Jenny McQueen

When I was pregnant with my twins, I spent HOURS every night (thank you pregnancy insomnia) combing the internet for insight into what was ahead. I found tons of pinterest worthy ideas, but I couldn’t find anyone sharing transparently about what juggling TWO babies would be like.

Spoiler alert: that’s partially because it turns out you can’t fully prepare for this. I wish I could give you a spreadsheet that would guarantee a smooth transition into twin parenting, but there’s just no way to plan for the distinctly different needs of two babies. What I can do is share five honest pieces of advice to get you started.

1. Practice saying “yes please, that would be great”. Every single time someone offers support, say yes. Every. Time. Even on a good day. Even when it’s so small it seems like you should do it yourself.

There was no pretending I could do this on my own. When the deep exhaustion set it, I realized I needed every bit of help I could get. When someone sent a text asking “hey do you need anything today?” I ALWAYS replied yes, sometimes through gritted teeth. I started asking friends to pick up drive up orders for formula, drop off amazon returns, or grab a random grocery item.

There were some bigger asks too: One friend baked me lactation brownies when my milk supply wasn’t coming in. Another offered to pick up my dirty laundry, and out of desperation, I agreed. I put my clothes on the porch in a trash bag, to find them returned that evening clean and folded in the world’s largest gift bag. I actually cried. Side note: Any friend that will wash your undies is a friend you should hang on to for life.

Quick pro tip: it’s okay if you have to save a note on your phone that says “yes please, can you pick up__?”. Copy, paste, take a deep breath and hit send. 

2. Speaking of asking for help, my second suggestion is to print out a list of household tasks and tape it to your fridge. No task is too small: watering plants, washing bottles, making lunch. Be specific as possible and include directions about things like where trash bags are stored.

After a few weeks of explaining the same things repeatedly to different visitors, I realized I needed to save my self the mental energy. I typed a list up, printed it and boom, all I ahd to do was point to it. Honestly, this also saved me the awkwardness of asking friends (or in-laws) to do specific things, because they could pick something off the list they felt comfortable doing. 

3. Register or save for professional house cleaning services. Are you sensing a theme here? Your hands are going to be full, and when you do have a moment to spare, you’ll have more important things to do than mop. Around the time my twins were four months old, I was reaching my breaking point and so we dipped into our savings to have cleaners come every other week. At first it was hard to justify, but eventually I began to consider it a mental health expense.

4. Plan for at least three months of meals. One mistake I made was not planning on how I would nourish myself. I ended up scarfing down peanut butter toast at 3 am between feedings and ordering take-out breakfasts pretty frequently. Luckily my friends put together an incredible meal train that covered us for two whole months of dinners, which was a tremendous help. But looking back I wish I had stocked up on healthy freezer meals, or even registered for a meal service. Twin pregnancy & birth takes so much out of your body, and one huge way you can support yourself in postpartum is with a plan for easily accessible nourishment.

5. My last tip seems counterintuitive, but trust me on this: Don’t buy two of everything. Okay, obviously you need two car seats, cribs, etc. But one thing that surprised me is finding out my twins preferred two different swings, bouncy chairs, and baby carriers.

We had quite a few things passed on to us thanks to my secondhand themed baby shower, so that gave us a good collection to experiment with. I grabbed swings from facebook market place, borrowed bouncers from friends and wasn’t afraid to order and return from amazon to see if something was a good fit. If you have the budget for stocking up doubles of the more expensive things like the halo bassinets or baby bjorns, that’s great! However that wasn’t us, and I think our random assortment ended up working in our favor.

If you are here because you’re expecting twins in the near future, welcome to the wildest, hardest, most amazing ride if you’re life! And if you’ve got some twin parenting experience, I would love to hear what you would add to this list.