on the same schedule. If you’re feeding them at the same time and putting them down to sleep at the same time, their schedules usually align pretty well and that makes your life a little bit easier. Same Classes at School Once your twins are school age, having your twins in the same class at school means they have the same teacher or teachers, they have the same homework and assignments they have to have seen friends. All of that becomes a lot easier to manage than if you had two kids in the same grade but in different classes or two kids in two different grades at the same school. Infant Twins Are Easier? Once you are past the infant twins stage, and enter toddlerhood, everything changes again. Your twins will start to talk back to you and they start to have thoughts and opinions of their own. That’s when things get a little more challenging. I found looking back at the newborn phase and the infant phase that life was pretty simple. All you had to do was take care of changing diapers, getting them to sleep, and feeding them. You just repeated that cycle over and over again. It is pretty simple and basic. Once they start to get a little older and start to be little people with their own attitudes and stuff, that is more of a parenting challenge. At that point, it’s not just the basics of survival, but rather you have to engage them and to do some positive parenting to encourage correct behavior. By the time you get to the toddlers and beyond, you may think well that infant phase was a lot easier than I thought because I don’t have to put up with the terrible twos or the terrible threes, for example. How about you? What did you find was easier with twins than you thought it would be? Surely if you look on the p

Should your twins sleep in your room when they come home from the hospital? The answer depends on several factors. Benefits of Having Infant Twins Sleep in the Parents’ Room You may consider having your infant twins sleep in your room for several months. Twin parents will sometimes use a bassinet or Pack-n-Play in their room to sleep the twins. These temporary sleeping quarters won’t last forever, but they will serve you and your twin babies for some time. There are some advantages of sleeping twins in your room: Easy to access – When your twins are in your room, you don’t have to go far to take care of them. This is great during middle-of-the-night, sleep-deprived feeding sessions. You can roll out of bed and quickly pick up a twin and provide the care needed. Easy to monitor – Since your twins are in the same room, you can easily listen and monitor them for any issues that arise. You don’t need an electronic twin baby monitor and can easily roll over and visually inspect the babies to confirm if you really need to get out of bed. Disadvantages of Having Infant Twins Sleep in the Parents’ Room Impacts your sleep – You will hear every sound your twins make when they sleep in your room. Even benign noises will rouse you from your sleep. Harder to transition later – Even at an early age, your twins will get used to the patterns you are setting. Eventually they will have to move to their own room. Depending on your kids, this transition may be difficult. No space for you – I like to think of your bedroom as your sanctuary. With twins, your house will be a mess, and you need some place that is reserved for you to rest and relax. Current Recommendations The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that your twins “share a bedroom with parents, but not the same sleeping surface, preferably until the babies turn 1 but at least for the first six months. Room-sharing decreases the risk of SIDS by as much as 50 percent.” What We Did We put our twin girls in their own room from the first night we were home from the hospital. Fortunately, their room was right next door to ours. This made monitoring and access a lot easier than if our house floor plan had put greater distance between us. My wife and I always tried to establish habits and routines that we’d be happy with long-term. Having the girls sleep in their own room made it easier for us to rest when we did sleep and got them used to sleeping on their own. Twin dad Tim Robinson and his wife kept their twins with them in their room for a few weeks before moving the twins to their nursery. You Choose Sleeping Arrangements You may think that your twins need to sleep in your room. You, as the parent, determine your twins’ sleeping arrangements. Not the other way around. Choose twin sleeping arrangements carefully since this choice will impact both you as parents and the twins. Picture by Ert The post Should Twins Sleep in the Parent’s Room? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

I got an interesting question recently: Do twins get upset at the same time? The answer, as with many questions on twins, is that it depends. Here are a few factors that help you know if your twins will both be upset at the same time. Personalities Our identical twin girls have very distinct personalities. As such, they react differently to similar things. One will take offense and get mad, and the other won’t care at all. Study your twins’ personalities. Each may have a short temper or be patient. Shared Circumstances Twins will both get upset if they are in the same place and expecting the same result but don’t get that outcome. For example, if you make a “yucky dinner,” both twins won’t be happy — even if that “yucky dinner” is something you find perfectly delicious (like anything with vegetables). If your family is headed to a park, museum, or something fun but have to cancel or change plans, expect two upset twins. Monkey See, Monkey Do Sometimes one of our twins will follow the lead of the other. If one gets upset, the other will react likewise. If you see a similar pattern in your home, expect double trouble. History Repeats How have your twins reacted to things in the past? They will likely follow the same path again this time. You can use this to your advantage to either change the circumstance or react differently to your child. Good Twin, Bad Twin An interesting pattern we’ve seen in our girls is that when one is acting out or upset, the other will all of a sudden be the perfect child. We’ll hear statements like “I not crying” or “I eating my food.” The “good” twin will highlight her own positive behavior that is in stark contrast to her sister. We like to turn this back on the upset twin and pile praise on the well-performing twin. Often, this positive reinforcement persuades the upset twin to calm down and go along whatever is expected of her. What to Do When Both Twins Are Upset How do you prevent your twins from getting upset at the same time? First of all is to observe their behavior. If they’ve gotten upset in the past, in certain circumstances, try your best to avoid those circumstances or to work around them to keep the twins happy. You know experience is the best teacher and you’re going to see how your twins react in different circumstances. That will help you adjust your parenting to not get yourself in the same spot. again where your twins are upset again. For example, what are the most common things that upset both twins? If twin A is holding a particular toy, even if you have two of those same toy, twin B is probably going to want to get to get that toy and steal it from his or her sibling. What does that mean for you? Should you immediately jump into the situation or should you wait to see how your twins try to solve the problem? Take a step back and see how they do at resolving it themselves. If you’re always jumping into solve problems, they’ll never learn those problem-solving skills themselves. If the situation doesn’t pass quickly and they start fighting or start to hurt each other you can step in as a parent. Redirect the kids to an appropriate activity and to be away from each other. Redirection and distraction are powerful techniques, particularly when your kids are really young. Remember that when your twins are doing what you want them to do, pile on the positive praise and attention so they want to keep doing that good thing and get your positive attention. We discovered with our twins that often they did not get upset at the same time. That was a blessing for us as parents because we could help take care of the kid that was upset or crying or hurt or needed something while the other twin was happily playing or sitting in a bouncy seat or rocking and swinging. Remember there will always be times when they are upset at the same time. It’s okay to take turns. Take care of one and then the other. What have you done when both of your twins have been upset? How have you handled that situation? Leave a comment below with what’s worked for you and your twins. Picture by Jill M The post Do Twins Get Upset at the Same Time? (And What You Can Do About It) appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

Twin pregnancies can get complicated. The nature of carrying two babies can wreak havoc on poor Mom. While there are many common complications of a twin pregnancy, don’t stress out too much about them. Modern medical care can help you overcome most of these. Complications during twin pregnancy consist of those unique to twins plus those regularly associated with any pregnancy like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, and anemia. However, you may experience complications that are unique to a twin pregnancy or even those related to an identical twin pregnancy. Read about each of these complications below: High Blood Pressure High blood pressure is twice as likely during a twin pregnancy. Your doctor will check on you at each visit to detect this as early as possible. Prevention and treatment for high blood pressure: Avoid salt Exercise regularly Check with your doctor that any medications you are currently taking are safe (for example, a decongestant for a stuffy nose can cause high blood pressure) Always go to prenatal check-ups Eat a diet with lots of fruits and vegetables (just like your Mom told you) Here are some more tips for preventing hypertension (high blood pressure) during your twin pregnancy. For two examples of twin families where Mom had gestational hypertension that lead to their twins being born, see the stories of Jeff Jackson and Stephen Dause. Gestational Diabetes Gestational Diabetes is a form of high blood sugar that affects pregnant women. There are a few things you can do in order to reduce the chances of developing gestational diabetes. Prevention and treatment: Your doctor or nutritionist can provide you with a diet plan that helps keep your blood glucose within the healthy range. Discuss with your doctor any foods to avoid and the timing of your meals. Limit sweets and track your carbohydrate intake. Increase your fiber intake. Stay active. Discuss with your physician the best ways for you to remain active during your pregnancy. Here are some more tips on preventing gestational diabetes. Twin dad RJ Armbruster’s wife had a difficult twin pregnancy where she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes before delivering healthy babies. Anemia Anemia is when your blood doesn’t have enough healthy red blood cells. Because of increased blood flow during pregnancy, your iron levels drop. This is especially true in women carrying more than one fetus. Mild anemia isn’t harmful, but be mindful of taking your supplements. A major symptom of anemia is fatigue (as if you weren’t tired enough!). Prevention and treatment: Anemia is more than twice as common in multiple pregnancies and a little harder to prevent, your healthcare provider will most likely provide you with iron supplements. Twin Pregnancy Complications – First Trimester You might not even find out you are having twins until the end of the first trimester. The common complications of all pregnancies mentioned above are a risk for you here. Miscarriages typically happen in first 12 weeks of pregnancy. There is a chance you might miscarry one or both of the babies this early in the pregnancy. Twin Pregnancy Complications – Second Trimester Preeclampsia during the twin pregnancy is a serious condition of high blood pressure in the mother. Watch for symptoms like a quick rise in blood pressure, protein in the urine, sudden and disproportionate weight gain, and swelling of the face and hands. Many complications discussed here may result in bed rest for mother. Additionally, the strain of two babies on your cervix may be too much and require bed rest. Here are some things to do to more easily manage bed rest during the twin pregnancy. Twin Pregnancy Complications- Third Trimester You’re in the home stretch now but complications continue and additional concerns emerge around when and how your twins will be born. Preterm labor and birth is common with twins. On average they are born around 36 weeks but can arrive much earlier than that. Twins are about 7 times more likely to be born preterm than singletons. Even if you are planning for a natural twin delivery, a Caesarean section (C-section) delivery may be in your future. Twin deliveries have a higher chance of c-section as both twins need to be in the right position for a vaginal birth. There is also the possibility of postpartum preeclampsia which should be detected quickly by hospital staff after the twins’ birth. Here’s one twin dad’s experience with this. Twin Specific Pregnancy Complications One complication unique to identical twins while in the womb is Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, or TTTS. Only monochorionic twins, or those that share a placenta, are susceptible to TTTS. This is a serious condition where one twin may get too little nutrients and fluid while the other gets too much. Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR), or its specialized form sIUGR occurs when one or both babies don’t grow as expected (one tw

When can you be induced with twins? As a reminder, induction is when the doctor encourages Mom’s uterus to contract and thus start the labor process. Inducing labor may be done via many different methods so talk to your doctor about what that means in your situation. So that begs the question, when is it safe for Mom to be induced to bring those babies into the world? Induction of your twin babies is really up to you and your doctor. You may find that your twins arrive even before you have a conversation about induction. Twins can be born significantly early, particularly when compared to a singleton child. As we have discussed before, twins are born on average at about 36 weeks of the twin pregnancy. Your doctor may be open to inducing Mom anywhere after that 36 week mark. Timing Depends On What Types of Twins In the case of our twin pregnancy, the doctor didn’t want to plan anything until we had reached 38 weeks of the pregnancy. So typically, between 37 and 38 weeks is when the doctor may approve an induction for your twin babies if the twins haven’t already been born by then. The optimal delivery window depends heavily on chorionicity (whether the twins share a placenta): Dichorionic-Diamniotic (Di/Di): Two placentas, two sacs. Safest to deliver between 37 weeks 0 days and 38 weeks 6 days. Monochorionic-Diamniotic (Mo/Di): One placenta, two sacs. Higher risk. Safest to deliver between 34 weeks 0 days and 37 weeks 6 days. Monochorionic-Monoamniotic (Mo/Mo): One placenta, one sac. Highest risk. Delivery is often planned by 32 weeks 0 days to 34 weeks 0 days, often via C-section, due to cord entanglement risk. You’re going to have weekly checkups with a doctor plus probably weekly ultrasounds to see how the babies are doing. The doctor will be very aware of the the growth situation of the twins and of the health of Mom. These frequent check-ups also give indications of how long those babies can make it before it’s time for them to be born. Our girls were born at 36 weeks of the pregnancy. We had gone in just for a regular checkup when we found out that my wife was having contractions and it was time to have the babies. You may find that your twin babies are in no hurry to exit the womb and may then need to be induced a 37-38 weeks. Of course this is a conversation you’ll need to have with your doctor because your doctor best knows Mom’s health condition and baby’s health status and how long those babies can go and still be healthy. Ideally, you want to keep those babies in as long as possible so they can continue to grow and develop (particularly their lung capacity). But once they’re beyond that 36 week mark, they are usually going to be okay and will be healthy and just fine. By 38 weeks, it’s probably time for those babies to be induced and to come out. “Trial of Labor” for Twins The induction for twins (especially Twin A) is often considered a “Trial of Labor” (TOL). The mother will be in the delivery room, not a standard labor room. Once Twin A is born, the doctor will quickly assess Twin B’s position. Labor continues, but often Twin B needs a minor induction (e.g., breaking the second bag of water, a quick dose of Pitocin) to encourage delivery within 15–30 minutes of the first twin. This is a stressful window of time that parents need to be prepared for. A successful vaginal delivery of Twin A does not guarantee a vaginal delivery of Twin B. The second twin has a higher chance of needing an emergency C-section if they flip into a breech position after the first twin has exited. Increased Monitoring During Induction During a twin induction, continuous fetal heart rate monitoring is mandatory for both babies. This means belts or internal monitors will be in place the entire time, which can restrict movement and increase discomfort. Mom will almost certainly need an IV line throughout the induction and labor, as the risk of requiring immediate medical intervention (C-section, blood transfusion) is higher than in a singleton birth. This is non-negotiable for safety. Induction vs. Elective C-Section Since induction carries a slightly higher risk of leading to an emergency C-section for twins, have a detailed discussion in advance with the OB/MFM about which staff members will be on call and what the operating room prep protocol is if the induction fails. This helps manage anxiety during the transition. Twin A needs to be head-down (vertex) for an attempted induction. If Twin A is breech, an elective C-section is the standard, safest route. On your next doctor visit during the twin pregnancy make sure you ask when Mom could be induced if it came to that. You just may hear “38 weeks”. Discuss the details of how that will play out with your partner and the babies. The post When can you be induced with twins? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

If you’re expecting twins and you want to get ready for them it’s important to have a stash of clothes ready to help them transition from the hospital back to your home. Onesies The primary thing that your twins are going to wear as infants or onesies or body suits. Get about 10 of these because that’s going to be the primary thing that your kids are wearing almost every single day. And if they’re not wearing it as a sole piece of clothing, it’s going to go underneath whatever else they’re wearing. These can come with short sleeves, or long sleeves depending on the type of weather that you’re experiencing when your twins are born. Clothing Sets You may also consider getting some newborn clothing sets. These are usually like a shirt and a pair of pants. Get five to six pairs of each of these for your twins, particularly for when you take the kids out in public or to go visit grandma. You definitely want to have a pair of going home from the hospital clothes. Get something super nice, cute, and adorable for your twins to wear on that great ride home from the hospital. Of course you’re getting lots of pictures and then leaving the hospital getting in the car seats for the first time getting the car, taking them out of the car and bringing them in home. And you want to have some cute outfits on them for posterity. But let’s be honest, super fancy and ornate clothing is not going to be what your twins are wearing every single day. As infants, they are going to be having spit ups and blow outs of their diapers and milk spilled on them. It’s going to be a mess. Stick with stuff that can easily be washed. Sleepwear You want to get about 10 pairs of pajamas: five for each twin. Look for things like sleep sacks that have zippers. You don’t want to mess with buttons. Those are just impossible. Zippers would be preferred with snaps as runner ups. Avoid buttons at all costs. A good night suit (footed PJs) will keep your twins nice and warm as they go to sleep at night. Shoes Let’s talk about baby shoes. Infant twins do not need shoes. They are only decoration. Until they start walking around, they don’t really need shoes on your feet. You may have something to keep their feet warm, like some socks or some little shoes, but they’re mostly just decoration so treat them as such. If you’re short on budget, allocate some of the budget you would have spent on some fancy shoes for your twins to more onesies or clothing that you know they can use on a regular basis. Turn Over Remember that with infant twins, you’re going to be doing laundry almost every day. You’ll be churning through these clothes very quickly because your kids are going to need changes multiple times a day. So if you don’t want to do laundry as much, get a few more items of clothing so you have enough for the kids to wear multiple outfits a day. Now as they get older and out of the infant phase, they can become a little more clean and stop blowing out diapers as much. You’ll eventually get down to one outfit that they wear all day plus an emergency outfit in your diaper bag, in case they have an accident while you’re out and about. The post How many clothes do you need for twins? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

