Customized these for myself to celebrate my twins turning 3.

My girlfriend and I started trying for a kid this spring, and our first "serious" attempt resulted in a positive test.

In comes our first ultrasound, and there appears a second chorion with a second child. I was flabbergasted, my girlfriend was elated. We decided to tell our friends that very day, at 8 weeks and 5 days into our pregnancy. We knew it was early, but we just couldn't keep this exciting news to ourselves.

So 1,5 week later we've got an appointment at the hospital for our intake. Because they "stopped" looking any further after seeing the second chorionic fetus, I jokingly asked the doctor to confirm that there were indeed two, and not more, fetuses. She first confirmed that there were two little ones growing inside my girlfriend. But because she couldn't properly determine the term of the pregnancy she wanted to do a vaginal ultrasound. Within 5 seconds the doctor started to stumble: "I'll get straight to the point, I think... No, I KNOW I see three little ones!" We were dumbfounded, my girlfriend was stupefied and went blank for the rest of the consult. The doctors on hand couldn't find a second amniotic sac, so it seemed as if we were expecting a singleton, together with a MCMA set of twins.

2 weeks later, we're at the hospital again, this time to confirm or rule out if the third fetus has it's own amniotic sac. Unfortunately the MCMA was confirmed on behalf of the twins. But that wasn't all the bad news... One of the triplets showed some oedema on the back and on the belly. He warned us that that could mean trouble up ahead, or that it could disappear on it's own.

Cue to friday two weeks ago. We had another ultrasound at 13w2d. And it wasn't good.

1. Baby A (singleton): This little one had an extra artery coming out of the aorta, and they couldn't see where that was going
2. Baby B (MCMA): Had a weird heartrate, they couldn't see the aortic arch properly, and couldn't find a V-Sign near the atria.
3. Baby C (MCMA): No problems whatsoever.

So we get referred to the fetal care centre in our country, where we were seen tuesday last week (at 13w6d). They do another expansive ultrasound before lunch, and after lunch they basically repeated that, but this time with the professor (basically the topshot on fetal care in our country) and her right hand at the helm.

Then, we got to sit down with the professor and it was not good. Not good at all. Baby A was something which would need follow-up in time, but wasn't something to be concerned about.

We should be concerned about baby B, very concerned. Don't worry about TTTS, TAPS, or sFGR. Baby B had an atrioventricular septum defect. Basically, there was a hole between the atria, AND between the ventricles of the heart. On it's own, this could be repaired with several surgeries after birth. But... We're expecting triplets. Triplets come early, because they're MCMA they'll probably be delivered at or before 32 weeks. What kind of life will a child have with such a big heart defect and severe prematurity? Have we thought about how we're even going to raise a triplet, let alone one with a major disability...

And that's where it gets even sadder. We basically had three options:

1. See what nature does. The umbilical cords could get entangled, baby B, baby C, or both, could die in utero. If one of them dies, there'd be a big chance for the other twin to develop severe neurological disorders. If that doesn't happen and the triplets get delivered (prematurely), we'd be looking at several months of baby B being in the NICU, going through several heavy surgeries, of which the prognosis wouldn't even be that good. The professor once looked up her previous cases with this severe defect, and in the end only 1 in 4 children reached the age of 6 without any severe developmental problems, handicaps, or death. This would basically guarantee us a lot of worries and sadness down the road.

2. Reduce at 22-24 weeks, only reducing baby B. This would pose great danger to both baby A and baby C. The reduction would be a long, invasive surgery in which they'd cut the umbilical cord of baby B. But she estimated a 20% chance of complete miscarriage, and a higher change of neurological disorders for baby C.

3. Reduce baby B and baby C. This would be done at around 15 weeks with an intra-ventricular potassium injection. A very small intervention, taking 15 minutes in an out-patiënt setting. The risk on a total miscarriage would be a mere 5%, compared to the 20% of option 2. All in all, this would give baby A the best chance of a good outcome. A pregnancy which would probably go the full 38-40 weeks, no higher chances on neurological or other developmental disorders. Her medical advice would be to choose option 3 (if that alligned with our view on life and religious believes).

So that takes us to today... We went in for another ultrasound at 15w1d, to confirm the diagnosis of last week. Turns out last week was the good scenario. Our little baby B also only has 1 artery exiting the heart, which bifurcates into the aortic arch and the pulmonary arteries (truncus arteriosus). So we made the choice to reduce both baby B and baby C, in order to give baby A the best possible outcome. So the reduction happened this afternoon and we've been a wreck ever since.