Twin pregnancies are automatically higher risk than normal pregnancies. To put it simply, having twins increases the odds that something will go wrong during the pregnancy. But that doesn’t mean that moms with twins are doomed to have problems or need to suffer extreme stress worrying about how early can twins be born. Many twins are delivered without any major problems. How Early Can Twins Be Born? How early can you have twins? Twins can be born much earlier than a normal, singleton baby. It’s possible to deliver twins after less than 25 weeks of pregnancy. The earlier twins are born, the higher their risk of developing multiple health problems. The best answer to the question “How early can twins be born?” is “extremely early.” How early can twins be born and survive? Twins born at 25 weeks have a survival rate of at least 50%. This improves with each additional week of the twin pregnancy. What’s a Typical Delivery Time for Twins? When are twins born? The average twin is delivered after 36 weeks of gestation. Contrast that with the average for non-twins: 40 weeks. In other words, twins tend to be delivered a full month earlier than non-twins. When are fraternal twins usually born? When are identical twins usually born? The average week twins are born is 36 regardless of whether they are identical or fraternal. Our twin girls were delivered at 36 weeks but remember that your twin delivery will likely be different. Your OB/GYN might tell you that the ideal time to deliver twins is a little earlier than the due date. This might come as a surprise, but keeping your twins until the actual due date could result in much larger babies and a lot more complications. You will be more at risk to have placental, labor-related, and delivery complications. In addition, if your twins go full term, there will be no room left inside Mom. She will be miserable! Are Twins Always Premature? A premature birth is typically less than 37 weeks. Reports show that more than 60 percent of all twins are delivered prematurely, mostly after about 34 weeks. If you give birth to twins before 32 weeks, your babies are more likely to have a low body weight and the potential for permanent disabilities. Here’s a great week-by-week summary of what to expect with premature babies. Why Are Twins Born Early? Twins are delivered earlier than non-twins largely because of decreased space in the womb. There simply isn’t enough room in most wombs for twins to grow to the size of normal babies before birth. A lot depends on whether the twins are sharing the same placenta or each twin has its own placenta. Twins that share the same placenta are called monochorionic twins. Twins that do not share placentas are called dichorionic twins. All monochorionic twins are identical twins and most dichorionic twins are fraternal twins. (A small fraction of dichorionic twins are also identical twins.) Monochorionic twins have a much higher risk of having problems during pregnancy than dichorionic twins. They typically have shorter gestation times than dichorionic twins. Monochorionic twins do not always share the placenta equally. Sometimes, like in the case of Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome one twin receives a lot more blood and oxygen than the other. Because babies that are dichorionic twins have their own placentas, they do not have any placenta-related blood flow problems. Survival Rates Survival rates for twins depend on how long their gestation period was and their birth weight. The longer the gestation period, the better the survival rates. The lower the birth weight, the worse the survival rates. Roughly half of all twins can be classified as low birth weight, 5 lbs 7 oz (2,500 grams) or less. Survival rates for twins between 3 lbs 5 oz and 4 lbs 7 oz (1,500 to 2,000 grams) are quite good. They can be as high as 95%, surprising as this might seem. On the other hand, survival rates for twins less than 2 lbs 3 oz (1,000 grams) are only 70%. That can be frightening to a lot of prospective parents. Fortunately, the vast majority of twins have a birth weight greater than 2 lbs 3 oz when they are delivered. Most pregnant women do not need to worry about their twins being born with birth weights this low. Maximizing Twins’ Chances Women pregnant with twins that do their best to remain in excellent health during pregnancy are less likely to deliver early than pregnant women with poor health during pregnancy. In other words, the mother’s lifestyle can make a real difference. Pregnant women can help their babies by avoiding smoking and alcohol. Smoking in particular greatly increases the risk of babies being born prematurely. A healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables also helps diminish the risk of complications with pregnancy. Pregnant women that follow a healthy lifestyle do not need to worry as much about how early can twins be born. Be sure to consult with your physician for specific advice

Episode 275 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Paul Gewuerz, father of twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Ultrasound surprise of twins after thinking they had miscarriage Visiting with a high risk specialist. One baby not growing as fast as other Weekly ultrasounds to determine what was going on with Baby A At 24 weeks, had to go across state to get MRI so see what was wrong with baby. Babies had IUGR Checked in at hospital so Mom could be monitored three times a day Handling work and insurance when they had to go to hospital Dad’s experience during the twin birth at 30 weeks Babies were in NICU right away with Baby B intubated for oxygen Lived in Ronald McDonald house while twins in NICU for about 3 months One baby out of NICU for month before his brother Crawling and vocal at this point Twins interacting with each other and playing together Connect with Paul via email. Get a free month of Paul’s Movement and Meals newsletter here: https://movementandmeals.substack.com/twindad Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:36 Today, we’re continuing discussion with another twin dad who shares his experience. From the time they found out they were having twins up to now with their 11 month old twin boys, and they’ve had some crazy ups and downs, getting the boys here healthy into this point of the journey. Plus this twin dad came up with a very clever system to help make sure he’s managing his time with exercise and food wisely. And he shares a resource with you towards the end of the podcast. So stay tuned for that. Today, I would like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins, Paul Gewuerz. Welcome to the show, Paul. Paul 1:15 Thanks for having me, Joe. Joe 1:16 Paul, how old are your twins right now. And what’s something exciting about this age? Paul 1:22 The boys are 11 months and two days old. And I guess an exciting part right now is one of our boys has been slightly behind developmentally than the other one. And they’ve he’s kind of caught up. And they’re kind of in the same phase now. So they’re just playing together so much more laughing at each other. And just, it’s just really hilarious to watch and interact with them both my wife and I with them also. It’s been pretty fun lately. Joe 1:52 Yeah, that is fun when they have you know, they start interacting with each other and with you, and they’re smiling and playing. It’s not so funny that you ever know 11 months. Let’s rewind back to when you found out that you’d be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? Paul 2:08 Just my wife and I and our dog. We had no prior children. And we had been planning on having a baby for a while. So you know, we were kind of caught off guard when they were when we found out it was twins. Actually, there’s a bit of a story behind that when we first found out they were twins. We were actually visiting my wife’s mother who had been diagnosed with lung cancer last the beginning of last year. And you know, we were she was kind of starting to deteriorate a little bit, go downhill with her illness. And we had just found out that we were pregnant, and we’re up visiting her in Montana. And the last night before we left if it wasn’t emotional enough already, you know, us leaving. My wife started having, you know, some issues and we were convinced that we had had a miscarriage and we were pretty much devastated. We didn’t tell anybody obviously, we hadn’t even told anybody we were pregnant. And you know, we got on a plane the next day just convinced we lost the pregnancy, flew back had a layover, a long day of traveling, got back to our hometown and decided to get to the hospital, you know, to get an ultrasound. And we’d been you know, in airplanes and lay overs all day, pretty depressed about the situation. And we got in there, you know to verify and she goes, Okay, are you ready? The ultrasound tech? And like okay, yeah, just go ahead and our head heads hung low. She goes, there’s one and two. And the reaction I believe my wife’s reaction was just seriously that she kind of blurted that out in the ultrasound room, and then we both just kind of started laughing. It was just such an absurd thing to learn. And, you know, it kind of went from a very low low to A shocking new reality that we had to adjust to and then you know, once we kind of got it in our heads that it was twins, we started getting really excited about the the, the adventure ahead. Joe 4:14 Yeah, that is quite the swing of emotions there. Just 24 hours it would seem. So the twins were a huge surprise for you. So what were some of the things that you decided to do right away when you found out that you were pregnant with the boys? Paul 4:30 Nesting, I guess

How long your twins will stay in the hospital after birth depends on your twins’ health at their time of birth. Let’s talk about a couple scenarios. Healthy Babies Expect around nine to 25 days after birth if your twins need to spend some time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). But remember, that not all twins need time in the NICU. Let’s talk about the first ideal situation, which is when your twins are born, they’re super healthy and they’re ready to go home. If your twins are born close to your due date or the average for twins, that’s 36 weeks of the pregnancy, the odds are pretty good that they will not need any time in the NICU and they can go home with mom. Your stay in the hospital in this case is going to be very short, and it’s often dictated by how long mom needs to stay in the hospital to recover from delivery. This could be as little as two or three days or maybe three or four days if mom has had a c-section. This was the case with our twin girls. My wife had a c-section delivery for our twin girls and she was in the hospital for about four days. Our girls were healthy, and so when mom was ready to come home from the hospital, the babies and mom were all released at the same time. Now that’s really the ideal scenario for you and your twins a few days after birth. Everybody’s looking great and you head home. Complicated Extreme On the opposite side of the spectrum, your twins may be born very early, which is a possibility with twins, but it doesn’t always happen that way. In case of premature birth, they may have some serious complications that require an extended stay in the hospital. Twins have been known to stay in the hospital for months so they can have the needed surgeries and give them time to grow and develop enough to leave all the machines of the NICU. It’s likely that your twins will fall somewhere in the middle of these extremes. Make sure you discuss potential risks with your doctor during ultrasounds as you get closer and closer to the twins’ birth. Sometimes things can be identified during the pregnancy, so you, during the ultrasound or visits with a doctor, you may get a heads up that there may be potential complications at birth, which could indicate your twins may need to spend more time in the hospital. Otherwise, you just need to wait until they’re born to see how they check out and whether they’re ready to come home with you in a few days, or if they need a little extra time in the hospital. Your exact scenario and situation with your twins will be different than mine and from other twin parents you know. I’ve interviewed dozens and dozens of twin dads on my podcast, The Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast so checkout their stories to get a hint at all the different variations of what could be possible with the birth of your twins. There are many possibilities of how long your twins will be in the hospital after birth. For example: Twins go home right away once mom is ready to leave Twins are in the hospital for months while they get the treatment that they need to survive in the real world One twin needs to stay in the hospital while the other twin comes home with you Twins stay in the hospital just for a few days or weeks. Sometimes twins are born early and they just need to grow and develop a little bit. There’s really nothing wrong with them other than that. While all of these are possibilities, I don’t want you to worry about some of these extreme scenarios because that may not happen to your twins. Discuss those possibilities with your doctors, but don’t stress out about them, and when new information comes your way from your doctor, that’s when you can deep dive into the research on that and talk about options with your doctors. For when you’re packing your bag to go to the hospital, I would plan for a stay of three to four days, and then you might just be coming home with the twins at the end of that time. If they’re going to stay a little bit longer, you can come home with mom and then go and check on the twins as they progress through the NICU. NICU Exit Criteria Your twins will need to pass several tests to be released from the NICU: Maintain Temperature: The twin must be able to maintain its own body temperature in an open crib (not an incubator). Successful Feeds: The twin must be able to coordinate suck, swallow, and breathe during feeding (either breast or bottle). Stable Breathing/Heart Rate: The twin must have stable cardiorespiratory function, meaning no significant bradycardia (slow heart rate) or apnea (pauses in breathing) for a predetermined period (often 5–7 days). The goal is usually to reach a weight of at least 4 pounds (approx. 1800-2000g) before meeting these criteria. For some examples from other twin dads about their NICU stays, check out these interviews: Rob Kaercher’s identical twin boys, born early, requ

What should I pack in my hospital bag for twins? Dad, you may be called upon to pack Mom’s bag for the hospital if you’re caught unprepared early in the twin pregnancy. I’m going to share some things that my wife found very helpful in her hospital bag when we were having our twins, plus some things that you, Dad, can pack to help survive the hospital stay as well. Your Paperwork Make sure you have all of your paperwork. This may include: The birth plan you’ve discussed with your doctor Hospital admission forms Health Insurance Card Clothing for Mom The hospital will have clothing for Mom, but it won’t be the most comfortable clothing. It’ll usually be a gown, the typical open-in-back hospital gown. You want Mom to feel as comfortable as is possible as she recovers from the birth of the babies and possibly from her C-section. Pack her robe that she likes to wear around the house. Add some nice cozy slippers because the hospital floors are notoriously cold and hard. That’ll help her as she moves around the room and she goes back and forth from bed to the restroom, or as she walks up and down the hallways as she recovers from delivery. Bedding Next is to think about what is on the hospital bed to help Mom be as comfortable as possible for both sleeping and breastfeeding. Here’s where a twin pillow may be very handy to position the twins around Mom for breastfeeding simplicity. We really enjoyed our Bobby pillows that we used with our twin girls. You may consider taking one or both of those to the hospital to support the twins during feeding time. Mom may also enjoy having an eye mask for sleeping. Hospital rooms are never dark. People are constantly coming in and out. If she can have and eye mask, it can help her get moments of sleep that she needs between interruptions from the nurses or the babies. Pump Supplies If you’ve already purchased a breast pump, either a manual pump or a machine, bring that with you to the hospital so you can get the hang of it while there’s others around to help you. Maybe there’s a lactation consultant at the hospital or the nurses can help you get accustomed to the equipment that you have. Record All the Moments You want to record all of the events of your twin’s birth and those cute, adorable newborn infants. These images and video will be for posterity’s sake, for the grandparents, and for you to embarrass the twins at their weddings some time in the future. While your smartphone may be good enough to take video and pictures of your twins, you may also consider having a standalone point and shoot camera that you can easily hand off to somebody to take pictures or video. But worse come to worse, your smartphone should be fine to use. Just make sure you bring your chargers and cables. Camp Gear for Dad Dad, if you’re gonna be spending some time at the hospital, particularly those first few days after the twins are born, make sure you bring something to help you sleep. The couches in recovery rooms are notoriously hard. When I went to the hospital for my twins delivery, I made sure that I had a pillow, a sleeping bag, and an inflatable mattress (like we take camping) to make sure that I was as comfortable as possible while in the room with my wife and our girls. Snacks Take some food that you can snack on to keep your energy levels up. Mom will be receiving food from the hospital under doctor’s orders. But Dad, you may want some extra food and snacks to take care of yourself. This way you’re not always having to run down to the cafeteria of the hospital and who knows what you’ll find there to eat. For the Twins The hospital have really cheap onesies that the twins will wear along with swaddling blankets. But you can’t take these items home with you. Pack several receiving blankets for your twins, a couple pairs of onesies, and some super cute clothes for them to wear as they come home from the hospital. Don’t forget your car seats. Your hospital will not let you come home with the babies unless they have car seats. That’s one of the primary checks to see if your twins are ready to leave – that they properly fit in the car seats. Hopefully this has been helpful in giving you some ideas of what you need to pack in your hospital bag for twins, both Mom, Dad, and the twins themselves. What would you add to your hospital bag? The post What should I pack in my hospital bag for twins? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

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. Juggling Work and Still Find Time for Bonding With Twins I received a question from a dad who is trying to juggle the realities of life and caring for his family. He said, “So my wife can stay home with the twins I will be working two jobs. So, I am wondering what I can do in the little time I am there to bond with them. I am scared about having one with this challenge, and now with twins, I’m kind of freaking out.” I can fully understand that would be a cause for freaking out. It’s not easy to be able to provide for your family, and juggle the demands on the home front and be able to spend time with your twins. Especially if you work two jobs, it’s going to make scheduling extremely crazy. Fortunately for you, or maybe unfortunately for you, the first year of twins, the twins are going to be up all times of day, all times of the night. So, regardless of your work schedule, odds are you’re going to be home and awake when twins are awake, and you can have an opportunity to interact with them. Focus on Home Time What I would do is when you leave work and come home, it’s home time: family time and undivided attention for the kids. What this means is that you’re going to have to put on the shelf any hobbies, or extracurricular activities, or even personal time you may have had before. It’s going to have to be all focused on your family, especially if it is important to you to be able to bond with those twins when you’re not working. When you come home, immediately look for opportunities that you can spend time with your wife and your kids, and how can you help take care of the twins. Bonding Moments With Twins Especially when the twins are newborns or infants in their first year, there’s plenty of opportunities for you as a dad to be able to help with those responsibilities. You could be changing diapers, feeding the babies, getting the kids dressed, or getting them ready for the day. If you have opportunities to go out and run errands with your family, that’s another chance that you could have to bond with your twins. Look for the little moments that you can spend with your twins. Bonding is Possible Yes, it is a challenge. Juggling work and two new twins in the household is going to be a monster of a responsibility. But it is doable as long as you are able to clearly divide your attention between work and home. When you’re at home, be present. You’re home with the twins and looking for opportunities to spend as much time with them. Even if it’s as simple as holding them in your arms, feeding them, reading to them, or tucking them in at night. As a dad, I really enjoyed helping the kids get ready for bed at night — giving them baths, getting them in their pajamas, and sending them to bed at night. I really enjoyed that opportunity to bond with them on a one on one basis. 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) The post How to Bond with Your Twins appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

Are you considering using cloth diapers for your twins? I asked dozens of twin parents how their experiences went with cloth diapers, and here I’ll share the pros and the cons of cloth diapers for twins. Advantages of Cloth Diapers for Twins Less Waste The sheer amount of diapers that you go through as a twin parent is mind blowing. We’re talking thousands and thousands of diapers by the time your twins are potty trained. So a huge advantage of cloth diapers over disposable diapers is that you’re throwing away less diapers. You’re throwing away less stuff and that is better for the environment and for your twin when they get older. Cost Savings Another advantage of cloth diapers over disposable diapers is that of cost. You can save a lot of money by purchasing a reasonable amount of cloth diapers, and then cleaning those regularly and reusing them as opposed to purchasing disposable diapers that are used and thrown away. Skin Sensitivity Some twin parents note that their twins’ bums are happier in cloth diapers versus disposable diapers. Disposable diapers use super-absorbent polymer (SAP) gel, which is non-toxic but synthetic. These artificial ingredients are constantly in contact with your baby’s bum. Those could irritate them more than just fabric. Quicker to Potty Trained Many twin parents who use cloth diapers for their twins note that they’re able to potty train their twins earlier than those twins that are in disposable diapers. Think about the purpose of a disposable diaper which is to wick away all that moisture and discomfort away from the skin as quickly as possible. So your kid can run around with a full diaper with minimal discomfort. However, with cloth diapers, that’s not the case. They’re going to be up close and personal with their wetness or their poops. That’s going to make them want to get out of that cloth diaper as quickly as possible. That leads to them wanting to potty train earlier than with a disposable diaper. While many parents swear by cloth diapers as a way to potty training success, this could be anecdotal. Many pediatricians and child development experts state that physical and emotional readiness is the primary driver of potty training success, not the type of diaper. So your mileage may vary. Reuse with Other Children If you have other children after your twins, you can do hand-me-downs with those cloth diapers. Assuming, of course, that you took good care of them while your twins were in diapers. Twin diapers can often be used for a total of 4-5 years across the two children (or a third), dramatically dropping the cost-per-use and solidifying the environmental benefit. Disadvantages of Cloth Diapers for Twins Now, let’s talk about some of the cons of cloth diapers for your twins. Cleaning Diapers The big one is that you have to actually take care of and clean those diapers after your child soils them. If they pee in the diaper, you have to wash it. If they poop in the diaper, you have to wash it. That is an extra layer of work that you have to handle in addition to caring for the twins on a regular basis. If you don’t have the time or patience to take care of those dirty diapers after you change a diaper, maybe cloth diapers are not for you. They definitely are not as easy as just taking off a disposable diaper and throwing in the trash. This constant washing requires not only your time, but also your resources. You’ll be running your washing machine a lot. Or you can also outsource these diapers to a local service who can come and wash diapers and give you clean ones in return – which of course has its own expenses and costs. Overnight Challenges Many twin parents report that overnight usage of cloth diapers can get kind of hit and miss. Cloth diapers may not be able to hold the amount of pee or poop that your child may put in the diaper overnight when compared to a disposable diaper. Many twin parents may have their kids in cloth diapers during the day and then at night they put them into disposable diapers to get that extra absorption over night. This way you don’t have to worry about leaks or blowouts. If you want to stick with cloth diapers overnight, look for “doublers,” “boosters,” or “night inserts” (extra layers of absorbent fabric like hemp or bamboo) designed to make cloth diapers effective overnight, though they do increase bulk. Sizing for Preemies Twins are typically born early and are typically born smaller than your normal singleton baby. The smallest cloth diapers are typically newborn size (6-10 lbs). As such, cloth diapers may not fit those really small baby bums in the beginning. Your twins may have to wear some preemie diapers or some newborn disposable diapers before you can move them to cloth diapers as they get a little bit bigger. Traveling with Twins in Diapers If you want to travel with your twins while they are still in d

If you’re a stay-at-home parent with twins, how do you get anything done while balancing childcare? Let’s talk about managing and taking care of the twins during the day while trying to get anything else done, be it work or household chores. Here are some insights from your fellow twin parents that commented on my Facebook page: Focus on Twins During the Day Melissa Buckingham says that as a solo parent she has to be available during school hours while her children do remote learning. Then after school, she focuses on meals, vacuuming, and household chores. Once all the kids are in bed is when she works on the rest of the housework. This is a very common thing during the day. You sacrifice getting anything else done to take care of the twins and the children’s needs. And then during pockets of time during the day, you may work on food prep, household chores, errands, and then at night after they go to bed is your chance to try to wrap all that stuff up before you get to bed. Taylor says “you don’t get anything done until they’re asleep. It’s just the way it is until they’re old enough to be helpful and not destructive.” When our kids were really young, my wife and I would put all the kids to bed and then we kind of blitz through the house for about an hour, tidying everything up, cleaning things up so that when we woke up in the morning, the house was at least in good shape, ready to tackle the next day. By trying to stay on top of it a little bit every day, while the kids were asleep, it set a good stage for the next day. So we weren’t tripping over things immediately when we woke up in the morning. You Can Only Do So Much Todd says, as a stay at home dad of twins (he had three kids in two years), “just do as much as you can. Basically, you’re always going to be behind on everything. Kids come first. Whatever else you can do is a bonus. Weekends are for catching up from the week and preparing for the week ahead. It’s okay to let some stuff go during the week and try to catch up on the weekend. When you have a little more time or maybe your partner’s home from work and you can double team the tasks that need to be done.” Make the Must-Do List Sandy says “I don’t get everything done and I accept that. I make my must do lists. And then my regular to-do lists, the must do list takes priority and the to do list is just a bonus.” Sandy makes a great point here about prioritizing. What is most important for you to do during the day? That way, when you do get a pocket of time to work on something, check that must do list and tackle that first, most important task and work your way down the list. Your House Will Be a Mess Taran Lee home says that “when they were babies, I didn’t get much cleaning done. My mom would help with the laundry whenever she could. But day to day cleaning was put off. Now that the twins are three, I set them in front of the TV or their tablets and get the house vacuumed, clean beds made, et cetera. I’m lucky they have an older sister who helps as well. My house was way cleaner now than it was when they were little. It’s just the way life is. The season that you’re in right now with your twins, it’s going to evolve over time. If your house is a complete disaster mess wise, it’s not going to be that way forever. As your kids get older, take better naps, get to bed more easily, or even are able to help themselves around the house, things get a little bit easier for you to manage. Robert reminds us that “if stuff gets done and gets done, if it doesn’t try again tomorrow, for example, the laundry might be clean, but it doesn’t always mean it gets put away. So there are trade offs, you know, maybe you have to do just the bare minimum to make it through this day. And that is okay.” Don’t Forget Your Needs Rachel Baker says, “got hardly any housework done. When my twins were babies, I was too busy trying to survive the first few years as they woke up regularly in the night. I used to nap at times when they napped and quickly tidied the house on other sleeps.” Remember you have to take care of not only the twins and the house, but yourself. So make sure you’re balancing your needs for rest, for food, for your must do items with those needs of your children. Things Take Longer Than Before Dan says that “it’s tough. Tackle one thing at a time and don’t count on getting it done as quickly as you would have before twins. It will get better. Don’t set any expectations.” Adjusting expectations is a big key to parenting twins. You have to reset your expectations of what is possible on a daily basis. Twins are the priority, and they suck up a lot of that time and energy. You just have to adjust other things, but it does get better over time. Enjoy the Journey Brandy says, “do w

How do you handle the stress and mental struggle of raising twins? Raising twins is hard and it can become a huge, a stress, a burden, and a mental struggle for parents of twins. So just remember if this is you, if you’re feeling down and out, you’re not alone. We all go through the struggles, particularly when the twins are really young, it’s really hard. As you get through that time, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. So stay positive, keep your eye on the horizon because things will get easier. Here are some practical things other twin parents recommend you do to overcome some of that mental struggle and challenges of raising twins: Cry it Out Kelly says that “some days I just walk away and let my wife know that I need some time to myself. I lock myself in the bedroom and I let out a good cry. They say, men don’t cry, but for me, I have to let it out. Somehow.” Definitely talk with your partner about what you’re feeling If you need a break, if you’ve reached your limit, and you just need to tap out and do something else while they take care of the twins. Then you can switch at a later time, it’s okay to find a way to let your emotions out. Don’t hold them in. Get Therapy Jessica reminds us that many of the twin parents that she knows “have had to do some kind of medication and or therapy at some point, there’s no shame in it. It’s just doing what needs to be done, to be better parents for our kids. So if you feel like you need some extra boost, extra help, don’t be afraid.” Don’t be embarrassed to go talk to your doctor, to seek out some extra help that you may need for your mind and your body to function properly. Twin dad Steven went to counseling and that helped him heal from some mental health issues that lingered after the twins were born. Don’t Worry About the Small Things Stewart says “celebrate every little win and try not to sweat the small stuff.” This is a good, positive look on things. There’s tons of things to be worried about, to be concerned about, to be down. Try to focus on what is going well, the positives and the good little moments that you have with your twins. TV is OK Pietro says, “you just have to find the patience and understand that it will get better. What I like to do is turn on YouTube on the TV. Cocomelon becomes your best friend. Pietro has a good point here. Sometimes you need some backup and that backup may be in the form of technology. If you put on a quick show or a quick video to help calm the kids down while you catch your breath and regroup, and go ahead with the rest of your day. That’s okay. No shame in that. Go Outside Amy says, “get out of the house, take the kids to the park or to a family member’s house or a friend’s house.” A change of scenery is solid advice. If you’re feeling cooped in or trapped in your house with twins, get out, go somewhere else. Fresh air in nature is very therapeutic, not just for yourself, but before the kids themselves. It’s a great change of pace that can help alleviate some of the challenges you may be having. Don’t Do It Alone Nate says, “I still struggle with this, but I’ll tell you what people tell me. You don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to do it on your own. It’s hard to accept, help from others. At least for me, but you’re not weak or throwing in the towel. You can accept help, especially on the really hard days.” Remember this when you’re really struggling and you need help. Call in the help from your partner, friends, neighbors, family members, or if you’re struggling with the mental health issues, from professionals. It’s okay to do that. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s just empowering you to do better as you go forward. Focus On What You Can Control Tom says that he has “twin six year old boys, one with down syndrome and what I’ve learned over the past six years, and I’m learning every day. You don’t stress the little things are those you cannot control. Focus on the big issues and enjoy how life comes. Just like when you’re expecting your twins, there are so many possible complications with twins that are outside of your control. You can only focus on your preparations, getting ready for the twins. Same thing once they’re here, you can only focus on what you can control. Many things are out of your control, focus on what you can do and do those little things every day. When there’s minor annoyances, let those things go and just move on. Enjoy the Moment Rod says “it’s hard work mate, very hard work. And I question my sanity more often than not. However, it’s those small moments to see their faces light up or hearing them talk about stuff they care about or a cheeky smile, that melts your heart. Sometime

Are your twins double trouble? With twins, it’s kind of the cycle where one starts something and the other jumps right in and chaos ensues. Monkey see, monkey do. I asked several twin parents what they do to help control that chaos and help get their kids to not get too crazy with their behavior. Let’s see what your fellow twin parents have to say. Alicia Watson says “we give them treats when we hear them say no, that’s not a good idea.” I love this pattern of when you recognize good behavior or a good thing that your kids are saying, you reward that behavior. That helps encourage more of the same good behavior. If you can arm your twins with something they can say or do to their sibling to help encourage good behavior and not bad, you’ll be closer to avoiding some of that crazy mischief. Catherine says, “we have a phrase for them to say, ‘I am not going to do it.’ And they put their hands up.” Here’s another phrase that you can use with your twins. You can teach them to say this phrase when they see some behavior that’s questionable, that they know they probably shouldn’t do, it empowers them to curtail the mischief. Myra says “we ended up with three locks on every door because they would move chairs and climb by two or three.” Childproofing is no joke in general, but when you have twins, they can use each other to reach places that you did not imagine they could reach. They can problem solve together to get into trouble that one kid by themselves could not have figured out. That’s why double checking your childproofing is essential to keeping your twins safe. Particularly once they turn into crawlers and toddlers. Lisa Marie says, “praise the good. The one acting up, gets in line quick after that.” This worked miracles in our house as well with all of our kids. When we saw a kid doing something that we didn’t want them to do, we would immediately turn to the sibling and praise anything that they were doing that was good. Whether they were sitting still, playing nicely, not crying, or anything positive we could extract from observing the sibling. We would praise them. And then the twin that was causing trouble would also want that same attention and praise and they would quickly fall in line. Try this yourselves when you see some good behavior, focus on that good behavior. When you see bad behavior, find the good behavior and focus on the good behavior to get the twins to move towards that good behavior instead. Joshua says, “they’re going to be feeding off each other for the rest of their lives. No matter what we try to correct the behaviors in each of them and hope that it sticks. No favoritism is allowed.” It’s kind of easy, particularly when your twins have very different personalities to kind of gravitate towards one. You may feel drawn to the twin that is more obedient or happy. You need to realize that you love both of these twins equally and you can’t favor one over the other. Kaylene says that “we try to make sure that they get some one on one time, either with playtime or running errands, it seems to really help them calm down. And the individual attention fills their buckets.” Individual one on one time is so important, but it’s also so hard to pull off getting one on one time with your twins. It’s so important to bonding with your twins, to giving them the love and attention that they deserve. If you’re able to do even a small trivial task like running errands, doing dishes, or going for a walk with one twin – that is great. You’re going to do the same thing with the sibling at another time. Or you may divide and conquer that task with your partner and then switch twins later, whatever works best for your schedule. Try to get some one on one time, even if it’s just a little bit of one on one time with each of them. Robert says, “just let them work it out. But don’t assume that your twins are always going to be in trouble or will always be feeding off each other to cause mischief and mayhem.” Greg says his “boys are like old men. They’re the most well behaved. The teacher even sent them a message saying that the bad behavior of other kids irritates them.” So just because you have twins, doesn’t mean they’re going to be crazy monkeys all the time. Of course they’ll have their moments. But as they grow mature, they may grow out of those phases. Or it may just be a lifetime of excitement between the two of them. If you’re still expecting twins are in those early months with twins. I recommend you pick up my book, “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins”, as it will guide you through those first couple years with your twins and help you thrive along your twin parenting journey. You can get a copy of that book

Having twin infants is amazing but it’s also really hard. In this article, I’m going to share what makes having infant twins so hard so that you know you’re not alone in your twin parenting journey. I asked a bunch of twin parents on my Facebook about what’s the worst part of having infant twins. We don’t want to sugarcoat this. We want to be clear and transparent so you know what to expect if you’re expecting twins or that you’re not going crazy if you’re in the middle of raising infant twins right now. Sleep Deprivation Jenny says, “the absolute sleep deprivation i can’t even put into words i screamed and sobbed at night just from being so tired many days i sat at my desk at work and didn’t remember driving there.” So jenny’s experience of sleep deprivation is absolutely real. I remember having this as well when we had our infant twins. I was kind of in a zombie state at work at home in the middle of the night taking care of the twins and feeding them. Fortunately, that zombie phase ended after several months and finally getting those twins into a sleep routine. There is a light at the end of the tunnel if you’re going through the sleep deprivation and zombie phase right now. Letting One Cry Megan Rose says “sometimes having to choose which one has to cry while you take care of the other. You only have two hands.” This is a very truthful scenario for parents of twins you have to decide which twin is going to get your attention. This is particularly true when you are by yourself at home or in the middle of the night taking care of the twins and one of them’s crying or maybe both of them are crying and you have to decide. Just because you pick baby a over baby b doesn’t mean baby a is your favorite or you love baby a more than baby b. It’s just the reality of the situation. Triage who has the bigger need and tackle that problem and then move on to the second infant. Opposite Sleep Schedules Kurtis James offers “getting them on the same schedule, the routine is everything, but it takes time for everything to click. It can be overwhelming and scary just remember it’s all in phases and you’ll get through it. Nothing is permanent including the sleep schedules and feeding times. You’re always in control even when it all feels like chaos during the first few months.” As parents, you always have to be in control of the situation even though your emotions and the situation may feel like it’s out of control. You can do this. Getting twins in a routine is one of the top priorities that we as twin parents have to have just to survive in those infant months. Getting them in that routine can be a bit of a challenge (that’s one of the struggles of having infant twins) but once you get in that routine, life gets a little bit easier day by day. Jordan Johnson says “them being on opposite sleep schedules. That was really hard.” When your twins are out of sync it throws your entire day into chaos. Do everything you possibly can to get your twins synced up. One thing that works great is when it’s the night time it’s time for feedings with one when one of the twins wakes up for feeding you wake up the other twin. That way they get synced up with feeding and with going back to sleep and it starts to build that routine. Try your best to realign those schedules by syncing up feeding times and when you put them down to sleep, and it should work itself out over time Both Sick at the Same Time Tom Scott says “when one gets sick they both get sick which causes serious sleep deprivation” Having sick infants is is no joke. It’s kind of torturous because when they’re really little there’s not much you can do to help them overcome their cold or whatever it is that they have wrong at the time. You can’t give them a lot of medicine and they’re just kind of miserable. You can take the nasal syringe to suck out their noses and relieve some congestion but they’re just kind of cranky and miserable all the time. You feel so bad for them because there’s not much you can do when they’re really little before they can start taking medicines. Because your twins are always together you know if one gets sick the other is going to get sick in short order. Remember, nobody’s sick forever. Give it a couple days and they usually work their way through it and they should be fine Carrying Two Car Seats Renee Anderson says “carrying two car seats”. A true test of you as a twin parent is can you carry both car seats? How far you can carry both car seats? Can you carry both car seats at the same time while carrying the diaper bag, groceries, or some other item? That’s where it gets to be quite challenging. When our girls were infants and still in infant car seats, for all but the very shortest of dist