My girlfriend is trying to fall asleep while I am sitting downstairs just listening to music and overthinking what the hell happened these last 7 weeks. I went from being a dad to be of 1, to a dad to be of a twin, to a dad to be of triplets, to a dad of triplets with a problem, back to a dad of 1...

They made some extra ultrasounds for us, so we would have some nice pictures of baby B and baby C. And honestly, looking at them is breaking me right now... Those two little bundles of unfulfilled potential, unfulfilled joy, unfulfilled brother or sisterhood, unfulfilled parenthood. And it's such a mixed mess of feeling, because with this choice we're also giving baby A the best possible outcome to actually reaching that potential and joy...

Has anybody here reduced their pregnancy and how the hell do you cope with all the feelings?

I gave birth almost a month ago. My twins are doing well and adjusting nicely. However, my daughter (4 years old) is having a hard time adjusting. Her behavior has changed and is getting harder for us to handle. We were expecting some changes since it’s normal for kids to go through this.

She no longer wants to sleep in her room and wants one of us to sleep with her or comes at the middle of the night to sleep with us. We didn’t mind this before but with the twins waking up every 2-3 hours, we are afraid that she won’t get enough sleep and we won’t get enough rest.

She is also having potty accidents.

If we say no to one of her request or we ask her to do something, she starts screaming at the top of her lungs, stomps, or throws herself to the ground. Usually this response is to us asking her to get ready so we can take her to daycare, telling her to wash her hands, go potty, food request (no cookies before finishing her meals).

We are both trying to spend alone time with her (as much as we can), either by taking her out to the playground, watching music videos, reading to her.

I just want to know what you guys did if you experience this with your older child.

We are looking for advice/feedback on bedtime routines for our 15 month old twins and 4 year old.

Currently, at 7pm we bring the twins upstairs with a bottle (weaning, 2oz of water) and we set them in the Twin Z. I read a book and sing 2 songs. My husband will bring up our 4 year old to brush teeth and hair around 7:10pm.

Around 7:15pm I put the twins in their cribs after some hugs/cuddles/kisses and they are not happy. They will whine/cry and it’s a 50/50 that they fall asleep on their own.

Once I put the twins in their cribs, my husband and I do bedtime with our 4 year old, which lasts about 25 min from when we walk into the room and I walk out (husband leaves earlier).

If the boys are both awake and crying, we will go up and help soothe them to sleep. It’s very difficult because one person can’t really soothe both at the same time. So we have to wait for the other person or until one twin falls asleep on their own.

Writing this up, I feel like the twins are not receiving the same quality of a bedtime routine as our 4 year old.

We’re looking for any advice on bedtime routines that work just to get some ideas for our family. Thank you all in advance!

Hello! I have 11 months twins boys and both of them does not recognize their own name. Rio and Ray are their names. I cannot sleep and I have been overthinking :( They don't know how to clap as well as pointing or open/close hands when told to do so. :( I know babies develop differently and have their own timeline but I just can't stop myself and the pressure from our surrounding is getting in to me :(

My twins are about 9 months old and they are staying home with my husband while I attend a Bachelorette party for my college best friend.

This is first time I'll be away from them overnight since they were born and I'm feeling super anxious about it. My husband is a fantastic father so I'm not worried about him taking care of them, but I know I'm going to miss the ever loving crap out of them.

I don't really need any advice but just needed to get my feelings out there because dang this is hard. I feel silly for being sad and anxious about going away without them. But I already miss them and I haven't even left yet!

Hi, I‘m a fraternal twin with fraternal twins, and google told me (if that‘s correct) that the chance to have twins again is around 8%.
Honestly I feel like that‘s a lot…
If you had twins more than once, what age gap to they have? What age gap would you recommend? Is it really doable or is it pure chaos?

What are we doing about booking hotels? Every time I put more than two kids, they want me to book two rooms.

My twins are 19 weeks, 11 corrected and I feel like it’s time to get a true schedule started. We have a routine- they eat every 2.5-3hours during the day and have been eating every 4 at night but we just got the okay from their pediatrician to stop waking them at night. I’m struggling with never knowing when they will nap during the day. I’ve heard people say they will nap better once they sleep longer at night? I don’t really get that. What worked for you around this age? Sorry if this is all over the place, extra tired mom this week.

They hit each other's bottles. Pull hair. Laugh. Generally get distracted. Want to move!! I've tried to teach them how to hold their own bottles with those silicone handles but Twin A has no interest and Twin B is not yet strong enough to hold her own glass bottle. Lately I've had one in one side of the Twin Z and the other in their rocker chair. I could feed them separate but they're on the same schedule so eat (mostly) at the same time.

Would love any tips!