Episode 266 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Shawn Armstrong, father of twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Getting through numerous miscarriages leading up to twin pregnancy When Mom was sent to hospital at 26 weeks with preeclampsia for 30 days Balancing work while wife in hospital Why twins had to be delivered early Experience during delivery as a father Twins in the NICU for 78 days to grow and gain weight Having twins as a older father (46) Challenge with crawling twins (and now walking) Infant twins and sleep interruptions Why their “ten minute crying baby rule” helped maintain parents’ sanity Managing finances of having twins Day in the life schedule of one-year-olds Connect with Shawn via email Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. 00:00 Sometimes you have healthy twin babies, but getting to that point has a few rollercoasters and surprises. Today, we were talking with a father of twins whose wife had to go into the hospital for about a month before delivery. And then as girls were born really premature and spent about two and a half months in the NICU. 00:16 We jump into the details of that experience and much more today on the show. Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. The podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Hello there, and welcome to the 266th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. 00:39 This is Joe Rawlinson as always. You can find me on the web at DadsGuidetoTwins.com. Today. We are continuing our father of twins interview series with a father of identical twin girls. But before we jump into that conversation, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads of twins, it is called dad’s guide to raising twins out of thrive as a father of twins. 00:59 I spoke. We’ll guide you to the first couple years with your twins. To help overcome the challenges of sleeping, feeding, parenting, and more. As you get started on your journey as a twin parent, you can learn more about this book and get a copy for yourself at raisingtwinsbook.com. Once again, that’s raising twins book.com today, I would like to welcome to the show father of twins, Shawn Armstrong weld. 01:21 Welcome to the show. Good. Thank you, Shawn. How old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? so they just turns one on Christmas day. So the Christmas babies, so a little over a year now and actually the, well, I guess the first was it’s exciting right now is, they’re starting to walk. 01:45 So, yes, you can say second board, by one minute was, is actually starting to wear a walk first. So watching them start taking their steps and, and standing on the row and, and, and doing all of that is a, probably an accomplishment as itself. Yeah. That’s a fun transition when they start to walk. 02:07 Cause I mean, once I figured that out, there’s no stopping them ever again. Yeah. Everybody warns you. They’re like, oh, what’s that happens. Watch out. So, it’s true. It’s true. But I would have to say crawling into things and over things, there’s actually a worse than that. So what kind of trouble do they get into? 02:29 well, right now it’s a, we have this, downstairs. Well, our living room is kind of a sunken in a living room. And so they have their own about, well, the whole living room is their whole PlayStation. but, more than anything we have, like the, the side tables for the coffee table is. It’s like secure it around like a bunch of, stuffed animals and pillows. 02:51 And they’re starting to learn to crawl over that now. So, everything is interesting over on the coffee table. So is there anywhere else that your childproofing might’ve failed? Ah, actually so far the wa the way our house is right now, they’re just confined to that one area. So it works perfect for us right now. 03:13 we’re actually looking into kind of getting something bigger. So we know that we’re going to have to put childproof. My wife has already have this, childproof kit and she has all the accessories, but so far we haven’t had to go into the full house yet. So, but it’s coming, it’s coming because once they, once they start wanting. 03:34 walking in and going forth and, and playing in the kitchen and all of that, it’s it’s going to happen. Did one of your twins figure out the crawling or walking thing before the other one or are they. Actually, and that’s the thing about our Mike twins right now is, so what we’ll refer to her as baby a is, is Madeline and baby B is, Lillian. 03:59 And so, Matty is, the smaller of the two

Episode 265 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Derek Craddock, father of boy/girl twins. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: After having trouble conceiving twins, they had success with medical assistance Birth via scheduled c-section at 37 weeks Dad’s experience during delivery No NICU time but something wrong with Mom after a few days Wife had postpartum pre-eclampsia and back in hospital for 5 days Had to monitor heart and see cardiologist Dad helped care for babies while in hospital Having mother-in-law stay with them for two months after birth Challenges of having twins sleep in parents’ room Twins shared room until age two Toilet training ongoing with twins Helping with language development at 3 years old Finding childcare for the twins, first a nanny and then small daycare for about a year Transition to having mom stay home with the kids Moving with young children Making time for memories with children Connect with Derek on Facebook Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. 00:00 Today we have a great chat with another father of twins and discuss among other things. Making sure you make time for creating memories with your children. Overcoming the challenges of potty training toddler twins. When he surprised health scare sends mom back to the hospital shortly after. And much more today on the show. 00:21 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. The podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. 00:37 Hello everybody. And welcome to the 265th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. 00:43 You can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com or you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today. We are continuing our father of twins interview series with the father of boy, girl twins. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that if you are expecting twins, you should get a free audio book version of my Dad’s Guide to Twins book. 01:02 Through a partnership I’ve made with audible, you can keep that free copy at freetwinbook.com. Once again, that’s free twin book.com today. I’d like to welcome to the show father of twins, Derek Craddock. Welcome to the show, Derek. Thanks, Joe. Glad to be here, Derek. How old are your twins right now? And what is something exciting about this age? 01:20 There’s three and I think one of the things that’s exciting about this age is how quickly they’re learning. Quickly there, their language is evolving. It seems like every day they’ve got a new word or a new sentence, or just a new like skill or attribute that they’re, they’re learning. It, it blows us away how quickly that they’re adapting to the things around them. 01:46 Now, do you have identical twins, boy, girl twins. 01:50 They are boy, girl twins. 01:51 And you mentioned language learning development. Is there something that you’re doing to help foster that in the home? Yeah, I mean, aside from, you know, nightly you know, reading times, you know, story times, we make an effort to you know, to have them, you know, involved in you know, even like decision-making things or you know, just making sure that we’re communicating with them and that we’re giving them the chance. 02:16 You know, to use like words and sentences. You know, I think one thing is, you know, if we’re ever reading a story or wherever asking them to pick up something, whether it’s a toy or, you know, one of their favorite foods is a, is a bananas. We’ll often ask them things like, you know, what color is this? 02:35 Or, you know, what, what, you know, what is this, what does this look like? Or, you know, so that way they’re, they’re identifying it and that they’re able to put away. To what they’re seeing. So it’s, I think it’s really, really cool that they’ve been learning that. And I liked the fact that it, it also helps us to become more involved in and their development you know, growing up. 02:56 So it was really fascinating to see. I love that asking them open-ended questions. You know, kids are often a lot smarter than we give them credit for, even from a very early age, as you’re seeing, which is awesome. Are your twins, your only children? They are. Yes. So let’s go back to, when you found out that you would be having twins, what was your situation like at that time? 03:17 And what was your reaction? Yeah, so for us we, we had trouble having kids for a good couple of years. You know, we had tried and and it just, it just wasn’t working, you know, naturally for us. And it was, it was discouraging, you know, at first, especially because we had a lot of our friends and, you

Episode 264 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Scott MacDonald, father of fraternal twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Shared parental leave between parents and deciding who would take what time off Scheduled c-section at 36.5 weeks Encouraging fun and creativity at home Starting day care at 11 months old Putting the twins in separate preschool classrooms Speech development differences Why toilet training was a big milestone for making life easier Packing the right gear for the twins when traveling Must have baby gear and books Using screen time to help with learning Giving each twin their own experiences Keeping boundaries in place for the twins Helping twins know when it is time to get out of bed Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Today we are chatting with a fellow father of twins. By his experience, raising four year old twin girls, including how he and his wife split up their family leave time when the girls were born. Some of the must have been here that made their life a lot easier, setting boundaries with your twins to maintain your own sanity, and some epiphanies they had about toilet training their girls that are much more today on the show. Intro 0:27 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:42 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the 264th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of twin girls. But before we jump into the chat, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my book, Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins. This was a follow up to my original book, Dad’s Guide to Twins and Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins will help you through those first several years with your twins from infants to toddlers. And beyond. You can pick up your own copy at raisingtwinsbook.com Once again, that’s raising twins book.com. Today, we’d like to welcome to the show father of twins, Scott McDonald, welcome to the show, Scott. Scott 1:23 Hi, thanks for having me. Joe 1:25 Scott, how old are your twins right now. And what’s something exciting about this age. Scott 1:30 They’re four, there’ll be five in July. And the most interesting thing about this age really is the level of creativity that they’re getting into one of them, they’re both very, very individual, their personalities, whatnot, but the kinds of things that one of them is bringing out like the drawings and the singing and just everything. It’s really, it’s really kind of crazy. She makes all kinds of interesting. Popsicle stick figures. And she’ll come downstairs and say, Look at my human, my human has two legs, like Okay, great, you know, but now that they’re starting to gain a lot more words and stronger, stronger handle on language, the kinds of things they say is just absolutely hilarious. Joe 2:16 Is there something that you’ll do to encourage that creativity for them? Scott 2:21 Yeah, we’ve, we’ve always had a place in the house where it’s just their stuff. And they always know that basically, we’re kind of where to find their toys. And then we’ve slowly aged up the things that we have there so that it’s not just maybe not just like cars and, and dolls, it switched at about probably two maybe, is when we started adding art supplies. And then from that time on that place that they always knew their stuff would be always had art supplies. And it’s really, really worked out. And especially when they learn about certain concepts, like when one of them figured out what mail was, and how mail worked with cards and envelopes. She was writing probably 10 letters a day. And so we had to buy a bunch of stationery for her. And she would just sit down and draw a picture and put a couple letters on it sealed envelope, and then we had to put it somewhere. So we actually had to buy an a real mailbox to put outside on a tree with her mailbox. So she can put her stuff in it and and then we would give it to her friends if she has, has letters that she wants to send to some of her daycare friends. Like if one of them was sick, there wasn’t at school, then she’ll write out a note and a picture and maybe throw some stickers on it. And then when it goes to the mailbox, and then we can tell their parents, hey, you know, if you want to drop off your kid to pick up his mail, they’ll do that. So that’s been really helpful. And we just when we’re when we have

One of the most frequent questions by those expecting twins is: do I need two of everything? Just because you are having twins doesn’t mean you need two of everything. The trick is to know when you need double and when you can survive with just one of that particular item. Getting two of something really comes down to: do both twins need this at the same exact time for safety reasons? do both twins prefer to have the same thing? The question of getting double of everything for twins really comes down to physical needs and individual preferences. You won’t know your twins’ preferences until they start to show you what they like. However, you can make a list of what they physically will need two of to survive. When is One Item Enough for Twins? Think about scenarios where your twins can take turns using one piece of baby gear. If they can safely share something, you only need one of those items. For example, you only need: One baby bath but two towels. We found it best to bathe one twin at a time until they could sit up safely in the regular bathtub. When they were infants, we bathed them solo in a little baby bath or on a bath chair in the regular bathtub. One changing table but diaper supplies for two. Unless both mom and dad are changing the twins simultaneously in some kind of pit stop race, you will almost always be changing just one twin at a time. One playpen or playset where you can sit one baby on each side One of any given toy until the twins are old enough to both want the same toy at the same time. More on that below. One stroller – but it better be a double stroller! One pair of toenail clippers – they won’t fight over this until they are much older What do you need two of for twins? When it comes to your twins’ safety, physical space, feeding, and hygiene, you’ll need double: Car seats – don’t take your twins anywhere in the car unless they each have a car seat. The hospital won’t let you leave without them. Diapers – you will literally go through thousands of diaper changes for your twins. They can share a box of diapers but they can’t share the same exact diaper. Ewww. That’s just gross. Feeding Supplies – If you’re breastfeeding your twins, it will be helpful to have a twin nursing pillow. When bottle-feeding your twins, you’ll need a rather large collection of bottles but likely only one bottle brush. Clothing – While your twins can wear the same outfits on different days and even matching outfits on the same day, they will need double the clothes to be properly dressed. And yes, laundry with twins is crazy. Also don’t forget double the burp cloths, receiving blankets, and onesies. Consumable Products like wet wipes, rash creme, trash bags (for smelly diapers), and more will be used up quickly. And for safely sleeping your twins… Do you need two cribs for twins? You need two cribs for your twins. The safest place for your babies to sleep is on their own sleep surface. If you prefer to have your newborns in your master bedroom with you, you’ll likely need two bassinets. Then the twins can graduate to full-size cribs in their own nursery after several months (or when you feel it is time for them to move on). Do twins need separate rooms? Your twins can easily share a room. You don’t need to put them in separate rooms unless you want to. As your twins get older, they may ask to have their own rooms. At that point, it comes down to the size of your home and your family’s preferences. Our twin girls have shared a room since birth. Do you need two baby swings for twins? In our home, we had only one baby swing for our twins, and we got it used. We needed this swing the most when either my wife or I was alone with the twins. This gave us a place to put one of the twins, where they could be soothed by themselves and we could focus our attention on the other twin. The swing was great for helping distract, soothe, and keep a child happy while you changed, fed, or soothed the other. We found that having one swing was more than enough for our twins. We stopped using our baby swing after several months because we found that the twins weren’t using it that much. We definitely used the two bouncy seats that we had a lot more than the swing for our twin girls. If you can only get your hands on one baby swing, that should be fine. Do you need two of every toy for twins? 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? 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 we saw a

Episode 263 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Titus Shockley, father of twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: One health scare at 34 weeks when Mom had contractions Kids in NICU only 5 hours Types of feedings that worked for the twins Negotiated paid paternity leave One girl needed a helmet to improve head shape Mom works from home and full time mom until 1 year old Getting a nanny for one day a week Twins started in parent’s room and then moved to own room Favorite gear that is most helpful Day in the life schedule 18 month olds Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Today we’re chatting with a father of 18 month old twins about his journey and lessons he’s learned along the way. Getting through a premature labor scare during the pregnancy, finding out what type of feedings worked for their twins, some of their essential twin baby gear, and why one of their girls needed a helmet in her infancy. We talked about that much more on the podcast today. Intro 0:24 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:39 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the 263rd episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. You can find me on the web at dadsguidetwins.com where you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of identical twin girls. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my first book for dads. It’s called Dad’s Guide to Twins. You can pick up a copy for yourself at twindadbook.com. This book will help you get through the pregnancy and make the preparations you need to be a twin dad once again that’s twindadbook.com. And let’s jump straight into the interview. Today we’d like to welcome to the show. father of twins Titus Shockley, welcome to the show, Titus. Titus 1:24 Hey, thanks for having me on Joe. Joe 1:26 Titus, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Titus 1:31 18 month old twin girls, and I think just you know them really just starting to figure things out. Like, sometimes I can see him looking at me and they can tell they’re figuring it out. They’re kind of like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park in that way. But you know, I’ll start to say something. Are you trying to motion for something I can tell that they’re starting to kind of work out? Do they have an idea of what I’m doing? You know, Joe 1:55 Velociraptors – That’s an accurate description of toddler twins for sure. What kind of trouble do they like to get into together speaking of velociraptors. Titus 2:04 mainly climbing, pushing each other off of things, pulling down virtually anything they want. I had no idea how hard they could reach onto beds and couches and whatnot, they they find a way. They do find a way. Joe 2:19 Now are your girls identical or fraternal? Titus 2:22 They are identical. Joe 2:24 So now that you’ve had for 18 months, there’s got to be telltale signs to tell them apart. What are those? Titus 2:31 I, I always joke with my wife that I can tell, you know, who’s who by which one’s excited to see me when I come in the door. One of them is much more fond of me than the other one. But physically, Ellen, the older of the two had a helmet for about four or five months. And so while it did its job and did a great job, she does still have a little bit of a wonky head. So you know, when in doubt, I can always touch their heads to to kind of piece it together. Joe 3:00 Let’s let’s talk about that helmet. What was the need for that? And how did you find out that you needed to take those steps for her? Titus 3:08 Man, to be honest, her heads crooked. She was very low headed down for the majority of the pregnancy. And the head shape was always, you know, obviously a little, you know, kind of tilted to one side. But she had a little bit of about of torticollis I believe I’m pronouncing that correctly. You know, we’ve pushed the pediatrician for helmet for a while. And now she’s, I don’t really like to make that recommendation unless it’s physically necessary for cosmetic purposes. insurances will pay. And then as soon as you know, her neck was a little droopy. And we had to call us the pediatrician wrote the recommendation immediately. And I think we had the helmet with about four or five weeks, six weeks, maybe it worked well. It did wonders. Joe 3:58 How old was she during the time? Titus 4:00 that we got the diagnosis between two, two months or right

Episode 262 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Will Stephens, father of fraternal twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: When the twins start walking Handling finances with twins Dealing with $1k/month day care costs Limited paternity leave Juggling running business and having twins Having help from friends and family in early days Pregnancy induced carpal tunnel syndrome Healthy delivery of boys via c-section Feeding boys formula Sleep routines with infant twins Milestones different between the twins Deciding priorities while raising twins Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Running your own business while also running a small town as an elected official plus balancing twin boys. All that and more today on the show. Intro 0:08 Welcome to the dads guide to twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the dads guide to twins Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:24 Hey everybody, welcome to the 262nd episode of the Dad’s Guide To Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com. Today we are continuing our father twins interview series with a father of twins who’s just making it through that first year with his twin boys. But before we jump into that, chat, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my TwinTShirtCompany.com where you’ll find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for us parents with twins. For twin dads, twin moms and the twins themselves. Check out all those designs at twintshirtcompany.com. Now let’s jump right into that interview. Today we’d like to welcome to the show, father of twins Will Stephens. Welcome to the show, Will. Will 1:08 Hey, Joe, thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate. Joe 1:12 You’re welcome. Tell us how old your twins are right now. And what’s something exciting about this age. Will 1:18 They are 10 months old as of a week ago. And the thing that I guess is most exciting is that Nolan just took his first steps, all gosh, maybe two or three days ago. And of course, that’s something that most all parents get to experience. And it’s a natural part of their development, of course, but you can’t help but feel a certain amount of pride in it. And then Martin is just really starting to his personality is really filling out he is just very bubbly child, he seems to think the whole world is sort of a joke and all things are to be laughed at. So his taking in of the world is something that’s a daily wonder for my wife and I Joe 2:10 fantastic. Are your boys identical? Will 2:12 No, they are not. They’re fraternal. Nolan is quite a bit bigger than Martin. And he’s a little darker complected. And you could kind of see them natures of my wife’s family and mine. And each of them, as they both have some pretty distinct features from one another. Joe 2:34 Are they are only children? Will 2:37 yes, they are. You know, my wife is 38. And I’m 40 years old. And so like many people in this generation, we got started later than previous generations. But we got to at once. So it’s been absolutely life changing. To some extent, it has been the most frustrating thing I’ve ever dealt with in my life, I have no doubt about that. Because when you begin to have to rearrange all of your priorities, and all of your budgets and all of your things that you do as a matter of course, around these two children, when you go from zero to two, you know, they talk about cars going zero to 60. It’s like going from zero to 120. And it is quite a lot to manage. Joe 3:33 So you mentioned some frustrations there, like budgeting for example, how are we able to reconcile finances with twins in the picture? Will 3:41 I’m not sure that we have honestly, I I think that we’re still seeing some real severe challenges in that way, especially with rising costs. We got a utility bill the other day, that was probably double what it would normally be. We’ve had some particularly cold temperatures overnight over the last month here where I live in Southern Illinois. And thankfully, due to, you know the generosity of our family, we’re making it and I can’t, by any stretch of the imagination say that, you know, we don’t have middle class livings for where we live. I manage a radio station. I’m also the mayor of my hometown. My wife is a journalist and between the two of us we make about $80,000 A year $90,000 A year depending upon a few things. And so it is enough to get by but we really find that the biggest adjustment has been just the the daycare costs. And I’m sure that there are other people paying a lot more than we are but you know, $1,000 a month in daycare

Episode 261 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Aaron Rieder, father of twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Being married for 20 years before having twins via IVF Wife’s pregnancy started healthy and normal but then the twins were growing at different rates Having twins while living in remote area Dealing with intrauterine growth restriction when the twins were not getting consistent flow of nutrients What if one twin stops growing, they could initiate delivery but put both twins at risk Decision to name twins during pregnancy Twins in NICU (one for 2 weeks, the other for 34 days) Challenge of getting twins in a routine Seeing the twin bond between them Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe Rawlinson 0:00 What do you do if during the twin pregnancy the doctors tell you that one of your twins might not make it all the way? Today on the podcast to talk with one twin dad, who had exactly that happened to him and his wife during their pregnancy, and how the good news is they made it through with healthy twin girls. Intro 0:18 Welcome to the dads guided twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the dads guide to twins Joe Rawlinson. Joe Rawlinson 0:32 Hey everybody. Welcome to the 261st episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with the father of twin girls. But before we jump into his story, I want to let you know that you can get a free audiobook version of my first book Dad’s Guide to Twins by visiting freetwinbook.com. Once again, it’s freetwinbook.com. Today, we’d like to welcome to the show, father of twins, Aaron Rieder. Welcome to the show, Aaron. Aaron Rieder 1:04 Thank you for having me. Joe Rawlinson 1:05 Aaron, how old are your twins right now. And what’s something exciting about this age? Aaron Rieder 1:10 My twins are four. They’re both in full day preschool. And it’s exciting because this is kind of around the time where they really start to form that twin bond that we talked so much about. And they have so many shared experiences. And I think that’s kind of where the twin bond comes from. They just, they’re in school together, they’re at home together. And they do that they do more with each other than they do with any other person on the planet. So they spend a lot of time together. And it’s exciting to see that relationship. Especially over the last year, there’s been a couple of health issues with one of my children. And so there’s been days where they haven’t gone to preschool together and just to see how excited they are to see each other when they get home. And, you know, they draw pictures for each other because they miss each other and some fun stuff like that. Joe Rawlinson 1:58 That’s great to see that bond to that love between them. Are they in the same bedroom together? Aaron Rieder 2:04 They are. Yep. Joe Rawlinson 2:05 How would you classify them as roommates with a cooperative? Are they kind of opposite personalities? How’s that work? Aaron Rieder 2:12 You know, they they definitely have have their moments where they don’t get along very well. As far as the nighttime routine stuff goes, they seem to do fairly well. At least sleeping in the room together, playing in the room together sometimes a little more challenging. Joe Rawlinson 2:26 Now you have twin girls, are they identical or fraternal? Aaron Rieder 2:31 No. And they are fraternal. And my wife and I joke that we have the absolute most fraternal twin girls in the world. One is blond hair, blue eyes. And she is about six inches and about maybe 10 to 15 pounds smaller than her brown hair brown eyed twin. So they’re they’re very, very different. body style is different. The smaller one looks a little more like me, and the bigger one looks a little bit more like my wife. Joe Rawlinson 2:59 That’s cool, so you have your own little you’re a little twin that looks like Mom, mom looks like dad. That’s nice. Let’s rewind back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? Aaron Rieder 3:11 We, my wife and I’ve been married for over 20 years in June. And we had always wanted children and finally got to a place in our careers when we felt that it was the right time. And unfortunately, we had a lot of trouble being able to get pregnant. And we eventually after doing IUI and IVF, we went to IVF. And our first pregnancy was our son was just turned seven. And then we had an unsuccessful embryo transfer. And then a few months later, we had a successful transfer of my g

Episode 260 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Adam Oxley, father of twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Finding out about twins after wife since pandemic wouldn’t let dad attend scan Not being able to support wife during doctor visits One twin growing faster than the other needed care for a few weeks Delivered via c-section after waiting 48 hours for their turn Boys came home 3 days after delivery Breastfeeding proved difficult and moved to bottle feeding Having similar identical twins – how to tell them apart Challenges with feeding twins Deciding to let Mom take career break Daily schedule for 15 month old twins Working as a team with your partner in raising the twins Connect with Adam on Twitter. Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Today we’re chatting with the father of twins from the UK, who shares his twin journey so far as a father of identical twin boys, including waiting over 48 hours for their turn to have their boys delivered some of the challenges they had with feeding the babies how they overcame those and deciding which parent should stay home to care for the twins. That in so much more today on the show. Intro 0:20 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:34 Hey everybody. Welcome to the 260th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. You can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com, where you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. In fact, if you have listened to a whole bunch of past episodes, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter @twindadjoe, and tell me all about it. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series. But before we jump into that, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins”. This book really guide you through logistics, and the practical tips and tricks you need for the first couple years raising your twins. You can get a copy of this book for yourself at raisingtwinsbook.com. Today, I’d like to welcome to the show father of twins Adam Oxley. Welcome to the show, Adam. Adam 1:21 Thanks for having me. Joe 1:23 Adam, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Adam 1:26 Oh, they are 15 months old right now. And and this age, everything is becoming exciting. There’s lots of mobility, there’s lots of kind of babbling and little bits of you know, words that are starting to form. And essentially, they’re turning into little people right now, which is for me. Exciting, you know, they’re starting to do little bits and pieces for themselves instead of us being the human for them. And obviously that will that gap will grow over the next what 17 years or what have you. But this this feels right now a real big development phase. And it’s yeah, really exciting to see. Joe 2:17 Fantastic. Now do you have identical boys? Is that right? Adam 2:19 Yes, have identical boys due to the way they they grew together, there’s enough difference for me and my wife, Gemma to, to see. And I think once people get to know the boys, they can see facially there’s little bits of difference. But you know, when you meet them for the first time, they, they they do look identical. And there’s lots of similar features. But I think that’s nice. I come around to that idea that I quite quite like having twins now. But certainly in the early stages. Yeah, boy, was it hard to tell them apart? Joe 2:55 So what did you do in those early months? Were there any tricks you use to tell them apart? Adam 3:00 We heard loads of different stories, you know, like, there are people that painted nails on on toes and stuff like that for us, we we kind of color coded it. So Joe, I’ve my boys are called Edward and Joseph. So I didn’t go. And Joe tended to wear blue, whereas Edward were the other color. If they both got blue, then you know, Joe would have a darker shade of blue. And the good. The good thing in a way for us in those first few months was the ad was a little bit bigger and heavier than Joe. And visually, once you lay them next to each other one was visually Ed was visually bigger than Joe. So clearly, when they were on the road, it was quite difficult at times, but you laid them next to each other and at least we could go right. Okay, that’s definitely add. And that’s definitely Joe. But that, you know, was one of the fears going into being a twin dad, and a twin parent that you would struggle to kind of recognize and work out which twin

Episode 259 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Robert Wheatley, father of twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Becoming a stay-at-home dad to twins When Mom’s blood type caused a serious pregnancy complication Mom worked 4 months into pregnancy and then had to stop due to doctors orders Wife had itchy hands and feet late in pregnancy due to Cholestasis 32 weeks delivery of twins after pre-term labor Local hospital couldn’t handle twins so had to go to big city 1.5hours away Had to wait 36 hours for c-section after Mom’s water broke Bubble CPAP in NICU 2 weeks for 1 and one week for the other One twin coming home before the other Moved back to parents house after birth Keeping twins in same room as parents Why bottle feeding worked for them Surprises of being a stay at home dad Potty training the twins at 3 Typical day-in-the-life schedule of 4 year olds Making one-on-one time with each twin Expressing individuality, becoming different people Raising one introverted and one extroverted twin Connect with Robert on Instagram Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 What happens when your twin pregnancy hits a series of complications and challenges? Well, you rise to the challenge and you make it through and we’re going to share a story of a twin dad today whose family did exactly that. Plus, how he decided to move to become a stay at home dad with his twin girls, today on the show. Intro 0:17 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:32 Hey everybody, and welcome to the 259th episode of the dads guide to twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at DadsGuideToTwins.com where you can find a whole host of resources to help you along your twin parenting journey. Today we are continuing our father twins interview series with a father of twin girls. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by TwinTShirtCompany.com. We’ll find dozens of T shirts with fun and creative designs made specifically for you. Fathers of twins for your families as well for moms of twins, twins themselves, and the grandparents. They make perfect gifts and are fun to wear. As a family you can see all of the shirts over at TwinTShirtCompany.com. Today I would like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins. Robert Wheatley, welcome to the show, Robert. Robert 1:17 Thank you, Joe. It’s good to be here. Joe 1:18 Robert, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Robert 1:22 They will be four in march right now they’re just starting to express their individuality. As you know, no, I don’t want to wear the same thing as my sister. You know, I’d rather eat something separated. So they’re they’re starting to become different people now, which is is fun and interesting to see them do Joe 1:38 besides like, clothing or food, whether challenges have you seen because of that individuality? Robert 1:45 I have one very introverted child, which is the, you know, take as my child and one very extroverted child, which is much more like my wife. So a lot of times, you know, one, Addison is my introvert. And she will, you know, be like, Yeah, let’s let’s hang out here in the, in the living room with a book and, or coloring book or whatever, and hang out. And my daughter’s like, Hey, let’s go outside and chase the deer. So it’s, it’s always interesting to try to wrangle the two of them, especially being the stay at home parent, you know, try to balance out the, you know, getting outside and doing stuff and being active and the other one who just wants to chill. Joe 2:23 So they’re like pulling you in two different directions. Basically, let’s talk about being a stay at home dad. How long? Have you been doing that so far? Robert 2:29 Just over a year and a half? I guess that was kind of a due to COVID Timing situation, which worked out well, you know, better than it could have anyways, for a lot of people. Joe 2:37 So how did you come to that decision? Was did your work situation change? Or you just talked through with your wife and like, Hey, this is what we want to do? Robert 2:44 Yeah, it was, it was a work situation, I was working as a building maintenance for an apartment complex. And with COVID regulations, and then everybody trying to figure out, you know, how to handle it going into other people’s apartments, you know, masks and sanitizers and, you know, biochemical warfare suits, and whatever else, they decided just to reduce the staffing to reduce the, you know, potential liabilities

Episode 258 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Tyler Anderson, father of three boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Dealing with a 20-month-old when the twins were born Twins were born 6 weeks early and spent 6 weeks in the NICU Paying off hospital bills for twins’ birth and NICU Their system for telling the twins apart Moving with 3 young children across the country Sleeping arrangements for all the children Sleep training the twins by 6 months When each twin hits milestones at different times Physical therapy for one twin to get him walking When the twins in elementary school have different academic levels Managing outside school activities and schedules Connect with Tyler on Twitter Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Moving across the country with infant twins, making sure one twin gets the necessary physical therapy to start walking and juggling crazy after school activities of three boys. All that and more today on the podcast. Intro 0:16 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:30 Hey everybody. Welcome to the 258th episode of the dads guide to twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at DadsGuideToTwins.com, where you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today, we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of twins. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my twin T Shirt Company, where you can find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for us parents of twins, and the twins themselves. Check out all the designs over at TwinTShirtCompany.com. Now let’s jump right into the interview with father of twins, Tyler Anderson. Tyler 1:06 Our twins are eight now. And we have a 10 year old so we my wife and I are both teachers. And we were actually living in Boston, when we found out and my wife was 20 weeks along before before we found out we were having twins. Joe 1:25 That’s a long ways to go before you find out. Tyler 1:27 Yeah, it was it was a long way as we had, we did kind of all the early testing and stuff with our oldest who at the time. So he was born in January, and the twins were born in November. So he was about, he’s about 20 to 22 months old when we had our twins. So he wasn’t he was an old himself. So we did all the early testing with our oldest and with what we thought was gonna be our second child we like are busy, we miss some of the deadline. And we just thought, well, you know, whatever happens, we find. So we went in at about 20 weeks to do some stuff. And I think just get some some pictures and things. And we’d had the conversation that we’ve missed a lot of the testing. I said, Well, you know, something’s wrong. We’ll, it’ll be alright. And so we got in there and the nurse was doing the scope and stuff. And she she just kind of looked at us. And she paused and she said is the is the doctor talk to you. And we both kind of had that shock look. And so she stepped out for a few minutes came back in and she said she’s like, everything’s fine. She said both heartbeats are looking good. I think we had said some things that kind of insinuated that we didn’t know there were two. And there was no news that there were two. So when she had said, both our heartbeats look good, I was holding our oldest the time and my face just got completely pale, started getting kind of sweaty. And we’re sitting down and we were the first thing I said is because we lived in Boston and our families, were back in Kansas City now our families here in the Midwest. And we’re just saying that we’re, we’re moving back home. And we did, we made it about a year in Boston. And just kind of the two of us. We had family fly out as much as they could. And we got through that first year. And then we’re back to Kansas City. Just be around closer to family. But those first six months to a year were were pretty, pretty rough. I think. My wife wasn’t a miracle worker. She is I don’t know if we would have made it made it through Joe 3:29 was your wife at home with the kids during that first year? Tyler 3:32 She was so she when our oldest said when our oldest is born, she stopped teaching and she was she was home and she was actually doing kind of different childcare work with kiddos in the neighborhood. And our plan was she was actually going to be helping a family out and a family of four, oddly enough, who had some kids around our oldest age, so she was going to watch all of them because the mom was in med school dad was working quite a bit. And they were they were ne