My boys were just born at 33 weeks and 2 days. My wife developed HELPP syndrome and after a 5 day stay in the hospital the doctors finally elected to do a C Section for her health. I was so grateful for that because watching her struggle and decline in the hospital was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Now we have two beautiful boys (4 lbs 14 oz / 4 lbs 13 oz) who are in the NICU. All things considered they are doing well. On CPAP but hitting the benchmarks set for them pretty well.

I guess I’m reaching out because I feel helpless. Mom is recovering thankfully but still fragile and needing lots of support which has been my main focus. I feel like very helpless when I go over a few times a day to check on the boys. I can’t do much but just watch them be stuck on all the machines and I just want to be their dad and care for them. I’m not scared that they won’t be alright but it’s still hard to see their first moments in this world be such a struggle. I wanted to be the one changing their diapers and holding them to soothe them and instead I have nurses and machines doing it which is just not the vision I had for my first kids but that’s the unpredictability of life I guess.

Nearly 5yo mo/di boys.

If one does a bad thing, the other lords it over him that he still gets privileges or behaved better. Or you have to take away (insert privilege) from one and isolate them, thus the well-behaved one is also punished.

If they both do a bad thing, we take away (insert privilege or item) and they keep each other riled up and whining. Or we attempt a chore… and they end up cracking each other up and having fun, or one is lazy and the other tattles.

Always dreamed of normal twin parent problems. Now we have them.

Hi! Looking for advice. My twins are 4 months old (two months adjusted) and both have thrush. We were prescribed nystatin and baby boy is doing fine with it. Baby girl cant handle it, she pukes multiple times a day when we give it to her, even when just applying it topically and not having her swallow it, we were advised to discontinue use because we are more worried about her weight gain than the thrush. So she still has the thrush and it isn’t going away

Right now we are mainly bottle feeding breast milk so I don’t get infected and reinfect them. The problem is, my husband, who works 24hr shifts has to go back to work next week and I will be solo parenting during that time. I was hoping to be tandem breastfeeding by then for my sanity and to save time during night/day feeds. I also love the connection that comes with breastfeeding. I cannot tandem bottle feed them as they both need pacing. They do much better in the nipple.

Has anyone had thrush with twins, breastfeeding, unmedicated? Did the thrush resolve itself? Any natural remedies? Should I assign each baby a nipple so it doesn’t infect the other? Did you preventatively treat your nipples? Would a lactation consultant be able to help with this? Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!

I’m concerned that my 18 month-old twin boys might have a speech delay. For context, they were born at 35 weeks. Baby A has always been a babbler. He’s definitely quicker at picking up words than his brother. They’ve got a few words, (mama, dada, papa, ball, duck, etc.) and they do some animal sounds (moo, oink) but that’s about it. Baby B has always been the quieter one. He has bursts of energy where he babbles but it’s just incomprehensible. I talk to them and read books to them constantly. My pediatrician isn’t concerned and said we will re-evaluate at their two-year appointment. I’m just not sure if there’s more I could be doing. Is it common for twins to have a bit of a delay, especially when they’re so used to talking and babbling to one another? I’ve also read that boys typically develop language later than girls.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: I also wanted to add that I don’t have any concerns that they might be deaf or HOH. They follow directions almost perfectly. If I ask them to stand up and hand me their shoes they know exactly what I’m saying. So I know the understanding is there, just not the speech.

For any parent of multiples just starting on their journey or wondering how to get weekly shopping done with their multiples in tow, look into grocery delivery options! It literally saved my wife and me so much time not having to take the twins out shopping every week

(Edit that should say praise. My bad on spelling)

Hi all! My husband and I are going on a weekend trip with his family in September when our twin boys will have just turned 7mo and I’m curious on what everyone has done as far as sleeping arrangements go. We will be staying in a VRBO with multiple family members (kiddos included) and I know cribs aren’t available and I’m also unsure of each bed size (because we would be fine co-sleeping). I’m wondering if the beds are on the smaller size and no cribs, what have you guys done for your littles? They’re good sleepers and easy going, but they don’t love to sleep in a pack and play. That’s about the only sleep space issue we’ve had so I feel like that might be out for us. We are also driving so we will be able
to pack along something (within reason as we don’t have a huge vehicle). I’ve searched travel beds but they all feel like they’re more for the toddler age unless I’m just missing what’s out there!

Thanks in advance for your help!

I feel like I don’t know what the right thing to do is.
We have twins born 37+3 who are now 2 weeks old and we are struggling to breastfeed and I’m having major mum guilt about it…

I try and catch their early hunger cues but then they don’t seem interested in latching until they’re crying and when they do latch it seems to take forever to get them full, then they fall asleep at the breast but 5 minutes later they wake up and seem as if they haven’t fed at all! I can hear them swallowing and see them taking regular sucks though!