Episode 257 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Matthew Mills, father of three including twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Twins close to talking Using baby sign language to communicate Twin pregnancy vs singleton – more morning sickness, aches and pains Preparing the sibling for twins’ arrival Potential complications of mono/di twins vs. reality Scheduled c-section Managing time off work after birth Nighttime routine with twins Day in the life of 18 month old twins Negotiating day care costs Connect with Matt via email. Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Yes, your twin pregnancy can go smoothly and you can have an amazing delivery with no NICU time for twins. Sometimes it’s important remember that that is an option. Today we’re chatting with another twin dad about his adventures as a father of twins. Plus he shares some great tips about negotiating daycare costs for your twins. Intro 0:17 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:32 Hey everybody. Welcome to the 257th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at dadsguidetotwins.com, where you can also listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with the father of twin boys. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to thrive as a father of twins”, you can pick up your own copy of this book over at raisingtwinsbook.com Once again, that’s raisingtwinsbook.com. Today we’d like to welcome to the show father of twins, Matthew Mills, welcome to the show, Matthew. Matthew 1:08 Hey, thanks for having me. Joe 1:09 So Matt, how old are your kids right now? And what is something exciting about this age? Matthew 1:15 So my the twins are 18 months old. We do have a single who was born back in 2017. And he’s almost four and a half now. The twins, I would say with spars what’s exciting about them right now is ours are very, very close to, to starting to be able to talk they they certainly think they’re talking when they mumble and when they have a lot of gibberish coming out. And they point right they do very hilarious hand gestures when they have like a question, right? They’ll put their hands up as like the kind of like, I don’t know, hand gesture. And so that’s hilarious to watch them do that. And it’s funny because you can see the frustration when they when they believe they’ve told you something and you’re like, I don’t know, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But yeah, we’re pretty excited for them to be able to talk we do a little bit of sign language with them. So hand motions for like all done water, things like that. So they they they’ve been able to communicate with us for a little bit on very simple things. But for them to be able to talk will be will be so game changing. Joe 2:29 Absolutely. Do you have two boys? Two girls? Matthew 2:32 Yeah, I have all boys. So yeah, our our twins were mono/di. And, and then our oldest son, obviously, like I said he was he was just just by himself in 2017. And then he got two brothers that he didn’t know he wanted. So Joe 2:47 did you do the baby sign language with your older son as well? Matthew 2:52 A little bit. Yeah. And he was, he was very good at it. It was something that we we didn’t know we were going to do it. Um, but but our our daycare facility sort of started it. And then once we talked to them about it, we were like, Oh, well, we can reinforce that at home and, and learn a little bit ourselves about how to how to say, you know, some of those things. So it’s something that they they’ve just picked because they’re all the same. They’re all at the same facility. So it’s the same sort of program that they’re going through. And they they’ve just continued to do it. So yeah, it’s one of those things that like I’d have probably read about or heard about before I had kids, but like until you see them do it. It’s I don’t know, I just don’t know that I believed how much of it they were able to grasp or how much they understood. But they they absolutely get it they totally when they ask us for water or when they when they tell us that they need their diaper changed right there. They’re pointing and very much expecting us to understand. So it’s very cool. Joe 3:57 That’s fantastic.

As the father of twins, there is no doubt: your help will be needed when the babies come home from the hospital. It might even be needed before they are born. So the question is: when should you take your paternity leave and how long do fathers of twins typically get? The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA in the United States) allows both the mother and father to use up to 12 weeks of leave for prenatal and post-pregnancy care. Your employer will likely have specific policies on how that time is allocated (vacation vs. sick time or time without pay). Make sure you take advantage of paternity leave FMLA and all the time off you can get. FMLA leave is often unpaid. How long do twin dads typically have for paternity leave? The answer to this question is different every time I talk to a father of twins. The answer of how long they get to stay home with their twins after the twins are born, varies greatly from almost nothing to being a permanent stay at home dad with twins, and everything in between. I’d say that the average paternity leave allowed for fathers of twins is no more than two weeks. This is unfortunate as ideally the minimum leave would be least 4 – 6 weeks. There are many factors that influence how much time you’ll get off for paternity leave with twins. First, is the parental leave policy where you live. Some countries and localities are more generous than others. The amount of time you get off also may come down to your employer. Paternity time for men is usually really restricted at least here in the United States – you may be lucky to get a few days or a few weeks off for the birth of your twins. In my case, for the birth of each of my four children. I was given two weeks paid leave after their birth. Fortunately, I was able to get creative in how I divided up the two weeks I was able to take a full week when the twins were born. Do fathers of twins get paid paternity leave? Talk to Your Boss Talk to your employer to figure out how much time you can get off of work to care for the twins. The big question is how much of that time is paid time off? Can you access unpaid time off and still return to the same job (if it’s a job that you want to return to)? Double check your local laws in your particular part of the world. Your local government or your national government may have rules and regulations about how much time a new parent should receive time off of work before they go back to the office or back to employment. Discuss Child Care With Your Partner Who is going to be taking care of the twins when one or both of the parents go back to work? That answer often determines how long mom or dad (or both) can take time off after the twins are born. In our case, we already had two little boys when our twin girls were born. My wife was already a stay at home mom and the plan was for her to continue to be a stay at home mom when I returned to the office. So that’s what we did after my paternity leave was up, I went back to the office and she was at home with all four children. Childcare expenses for twins can be very expensive. Of course childcare just for a single child is expensive. Add two to the mix and things start to get crazy. If you have any other very young children who also need childcare, those prices start to reach a point where economically speaking, it may be best for one parent just to stay at home, unemployed, to take care of the children while the other partner works. Is it in your budget to hire a nanny or an au pair or someone who can be with the children during the day in your home? That’s an awesome situation where both parents can go back to work while the children are still taken care of even from an early age. How Long Do You Want Off? How long do you want to be home with the twins after they’re born? That is really a personal question for you and your partner. The economics and finances of it really determined how long most parents stay home with their twins before returning to work. If you’re able to rework your budget and finances so that one parent can stay home or both parents can stay home, more power to you. If you need to be able to both work to provide for your family and you have to pay out of pocket for childcare. That’s often the route that many parents go with as well. Remember that everything is negotiable. Have open and frank conversations with your employer about how much time you need off. Don’t be afraid to ask for more. Every new father of twins needs the opportunity to bond with their children after birth. You may have to get creative of how you make that happen for you and your family. Prenatal Care If your wife is on bed rest, she may need help even before the twins arrive. However, this may put you in a sticky situation: your family needs you at home for more time than you can take off of work. The first piece of advice I give to anyone that tells me they are having twins is “get he

When you find out you’ll be receiving twin bundles of joy in the not-too-distant future, you’ll likely start to panic. Here are tips for twins from your fellow twin parents to help you keep things under control and enable you to conquer the twin parenting challenges ahead. First, check out this video that highlights twin advice from a handful of twin parents: Then browse these practical twins tips from dozens of other twin parents: Giving Attention “Don’t feel guilty if one twin needs more attention than the other! One may be more fussier and needier. You can still make special time with the less needier twin…. and sometimes they will switch roles of being the twin that demands more attention!” (Brian Z.) “When they first arrive, be selfish with your new family’s bonding time. You only get to be a brand new family once so enjoy it, make everyone wait.” (Ryan T.) “Split them up often to connect with them separately. They need that.” (Anna G.) Getting Help “We were advised early on to accept all offers of help, hand me downs, support etc. The independent part of me found it was hard to change but the reality of life with multiples required a lot of changes in me and this was one I’m totally grateful that I embraced.” (Ali M.) “Get/accept help. Even if it is someone who claims to know nothing about babies. Extra hands are awesome.” (Marla H.) “Get help (family, friends, paid help) as early and as often as you can because it’s going to get overwhelming especially those early years.” (Todd S.) You don’t have to manage the burden of twins by yourself. It is fine to ask for help. In fact, you should ask for all the help you can get. An extra pair of hands will be a lifesaver for helping take care of your twins, the house, and other children. Getting a Routine “Hands-down, the best piece of advice I was given was to come up with a routine – and to stick to it! It was tough work – especially in the first few months – but sticking with a routine not only gets the babies into a good rhythm, it also, paradoxically, goes some way to alleviating the pressure on the parents. It’s important to be adaptable, and it could take some trial and error to get into a regular pattern, but if you can remain disciplined and stick with what works , it won’t be a walk-in-the-park, but it will be a lot easier than it could have been!” (Craig M.) “Routine! Keep them in sync as much as possible! Which wasn’t easy in the beginning! But reaping the benefits now they’re 28 months” (Dave H.) “Get them on the same nursing/bottle schedule ASAP.” (Marc S.) “Have them both feed at the same time, that way they aren’t waking up for feeds staggered every hour and a half ” (Michael M.) “Keeping them on the same schedule saved us. That seriously was the best advice ever.” (Erica M.) “Feed them at the same time and nap them at the same time so you can save time.” (Christina S.) “Get them in a schedule, and stick to it!” (Matt V.) “Stick to routines and schedules. That has made our lives way less complicated that what we expected.” (Fernando R.) “As a mom of now 4 year old twins.. KEEP THEM ON THE SAME SCHEDULE! it will save your sanity.” (AnaLeya R.) Expectations and Realities of Twins “I think it is very important for Dads of twins to drop the expectations around the house and the expectation of how much work the twins are for the dad as well as the mother.” (Ryan S.) “It doesn’t get easier, it gets different.” (Joe G.) “The first four months are the most difficult.” (Marc S.) “It will be okay. No matter what happens. It will be okay.” (Michael H.) “It gets easier. This is very true by the 18 month mark when they play together.” (April K.) “They will not be babies forever.” (Marc S.) “With twins, be ready to change what you’re doing if it will help your babies.” (Lyra F.) “Oh and don’t eat around them lmao. Because even if they just ate they will always want your food.” (Brett V.) “That ‘it will get easier’. I honestly didn’t believe it the first few years and thought people were just saying that. Mine just turned 7 and I can confirm it gets WAY easier after the third and even fourth year.” (Rick B.) “Pick and choose your battles. Also don’t put yourself down about not getting to daily chores right away. The first few years with twins, a lot of things will get put off because you will be so busy. Just go with the flow.” (Bella G.) “Give up on ever being organised again ,accept it and do your best. You’ll get this all back when they get older” (Kas T.) Comparisons “Try not to compare your twins with one another – or with singleton children

A common question parents of infant twins ask is: “How do I have time to do everything with twins?” The answer comes from prioritizing and trying to optimize your time. Prioritizing Time When twins arrive in your family, you will not have time for everything you used to do on a daily basis. The house won’t be as clean, the dirty clothes will pile up, and you’ll feel like you never leave the house. This means that you need to prioritize what gets done and what waits for later. Make a list of the most important things you need to do. They might not be what you think they are. Your top priority is the health of your twins. This means you must take care of them! Feed them. Help them sleep. Change their diapers. Keep them warm. Your second priority is Mom’s health. She will likely be caring for the babies around the clock particularly if breastfeeding them. Mom needs to get rest and good nutrition to keep going. Dad’s health is third. Yes, you need to eat properly and get some sleep too or you’ll get sick and be useless. What comes next? Work. Errands. Chores around the house. For the first year with twins, the top three concerns will occupy most of your time. The only way to get more stuff done is to prioritize your efforts and then be more efficient in how you do things. Advance Food Preparations I’m a big advocate of a freezer meal shower when you’re expecting twins. This will stock your freezer with food you can eat during bed rest and the early months with twins. The same principle is true with day to day living with twins. Keep a stash of ready-to-eat meals in the freezer that you can heat up when you have no other options. Make twice as much food for dinner and save the leftovers for a freezer meal or dinner tomorrow. When your twins are infants, make sure you’ve got a supply of milk or formula you can take with you on trips to help when feeding time comes. Batch prepare all the formula for the day in one setting. Bathroom Before You Leave Your Mom told you, and now you’ll tell your kids every time before you leave the house: “Did you go to the bathroom?” A potty break at home will be twice as fast (or more) as one once you leave the house. Once you’re out of the house, finding a bathroom and getting your twins to use it is a huge time waste. When your twins are still in diapers, make sure they have fresh diapers before you venture out of the house. Unless you get a surprise poopy diaper, you should be fine until you get back home. Pre-Position Supplies Save time by putting your supplies right where you’ll need them. This could be around the house, in the car, or even at Grandma’s house. We changed a lot of diapers in the family room and not in the girls’ room on their changing table. Because of this, we put a small supply of diapers and wipes out where we used them the most. Keep diapers and related supplies at strategic locations throughout the house so you can serve a twin’s need without having to sprint through the house. Keep extra diapers, supplies, and changes of clothes in the car. This will allow you to respond to any diaper blowouts or other incidents without having to go all the way home. Always keep your diaper bag stocked so you can just grab it and go when you need to leave the house. When the kids go to sleep at night, prep the house for the next day so everything is ready when you wake up. Schedule Your Activities Around Naps Look at the schedule and see when the twins sleep and eat. Then you can plan outings and errands so those are not interrupted or delayed due to cranky babies. You’ll need to make tradeoffs to accommodate your twins’ sleeping schedule. However, you can’t always stay home just because it is nap time. If you must be out and about during nap time, be prepared for cranky twins. And plan for a rough night’s sleep later that day. You’ll get a feel for what happens when naps are skipped with your twins. Adapt and change accordingly. Parallel Processing A theme we found useful with our twins was try to do as much together as possible. When the twins are on the same schedule, life goes a lot smoother. Feed both babies at the same time. When you try to care for twins one at a time, it will seem like you are taking care of the twins all day long. Try and split tasks between parents to make life a little easier. Help your twins nap and sleep at the same time. This will give you a regular schedule and opportunity to handle non-twin tasks. Feed your twins at the same time. Bathe your twins together at the same time. Let It Go Don’t worry about folding baby clothes. Have a drawer or basket for each type of clothing (shirts, onesies, pants, pajamas, etc.) that you can just grab from and put on your twins. Remember: it is OK to leave your twins in their pajamas all day.   What are some of your favorite time saving tips with twins? The post

How did you know that you would be having twins? Let me share how we found out that we would be having twins and three ways that people normally would find out that they’re having twins. Our Twin Story When we found out that we were expecting twins, we already had two little toddler boys. To begin, my wife had taken a positive pregnancy test at home. Since we had gone to the doctor with the two previous pregnancies, I knew the routine (she gets a little lab work to determine that, yes, she’s pregnant). Because we had two very active toddlers at the time, I said, “hey, let me stay home with the boys. We’ll drop you off at the doctor’s office, and we’ll come pick you up when you’re done.” So my wife went to that visit by herself. She the doctor confirmed that yes, she was pregnant. And then they hooked her up to the ultrasound machine. At that point, the doctor identified that there were two and not just one. When my wife was done with a doctor visit, she called me on the phone to say she was ready for pickup. On the call, she said that she had an ultrasound. I said, “hey, that’s fantastic.” She said, “yeah, we saw healthy heartbeats.” I told her that was great. And then I paused as I realized what was happening. “Did you say heartbeats? More than one?” My wife confirmed over the phone to my panic self that yes, we would be having twins. I raced over to pick her up the doctor and the adventure hasn’t stopped since. Ultrasounds Are Typical The ultrasound is the primary way that people find out that they are having twins. An ultrasound is a very standard thing during the pregnancy to determine how things are progressing with the baby. The doctors want to know that everything’s going well; babies are healthy, mom is healthy, and there are no complications. During that scan is typically when most parents of twins find out that they are having twins. So that may be the case with you as well. As I mentioned before, this is exactly what happened for us during that first doctor’s visit after we found out that we were pregnant, so very early in the pregnancy. Ultrasounds are also the reason why it is almost impossible to not know you’re having twins until birth. Bloodwork Maybe the Clue If the ultrasound doesn’t identify twins for you, it may be bloodwork that’s done during the pregnancy. This can give clues to what mom is carrying. Additionally, a simple heartbeat monitor may pick up multiple heartbeats that would likely send mom to an ultrasound for confirmation. Finding Out At Birth is Unlikely Of course, every parent of twins sees that they are having twins at the time of delivery. However, waiting until birth to find out that you’re having twins is extremely unlikely. If you have normal prenatal care for mother and the baby during the pregnancy, you’ll know before birth. News of Twins vs Reality of Twins While we found out at the very beginning of my wife’s pregnancy that we would be having twins, for me, the dad, it didn’t really set in until much later. It started to get “real” for me when: I went to ultrasounds with my wife and could see my little girls wiggling around in there. That’s where I really started to settle in. I’m like, yep, we’re gonna be having twins. When I could put my hands on my wife’s belly, and I could feel them moving around. That was another thing that may seem super real to me. And of course, when they were born, when one comes out, and then the other one comes out, you’re like, oh, my goodness, that’s actually happening. I’m actually a father of twins! More Examples of When Twin Parents Found Out They Were Having Twins Kayla R. – “I had a “gut feeling” as soon as I found out I was pregnant. We didn’t use ivf & they don’t run in my family so I had no reason to feel that way but I just knew. We found out at 5 weeks there was 2 little sacs in there. My doctor likes to confirm all pregnancies with US to make sure they aren’t ectopic right away.” Alex M. – “Going through IVF, I was so monitored that we checked for twins at 6 weeks and there they were! Heartbeats and all. But my symptoms have been so mild, that we might not otherwise have suspected.” Dakota P. – “We were shocked, though I think deep down I suspected twins…though I suspected in other pregnancies as well! We found out at 22 weeks at our routine ultrasound! Though by about 28 weeks there would be no denying that I had twins…I felt all four arms and all four legs!” Listen to twin dads share their experience of finding out they’d be having twins. Did you already find out that you’re having twins go and leave a comment below with how you discovered that you would be having twins. The post How did you know you were having twins? appeared first on Dad&#

Episode 252 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Anton Mykhaylov, father of identical twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Had a high risk pregnancy – TTTS, TAPS Laser surgery to separate boys and drain fluid Water broke at 33 weeks and rush to hospital Premature birth leading to the boys staying in NICU for 30 days How to interact with twins in NICU Wife pumping to feed boys Twins sleeping in twin bassinet Taking shifts as parents during the night Hiring a nanny to help with the twins The gear that they’ve found most helpful Traveling with infants Connect with Anton via email. Podcast Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 As you know, twin pregnancies can be quite risky. So what do you do if your twins are at risk of actually not making it through the pregnancy? Today we talked with a father of twins, who had that exact thing happened with his twin boys during the pregnancy. We’ll talk about what they did to help save the lives of their boys, and how things have been going so before. Intro 0:19 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins” Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:35 Hey everybody, welcome to the 252nd episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com where you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we get real with another father of twins and some of the hardcore challenges that he and his wife and the babies had during the pregnancy and after birth. But the good news is that they’ve made it through and you can too, so want to take some inspiration, some motivation from this podcast, even though there may be challenges that you may face with your twins, life and death challenges. You can get through those and make it out on the other side. Before jumping on interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my first book, it’s called “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, you can get a free audiobook version through audible over at freetwinbook.com once again, that’s freetwinbook.com. Today we are continuing our father twins interview series with a father of twins where he and his wife had some serious complications with the twins during the pregnancy and we’re gonna jump into those details in a minute. One thing we do talk about is TTTS and TAPS. Now those are both acronyms TTTS like we’ve talked about before on the podcast is twin to twin transfusion syndrome. And TAPS is Twin Anemia Polycythemia Sequence. those are both mouthfuls but now you know why we refer to them most often by their acronyms, TAPS and TTTS. So our guest today will jump into some details of how his twins went through this experience with taps in particular. But I just wanna let you know that, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, TAPS is a rare condition that occurs when there are unequal blood counts between the twins in the womb. unequal blood counts caused the twins to suffer from an imbalance in red blood cells. And hemoglobin. Let’s means that one twin is not receiving the appropriate amount of oxygen and nutrients. It needs to develop properly. TAPS can occur randomly with twins and has a much more severe case of twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Okay, so some of those details under your belt. You’re ready to jump into our conversation today. Today I’d like to welcome to the show father of twins Anton Mykhaylov. Welcome to the show, Anton. Anton 2:42 Thanks for having me, Joe. Joe 2:44 Anton, how old are your twins right now and what’s something exciting about this age? Anton 2:49 They’re about three months just to age. So they’re born premature 33 weeks on March 24th something exciting I think there are smiling a lot now they’re a lot more interactive. They’re not just you know, kind of lay there and stare at you blankly so it’s you know, they, they play with toys, they know this you. And something exciting is that they also started noticing each other very recently. So that’s that’s also been fun to see that. And just they just seem like they’re very curious now about the world around them. So it’s so it’s fun to see them do new things and just kind of explore. Joe 3:33 Do you have boys girls, or one of each? Anton 3:34 identical twin boys Joe 3:36 Yep. So let’s go back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? And how was your reaction to that news? Anton 3:44 These are first kids. And it was kind of funny the way we found out about it. My This is my wife’s I think it was her first. First your secon

So you found out that your partner is expecting twins? When will she start showing? When will you start to notice that baby bump? First, congratulations, you’re expecting twins! When can you visibly start to see that your partner is pregnant? It depends on a lot of factors including the size, height, shape, and physical makeup of your partner. Do you show faster with twins? If mom is really small and short, she’s going to show a lot faster and that she’s a larger woman. For comparison purposes, in a singleton or one baby pregnancy, mom is going to start showing visibly and start to have that baby bump in the second trimester. So that’s after three to four months of the pregnancy. With twins, of course, you’re growing two babies, and it’s going to go a lot faster. The bump will be measuring significantly ahead of a singleton pregnancy at any given point in the second and third trimesters. How early can you show with twins? Mom is going to start showing physical signs of pregnancy with that belly bump towards the end of the first trimester. Definitely before 12 weeks but it could be as early as six to seven weeks, depending on the mother. While significant bloating can begin at 6-7 weeks due to high hormones, the true uterine growth (the “baby bump” that is not just bloat) typically becomes visible to others closer to the end of the first trimester (10-12 weeks), or even earlier for a second or later pregnancy. I know as a dad, finding out that we were expecting twins was kind of a surreal experience because I only saw them on the ultrasound. I saw those pictures but when I looked at my wife, she just looked like she did before. It didn’t seem like she was really pregnant. It took those several weeks until I started to see the bump. And then several weeks after that to start to feel the babies moving. Then it really started to become real for me that yes, we would be having twins. Intellectually, I knew we’d be having twins because I’d gone to the doctor, I’d seen the ultrasound, and I knew the results. But it wasn’t until I started to see my wife’s body change and see that baby bump, followed later in the pregnancy with feeling the babies moving that everything started to get exciting. I knew that this is really going to be happening. Do you show sooner with twins? If you’re expecting twins, expect that baby bump on mom after six to seven weeks and probably by the end of the first trimester. Some moms may go longer before you start to see that baby bump. It all depends on your pregnancy, and your partner. If your partner has had babies before, we may be able to compare and contrast how this pregnancy is going versus the first time that you had children. Practical Tips Related to Showing Mom may need to buy maternity clothes much sooner than anticipated, often switching to them fully by the end of the first trimester (12 to 14 weeks), even if she didn’t need maternity clothing until later in previous pregnancies. Look into getting Mom some support gear for the second and third trimesters, such as a maternity support belt or belly band, to help with the extra weight and pressure. When did you start showing with twins? If mom has already started to show, leave a comment below with how far along in the pregnancy she was before you started to notice that physical change. The post When do you start showing with twins? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

Episode 250 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Randy Morton, father of 9 year old boy/girl twins. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Getting twins to sleep early on Separating the twins in school Getting divorced when the twins were young Hobbies and interests similarities and differences between twins Challenges of not seeing kids during the week Grandparent involvement with twins Finding babysitters for the twins Overcoming reading challenges and behavior problems Getting out with the twins to parks or the beach Managing screen time with the kids and more… Connect with Randy via email. Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Today on the show we’re talking with a divorced father of boy/girl twins about what he’s learned along the way through his twin parenting adventure. Intro 0:08 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:24 Hey everybody and welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always you can find me on the web at twin dad podcast comm where you’ll find the complete transcript for this episode. And you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. In fact if you have binge listened to a bunch of the podcasts I would love to hear about it you can reach out to me via email Joe at dads guided twins calm I’m also on Instagram and Twitter @twindadjoe. Today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com where you’ll find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for families of twins. We’ve got lots of shirts for dads are twins, moms of twins, the grandparents and the twins themselves. Check out all those designs at twin t shirt company.com. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a father of eight and a half year old boy girl twins. Let’s jump right into that chat. today. We’d like to welcome to the show, father of twins Randy Morton, welcome to the show, Randy. Randy 1:13 Thank you, Joe. And welcome, everyone. Joe 1:16 So Randy, how old are your twins right now? And what’s the most exciting thing about this age? Randy 1:21 They’re eight and a half have boy and girl twins. And the exciting part now i guess is just seeing them grow up as they get older from being infants and just the different quirks that they have and how they get along as well. So Joe 1:38 I suppose they’re in school right now? Are they in person school or doing remote learning? Randy 1:42 They were in person. And then when the cases spiked the school went back to virtual, but they’re actually getting ready to go back next week for in person. Joe 1:54 How have you been able to manage having them learn from home, or having them learn at school has has been juggling with your family? Randy 2:02 It’s been a little difficult. I am divorced. So they actually live with the mother. So she deals with mostly the school aspect part of it as far as the virtual learning. And then I get them every other weekend. So I I’ve done some of the virtual schooling on Fridays, when I usually pick them up. Joe 2:23 How long ago did you get divorced? Randy 2:25 It’s been four years now. Joe 2:27 So let’s rewind back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? Randy 2:35 I was married, of course, we had been trying for several years to have kids. And unfortunately nothing was working out. We actually did lose a baby at one point early on in the pregnancy. And then we ended up going the IVF route after her trying it why that wasn’t working with the shots. So then we did IVF we put two eggs in thinking, well, if one didn’t take at least we’d still have a good one. And they both took so yeah, we ended up with twins. Joe 3:14 So it wasn’t a complete shock. As you know, that was a possibility. Randy 3:17 Yes. And actually, it’s an interesting because my ex wife, twins run on her side of the family. So of course it skips every other generation and her mom, her mom’s mom was a twin. So obviously it skipped her mom and the possibility of my ex having twins or her sister having twins. We always knew that was in the back of our mind as well. Joe 3:43 Were there any complications with the pregnancy or the birth of your twins? Randy 3:47 Um, no, thankfully, there wasn’t. No, Joe 3:50 that’s wonderful. So looking back in those early days with twins, what kind of surprised you the most about having two babies at once? Randy 3:56 Well, the initial process I mean, with the whole IVF aspect of it was just crazy and mind blowing, I guess you can say as far as seeing what they&#82

Do twins come from Mom or Dad? Well, we know that twins grow inside of Mom and she does the lion’s share of all the work in that process. But what about family history or genetics? Will Dad’s history or that of the Mother determine if you’re having twins? This question requires that we go back to our high school biology class to remember how babies are made. If you remember, there’s an egg from the mother and a sperm from the father. When those come together, it creates the baby. With twins, you have certain circumstances that caused them to become twins. Identical Twins Let’s start with identical twins. Identical twins are completely random. It’s not based on family history or genetics. Identical twins form when a single fertilized egg splits and forms two embryos. Now in this case, it’s not because of mom or dad. It’s just beautiful luck that creates identical twins. So who “causes” identical twins? Mom? Dad? The answer: neither one. You’re just lucky! Fraternal Twins Next are fraternal twins or non identical twins. In this case, Mom’s side of the family has more influence than the father. Instead of a single fertilized egg splitting into two, you have two eggs that are independently fertilized. Why would Mom have two eggs at the same time ready for fertilization? It could be due to several different factors. First is that Mom released two eggs at the same time. Typically, a mother will release one egg every cycle that is available for fertilization. However, in the case of fraternal twins, the mother may have released two eggs. As Mom ages, she may tend to release more than one egg every cycle. So the older the mother, the more likely that she may have non-identical or fraternal twins. This is one reason so many celebrities seem to have twins. Another option is that the mother has a family history of hyper ovulation where mom releases more than one egg every cycle. So if mom has a history of that, or mom’s family has a history of that, you may be more likely to have fraternal twins. We also have the wonders of modern medicine. If families are having a hard time conceiving and having children, parents may decide to go for additional measures to help encourage conception and pregnancy. When you start to involve modern medicine, the game changes completely, it doesn’t really matter what mom’s family history or dad’s participation is. Because if mom is taking some medication to help her ovulate, she may release more than one egg. That could cause potentially fraternal twins or triplets or more. Parents may use in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to get pregnant. This is where an embryo is created outside of mother’s uterus and then implanted in the uterus. Oftentimes parents choose to embed more than one embryo in the uterus with the hopes that they take. That could lead to more than one baby: twins, triplets etc. Dad’s Role in “Creating” Twins So of all I’ve explained so far, dad has little to no say in if they’re twins or not. Sorry, mate. Of course if mom and dad are the couple are deciding together that they want to embed more than one embryo through in-vitro fertilization, then obviously dad has a say in things. Are twins hereditary through the father? No. When you look at spontaneously conceived twins, dad’s family history, genetics, and opinions really have nothing to say with whether you have identical twins or fraternal twins at all. The Bottom Line about Having Twins If you have identical twins, congratulations, you won the twin lottery. It’s not because of mom or because of dad. It’s just random and a beautiful thing. As we know, we have identical twin girls. If you have fraternal twins or are expecting fraternal twins, it could be because of Mom (age, hyper ovulation, medical assistance, etc.) So there you go. Are twins because of Mom or because of Dad? Well, it depends. How about about you? Do you have identical twins or fraternal twins? Go ahead, leave a comment below and tell us what you have and when you found out what you would be having. The post Do twins come from Mom or Dad? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.

Episode 248 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Ian Sadler, father of identical five-year-old twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: When one twin isn’t growing as fast as the other in utero At 25 weeks, issues arose but managed to get to 32 weeks Boys spent 3 weeks and 5 weeks respectively in NICU Creative naming of the twin boys after a basketball player of Dad’s alma mater One boy on heart monitor when came home due to Bradycardia Dealing with sensory processing disorder Boys in separate classes Birthday celebrations so they feel celebrated Preparing at night for the next day and more… Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Super creative naming of twin boys after a basketball player at dad’s alma mater, plus the joys of raising nearly five year old twin boys today on the show. Intro 0:13 Welcome to the dads guide to twins podcast the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the dads guide to twins Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:28 Hey there and welcome to the 248th episode of the dads guide to twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com where you can find the complete transcript for this episode, and you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we continue our father twins interview series with Father of identical twin boys. Before we jump into his story, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com. Where you’ll find unique designs of T shirts designed specifically for us families of twins, there are shirts for dads, moms with the grandparents and the twins themselves. You can browse all the shirts at twintshirtcompany.com. Today we’d like to welcome to the show, father of twins. Ian Sadler. Welcome to the show, Ian. Ian 1:14 Thank you, Joe, excited to join you today. Joe 1:16 Ian, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Ian 1:20 So my twins are four about to turn five. And right now we’re in the phase of life where they’re, they’re deciding on what their unique styles of life are. So one of my one of my kiddos is very sports focused and the other one likes to sing in the bathroom and tell everybody he’s a rock star. So they’re, they’re formulating their own unique identities right now. And it’s but it’s all it’s right at the beginning of them. So they’re still very similar, but at the same time, there’s glimpses of who they may become in the years to come. Joe 1:52 They always kind of demonstrated different personalities like you’re describing Ian 1:56 a little bit. I think I think that early on, we anticipated what their personalities were going to be but as you can imagine, we’ve been dead wrong, right? So you know, you think that you have this specific vision of what you anticipate based on names based on initial characteristics, but yeah, I work in college athletics is my assumption is that they’re going to love sports. But they’ve established their own identities and they’ve gone to complete different directions. Joe 2:26 Are they identical or fraternal? Ian 2:28 They are my boys are identical. mono di twins. Joe 2:34 I have mono di girls. And, so do you? Is it is it pretty obvious who’s who are other people still tricked by telling them apart? Ian 2:42 Yeah, they Um, so for us, it’s pretty easy. So they weren’t they are identical twins. However, in your you’re in utero, Landen was growing a little bit faster than Luke was early on. And so forever, we describe Landen as the one who has a little bit rounder, a face. And he’s always been, you know, three, four or five pounds heavier than Luke. And so for us, it’s, it’s pretty easy to tell which one is which. But for others, we occasionally have to make sure we label them with stickers or, or different colors, and each of them has their own favorite color that they wear, which makes it easier for our friends. Joe 3:22 Yeah, for sure. We had to find some patterns, or we would dress them in different colors. It was all really to help other people. And in help us later, like if we took pictures of them, we can look back and see who was who based on on like the color clothes they had on Ian 3:35 early on. Luke was on a little bit of a monitor. And so when he looked back at pictures, it’s impossible to tell who was who except there’s a little there’s a little cord hanging off the sock of Luke. And we can always tell which one he is. Joe 3:48 Let’s rewind the clock back to when you found out that you were going to be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? And how did you find out? Ian 3:56 So