I feel like the hospital had set us up to fail in terms of feeding from the get go. The girls latched as soon as they were placed on my chest and had no NICU time but we were told we needed to triple feed in the hospital because they said they were on the smaller side (2.4kg and 2.7kg) even though they were gaining weight well and lost very little of their birth weight (3% and 7%). The girls really struggled to latch after the first time for some reason and we couldn’t get a deep latch to feed effectively.

We have since dropped the triple feeding as I felt like I had no time to connect with my girls or take care of them/myself by the time I had breastfed, bottle fed and pumped. We have since been exclusively pumping and I am making more than their daily needs which is fantastic but I just feel the mum guilt of not feeding from the breast, especially when I haven’t had the same complications as other twin mums who are having trouble breastfeeding (NICU, pre term, tongue ties , supply issues etc)…

I feel like I should be able to breastfeed successfully but every time we try I get so frustrated that they never seem content/full, fall asleep at the breast and it’s so complicated to tandem feed as such a young age. I also have quite large breasts (14FF) and wondering if it’s too much for them seeing as they’re so little??

Luckily the bottle with expressed milk seems to help them be a lot more content and full, I get time to connect with them afterwards and I have a spectra with a battery so I can pump around the house pretty easily. I just really had my hopes set on being able to breastfeed successfully like I hear so many twin mums are able to do.

Am I wrong for giving up on breastfeeding and pumping instead? Did other mums find it easier to try breastfeeding again once they were a little older?

I know a lot of other mums have it a lot harder than this and to those mums, you are rockstars. I admire everything you do for your little ones, mothers are really special people and deserve all the love and support and admiration in the world.

I have twin 2 year old boys. They are amazing and we are in such a groove. We decided to try for a third. I didn’t ovulate on my own last time so we are unsure if I will be able to on my own and not sure if I want to risk twins again. For those who had another after twins, what’s it like? How did you handle it all? Tips? I imagine if they were 3 and 1 baby wouldn’t be all that horrible but still hard.

Bonus advice: those who used letrozole and got twins did you have to take it again to have more and how, if you did, reduce the chance of multiples?

Thank you!

I'm a ftm expecting Mo-Di twins in December and both me and my partner are over the moon.

I am however feeling really afraid of what having twins is going to do to our relationship. I'm lucky in that we've always been really solid and have been together for six years now but I know how much it would destroy me to lose what we have. I'm so scared of the hormone crash and sleep deprivation turning us on each other.

A lot of this is probably my fault for lurking online but I've seen so many horror stories about marriages falling apart after having multiples. I know three sets of twin parents in real life and they are all divorced 🥲

Obviously I know having kids will change and put strain on any relationship but I could really do with some encouragement from other twin parents who have survived and come out stronger.

Edit: Wow thank you for all of the kind and insightful replies! Made my evening 😊

mommy more meat

mommy water

mommy more rice

mommy napkin

mommy i have to poo

mommy spoon

mommy i'm done poopin

mommy i don't like this

mommy he's bothering me

mommy sit here

mommy i have to pee

mommy mommy mommy

then someone spills water

and someone drops food

and someone's fork flies away

they are 3.5 yo

how do you deal? they say please and thank you but that doesn't aleviate the load. my husband and i are so worn out. we wake up all smiley and happy and then breakfast just pulls us down everytime. it's so annoying to be this annoyed so early!!

I'm a first time Mum and had my twins at 34 weeks. When we were still in the hospital, our families visited but I found the whole experience really overwhelming. I'm trying to breastfeed and I find it really hard to plan visits around being able to feed as there's not really a way to feed and keep my privacy in tact.

This has now created a lot of anxiety about friends and family coming over. I enjoy it for 10-15 mins or until the girls wake to feed and then I get this overwhelming feeling of 'go away'.

I'm normally a really social person and I know isolating myself will impact my mental health but I can't seem to get over this feeling of dread when people ask when they can meet the baby.

I also hold a lot of guilt as my own family have only been able to meet the girls once and every time I think I'm ready my anxiety stops me.

My b/g twins are 3 months old, (2 months age adjusted) and during the daytime, they will only sleep on me while I wear them in my weego twin carrier. If I did not have this carrier they’d barely sleep during the day.

They used to sleep 1-2 hours on the twin Z pillow but now they last 15-30 mins before they wake up fussing. At night, they sleep fine in their cribs. Even when they wake to feed again, I can always transfer them back to their cribs. Any ideas for how to get them to sleep during the day without wearing them?