Episode 247 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Eric Langenderfer, father of twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Raising identical 9-month-old twin boys Getting a DNA test to prove they were identical Childproofing for crawling twins Creating a child safe room Finding the perfect stroller for side by side Putting the twins into daycare at 6 weeks 6 months of bed rest with restrictions and how they adapted Why feedings were time-consuming Keeping track of baby feedings and changes Dealing with teething symptoms When kids get sent home from daycare and more… Connect with Eric on Instagram Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 You may encounter some crazy problems during twin pregnancy and with very young active twins. But it doesn’t mean you have to throw in the towel. You can be very creative in how you solve these problems, to help your wife to help your kids to get the house ready, etc. We talk about a lot of creative solutions with a dad of twins today on the show. Intro 0:20 Welcome to the dads guide to twins podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the dads guide to twins Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:36 Hi there, and welcome to the 247th episode of the dads guide to twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com, where you’ll find the complete transcript and Show Notes for this episode, and you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we continue our father of twins interview series with a father of identical twin boys. But before we jump into that, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins”. You can pick up your book at raisingtwinsbook.com Now let’s jump straight into that twin dad chat. Today, I would like to welcome to the show, father of twins, Eric Langenderfer. Welcome to the show, Eric. Eric 1:18 Thanks for having me. Joe 1:20 Eric, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Eric 1:25 They are nine months. And the exciting part is that they’re crawling around getting into everything. They’re really expressive and using their hands a lot. So I think that’s kind of the nicest part compared to say, right when they’re first born with it, they don’t really have many expressions, and they’re not obviously moving and crawling at that stage. Joe 1:47 Do you have two boys? Two girls, one of each? Eric 1:49 Oh, yeah, twin boys, identical. Zeke and jack, they thought that they were not identical because they each had their own yolk sac or whatever it is. And someone actually for the longest time they said they weren’t identical. And then we got and a DNA test and I came back like 2 million to one or some crazy amount that they’re identical. Joe 2:12 How old were they when you got the DNA test? Eric 2:15 Maybe like three months, four months, something like that. Because we I mean, I could just I just couldn’t tell them apart. And Rachel had trouble. The daycare couldn’t tell them apart. So we were just thinking we’d get it tested. Joe 2:26 How did the test worked? Is it with like a mouth swab or a blood draw? Or what? Eric 2:30 Yeah, it was like a mouth like a beautiful sample, like a little swab on the epithelial cells of their, their mouth, you just do a little swab inside the inside of their mouth and send it off in the mail. Joe 2:43 You mentioned that your boys are crawling now, how long ago did that start? Eric 2:47 Probably Zeke started first. And he’s probably been calling for maybe a month, maybe six weeks or so? I don’t know. I don’t know for sure. And then jack was a little bit later. Joe 2:59 So about the eight month marker so Eric 3:02 yeah, yeah, I think they’re a little bit don’t like quote unquote, you know, behind the the milestones. But they’re, they’re doing fine. Joe 3:10 So how have your childproofing efforts gone so far? Eric 3:15 Oh, well, we just turned kind of our whole house into child land. We have the plugs we’ve got they don’t get into too much really. But on some drawers and stuff. We like bungee cords just from like Harbor Freight. That’s pretty much it. But in terms of like, making the kit making it kid friendly, and like fun for them and everything we actually opted to go with, like we moved our kitchen, our dining room, kitchen table, whatever, just ended the foyer way. And then in that whole area, we have down like grappling mats from like jujitsu or wrestling. And they’re like two inch thick foam there from Amazon. And they’re awesome. Be

Episode 246 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Rich Banbury, father of boy/girl twins. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: A typical day in the life schedule of one-year-olds How dad can take care of the twins When breastfeeding didn’t work due to trouble latching Dad can be more involved when bottle-feeding Induction but no progress so had to have c-section Mom lost lots of blood so had to go back into surgery Bringing twins home and figuring everything out One more active than the other Advantages of the bottle prep machine and more… Connect with Rich on Instagram. Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Getting through that first year with twins can be really tough. We’re going to jump into one twin dad’s journey from finding out he’s having twins through that first year today on the show. Rich 0:09 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:23 Hey everybody, and welcome to the 246th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com. Where you’ll find the complete transcript for this episode. And you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we continue our father of twins interview series with a fellow twin dad from the UK, and father of boy girl twins. But before we jump into that conversation, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my first book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Twins: How to survive the twin pregnancy and prepare for your twins”. You can learn more about this book at twindadbook.com. Let’s jump right into that interview. Today I would like to welcome to the show father of twins. Rich Banbury Welcome to the show Rich. Rich 1:08 Hi there Joe, Great to be here. Joe 1:09 Rich, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Rich 1:13 they they’re going to be one years old, on the 12th of this month, I think I think the best part for myself and Clare, my partner now is just where the you know, the really becoming their own little sort of people start to interact with the small being able to play with them more, you know that it’s not just sort of practical, you know, day to day stuff with them is exciting watching them grow up. Now. It’s a good age or, you know, it’s, it was very tough, you know, I’m sure as you know, you know, the first three months, up to six months, it was quite intense where some of us just now, you know, sort of enjoy your time in them a bit more. Joe 1:51 Yes, for sure. The first year is quite a challenge. So you’re almost full, almost finished with that first year, which is quite the accomplishment. Rich 1:59 Not Absolutely. It was it was really timing for yourself. I mean, you have you’ve got two boys have new and two identical girls. Joe 2:10 That’s right. Rich 2:11 That must have been incredibly intense. Joe 2:13 Yeah, it was fun. They all came really close together. And so we had our hands full with not just the twins, but two very young siblings as well, Rich 2:23 That must have been tough. Joe 2:24 Now they’re all teenagers are almost teenagers. So it’s a whole different level of excitement around the house now. Rich 2:33 Does it? Does it get easier? Oh, Joe 2:36 it does. I mean, you’re coming out of the first year, which is insane and crazy. And as you started to notice, they become more self sufficient, you know, they sleep better, the better and they can entertain each other and life starts to get a little bit easier as time goes on. Rich 2:51 I think that’s a bit already for us where it’s small things but were even down to them, you know, holding their own bottle or trying to think of things now below that, that that type of stuff where but you know, before you had them you wouldn’t think of make that much difference but just being able to feed themselves for instance, it you know, it does make such a difference. Then we even started to slip through the night where we you know, any up to recently have they started going through the night. But that is just been an absolute godsend again, you just don’t realize, you know, you’re almost like walking around like a zombie. You know, a lot of the time. Yeah, now they’re starting to sleep through it. Yeah, it’s a big difference. It’s good. Joe 3:35 What is the typical schedule for your nearly one year olds right now? Like, what time do they wake up? And when do they even take naps, things like that? Rich 3:42 Yeah, they get up. I get up with them in the mo

Episode 245 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Chris Mason and Kyle Strickland, fathers of boy/girl twins. Listen as we explore their twin parenting journey, including: Their surrogacy journey including finding an egg donor 20-week ultrasound only doctor visit able to attend Relocated to Wisconsin right before the twins’ birth C-section because the daughter was breech Flying with one week old twins Living for 3 months in an AirBnB before their house was ready Getting twins on the same schedule Relief of getting over formula Joys of when twins could hold their own bottles Road tripping with toddlers and more… Connect with Chris and Kyle on Instagram. Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Surviving a road trip across the country with nearly two year old twin toddlers. Today on the show. Intro 0:07 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:22 Hey everybody. Welcome to the 245 episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com. Where you’ll find the complete transcript for this episode. And you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father twins interview series with twin dads Chris and Kyle as they share their journey raising boy girl twins. Want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to thrive as a father of twins”. You can learn more about this book at raisingtwinsbook.com. Now let’s jump straight into the interview. Today, I would like to welcome to the show fathers of twins, Kyle Strickland and Chris Mason. Welcome to the show, guys. Kyle 1:03 Thank you for having us. Joe 1:04 How old are your twins right now? And what’s something really exciting about this age? Kyle 1:08 They are they will be two next month, something that’s exciting about this age. You know, they’re getting into the toddler phase, I think what’s really interesting now is they’re really getting into that independent nature where they can play by themselves and seeing them interact with each other and play with them. But they aren’t as needy on to us to play with them. So we can leave them alone for a little while. And it’s just kind of cool to see them really grow into those personalities and just really kind of start to interact with each other in a lot of different ways. Chris 1:40 Yeah. And I think with that they become good friends. And as Kyle was saying. They can take care of each other and play together. And for us. It’s limited. It’s not limited, but we don’t have to 24 seven, watch them. They can keep each other company. Joe 1:54 Let’s go back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was that experience? Like? And how did you know you’d be having twins come in and come into your family? Kyle 2:01 What’s interesting with us is it wasn’t really a surprise, we actually went into the whole process expecting twins and hoping for twins, which I don’t think most people say. So we came we came about with having twins through our surrogate. So we went through our surrogacy journey. So when we transferred in two embryos on our transfer day, we did that with a conscious decision of best case scenario, we’d end up with twins worst case scenario, and that was one or nine had to go through the process again. And then really worst case scenario, one of them split. So we end up with triplets, which we were hoping against. But we actually went into the whole process of saying, Hey, we’re only going to do this journey once. So let’s try to get two kids out of it as much as possible. So we were we were very excited and elated. When we did find out and see the sonogram that two little heartbeats were there. Joe 2:54 That’s great. Can you share a little bit about how you found a surrogate for this journey to begin, Kyle 2:59 we went through a bunch of different agencies to go through the process. So there are a bunch of companies and groups that actually will facilitate the entire process for you, especially helping not only like LGBT couples and families, but also heterosexual couples, who would need that help as well. So we weren’t, we weren’t the agency basically here in LA. And they actually went through the process of vetting out and finding surrogates matching us up with a surrogate, who was fantastic and amazing, and really guided us through that entire process. Chris 3:35 But as part of that, they also had to help us find egg donors, which I th

Episode 244 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Tony Rowe, father of twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: When the twins came earlier than expected when water broke while dad was 45 minutes away Twins went to NICU after about 15 minutes Wife had high blood pressure Leaving one twin at the hospital when Mom and one baby go home Getting bearings with just one child Taking turns to go see the daughter in NICU Pumping for 7-8 months then formula Hiring a nanny through care.com Twins starting to walk at about 13 months Moving to a new house with infant twins and more… Connect with Tony on Twitter. Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 What’s it like when you had to leave one of your twins at the hospital in the NICU? When mom and the other twin come home? We discuss that and much more with a twin dad today. Intro 0:11 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast, the podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:27 Hey everybody, and welcome to the 244 episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com. We’ll find the complete transcript for this episode, and you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of twins. But before we jump into that, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my first book for dads. It’s called Dad’s Guide to Twins, how to survive the twin pregnancy and prepare for your twins. You can learn more about this book at twindadbook.com. Once again, that’s twindadbook.com. Now let’s jump straight into the interview. Today, I’d like to welcome to the show, father of twins, Tony Rowe, welcome to the show, Tony. Tony 1:11 Thanks for having me, Joe. Joe 1:13 Tony, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age, Tony 1:17 they are about 19 months. And I guess what’s exciting is Oh, they’re running around repeating stuff and just kind of you know, experienced experiencing stuff for the first time and you get to see that kind of those light bulb moments or those you know, those wonders and that those learning moments basically. Joe 1:40 So what have been some recent learning moments or light bulbs that have gone off for them? Tony 1:44 I think obviously, you know dancing and you know listening songs and animal noises and books and you know, repeating books or you know, you pointing to something in a book and then repeating it, you know, say right now it’s kind of funny, the, you know, good night moon book, classic, I remember that would be a pretty, pretty sell staple in our household when I was growing up. And the little late little old lady whispering hush and not put my finger on me lifted and say hi, should they do it too? So that’s that those stuffs just kind of funny right now to me. Joe 2:21 Do you have twin girls? Is that right? Tony 2:24 Yep. twin girls. Yeah. Joe 2:25 Are they identical or not? Tony 2:27 No. faternal. So they, yes, my mom, they’re identical. Just because grandma has a really hard time telling them apart. Joe 2:35 Alright, let’s let’s rewind the clock back to when you found out that you were having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? Tony 2:41 So the first to family? So we started trying and basically, October of 18 a sure you know, Fall of 18. And soon after, like, Oh, my wife kind of did in a card and are announcing a card and the first ultrasound. The tech was like, Oh, you know, they look good. You know, the pronoun base. And you know, he was like what? You know, they? And so yeah, yeah, you’re twins, you didn’t know that we’re like, no, so it was just kind of nervously laughing through the, you know, through the rest of the ultrasound and just kind of in shock. Joe 3:19 Yeah, it is a shock when you’re not expecting to and they just kind of subtly mention it as if we’re in a big deal. fraternal twins, twin girls, did you have any complications during the pregnancy? That that made you concerned or worried? Tony 3:32 Not actually not. At first, everything was going by great. Like, you know, first, the teens 20s weeks into the pregnancy first trimester, second trimester was just awesome. You know, not a whole lot of complications, or you know, pretty boring, actually mundane. So, that’s when I read your book, I’d read your book all throughout it. And you know, you’re kind of listening to or looking at blog stuff and you know, your social media posts. And I was like, Well, you know, model this doesn’t really appl

Episode 243 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Jamie Tuttle, father of four-year-old identical boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including: Choosing to be a stay at home dad to the twins Encouraging imagination and creativity in the boys Having twins after being married for years During the pregnancy, Mom couldn’t keep any food down, lost weight Planning for a c-section Finding success in breastfeeding and bottle-feeding Potty Training by three Traveling with young children Life-changing product for feeding babies Keeping tempers in check Finding books that help boys with emotions Getting back in the swing of date nights and more… Connect with Jamie on Facebook, Instagram, or via email. Transcript This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes. Joe 0:00 Encouraging imagination and creativity in your twins and more lessons from a stay at home father of twin boys today on the show. Intro 0:09 Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast, the podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins,” Joe Rawlinson. Joe 0:24 Hey everybody. Welcome to the 243 episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com. Where you’ll find the complete show notes transcript for this episode, and all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father twins interview series with a fellow father of twins from the Pacific Northwest here in the US. But before we jump into that discussion, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com where you’ll find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for us. Families of twins, we’ve got shirts for dads of twins, moms are twins, the twins themselves, even some shirts for grandma, and grandpa. You can see all those shirts over at twintshirtcompany.com. Today, I would like to welcome to the show father of twins. Jamie Tuttle. Welcome to the show, Jamie. Jamie 1:14 Thanks for having me. Joe 1:15 Jamie, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age? Jamie 1:20 Oh, they’re four and a few months. Right now just what they’re doing with their imagination, you know, coming up with crazy stories and creating their own games and sports and just the way that they just that and being the sponge that they are and just picking everything up and just playing and actually figuring stuff out even before I get a chance to teach them even at times. Joe 1:48 That’s fun. Do you have boys girls, one of each? Jamie 1:51 Boys. Joe 1:51 Are they identical? Jamie 1:52 Yep. mono-di Joe 1:55 Mono-Di. That’s what we had. We had model day girls. So you mentioned creativity and imagination? Is there something that you’re doing to help encourage that or structure that? Jamie 2:02 I’m an artist, so I’ve got an art studio. And so we do a lot of painting and stuff like that. But um, we I tend to foster it by kind of letting kind of starting a story kind of giving them kind of a jumpstart into something and then just letting them run with it. Basically letting them know that whatever they come up with, there’s there’s really no wrong answer. When it comes to them just creating things. Joe 2:27 Have they shown different tendencies artistically or creatively? Jamie 2:31 Yes, kind of off and on, you know, the, they’ll definitely one will pick up a paintbrush and like, without me teaching him he’s actually holding a paintbrush appropriately by correct the way, you know, very painterly anyways. And he’ll paint and actually put together like a scene, you know, whether it be you know, hills and the sun and everything else, he he can put it all together, or the other one will grab a pencil or marker, you know something on that line, and then start scribbling, but end up with something that nobody saw coming until he’s done. Joe 3:16 That’s exciting that you’re able to give them some opportunities to explore those talents. Let’s rewind the clock back to when you found out that you were having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? Jamie 3:25 My wife and I had been married for 20 years. We had both turned 40. And we my wife kind of said, Yeah, I think I’m ready. I think we should we should do this. And I was like, Alright, cool. And we tried and we it didn’t take many tries necessarily. And boom, she got pregnant. And you know, I guess that’s kind of kind of history at that point. So it was a surprise and not a surprise at the same time. We joked about having twins before the first ultrasound. I mean, we like yet watch. It’s gonna be twins. Sure enough. It was and there was a lot of laughte