How To Survive the Newborn Twin Stage

Any parent knows that life with a newborn is tiring. But life with newborn twins is a true test of human spirit and functionality. Getting through those first few months can feel impossible at times.

There are moments when the exhaustion shrouds everything around you and you stumble around in a daze, surrounded by bottles that need sterilizing, diapers that need to be tossed or washed, and a humongous pile of itty-bitty laundry that somehow keeps multiplying throughout the day.

There are moments when you are just so sleep-deprived and stuck on the same three-hour loop, it feels like you're acting out an endless version of Groundhog Day (but with twins) and that you may never get to the end credits to emerge out the other side. But suddenly, you'll wake up one day, many months later, and you'll realize you've made it to February 3.

With a handful of helpful tips and tricks up your sleeve, you'll be armed to survive the newborn stage with your beautiful new babies.

Your babies might need some time in the NICU

The early days are exciting. Your little ones are here, and you can't wait to get to know them. If your twins were born early, as most twins are, they'll likely be spending some time in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where you'll have a lovely team of medical professionals helping you care for your little ones, while they gain weight and get strong enough to come home. While the newly minted mama is recovering from labor and delivery, both parents have a few days to get to know the newest additions to the family during skin-to-skin time sessions.

If your twins need to spend time in the NICU, friends or family may tell you that you "get to ease into parenthood because they're not at home with you right away." And while they mean it in an encouraging, loving, and supportive way, nothing is further from the truth. Having children in the NICU can be emotionally–and physically–exhausting.

Emotionally, because your little ones may be going through some major medical issues (with their lung development or breathing issues, with regulating their temperature outside of the womb, with keeping their feeds down, with dips in their blood oxygen saturation, etc.) while they're in the NICU and you can't be there 24/7 with them–and all you want is for them to be able to come home with you. Leaving your babies behind at the end of the day feels like you're leaving a part of yourself behind because…well, you are.

If you're a first-time parent, you could even be learning how to breastfeed your children behind a thin privacy curtain in the NICU (there's nothing like trying not to pull off your baby's medical cables as you get them settled against your chest, the sound of strangers chatting three feet away from where you're sitting half-naked, or the wind of a passerby fluttering your privacy curtain as they zoom by to put you at ease), learning how to change diapers on a fragile baby–but with a potential added challenge of having to reach through the small insulated doors of an incubator to get to your baby and make sure not to disrupt any of the little wires that are attached to their little body, or learning how to bathe your little one but having to first carefully remove from their chest the handful of adhesive wire leads that monitor your babies' heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, and number of breaths.

Moving on to the physically exhausting side of things, instead of sleeping in (which people seem to think is a perk of having babies in the NICU, at least in my experience), you're waking up even earlier so you can pump if you need to (read this article on tips for pumping when you're away from your babies), pack up your freshly pumped milk in a cooler, and drive to the hospital to be there ahead of the daily rounds. This usually includes much more walking than is advised while your body is still recovering from your pregnancy and delivery, and then you spend as much time as you can with your babies before you drive back home and wonder how they're doing without you.

If your babies were in the NICU, they might come home at different times

Be prepared that both babies may not be ready to come home at the same time. And while it's so nice to have that first baby at home, it also sucks because you know your other little one isn't there with the rest of your family yet, which is sad but also logistically difficult.

Now, instead of both parents going to see their babies in the NICU, one must stay at home with Baby A, while the other goes to the NICU to see Baby B. Instead of going to the hospital and breastfeeding or pumping for both babies, you need to make sure there's enough milk (or formula) at home for Baby A for however many hours you'll be at the NICU.

Fill your freezer ahead of time

While both parents are pulling long hours at the NICU and at home with your newborns, it's hard to make sure you're eating healthy, nutritious meals. If you can, fill your freezer with ready-made meals before the babies come.

My husband was amazing and filled both of our freezers with a variety of meals that were frozen in two-packs and could be thawed in five minutes. This kept us going for over two months. I kid you not. It took all the worry about meals away, so we could focus our time and efforts on everything else related to the babies.

Sure, we still had food delivered or casseroles dropped off by friends and family (and they sure were appreciated!), but having these meals made and frozen before the twins arrived was so helpful, and I would highly recommend anyone who will be welcoming babies soon to do the same. Because twins tend to arrive early, my husband planned and made sure to have the meals made and in the freezer by the time I was 30 weeks along, and that worked out wonderfully because our babies were born six-and-a-half weeks premature.

If someone offers help, take it

As a first-time parent, I felt like I had something to prove, that handling twins would be no problem because they were our babies and we were chosen to be their parents, so why couldn't we handle them? While I appreciated the help that was offered before the babies had even arrived, I also felt, deep-down, that I wouldn't be able to bond with my babies in the same way if I wasn't able to just do what had to be done at any time. I knew I'd be breastfeeding and pumping a lot and didn't want to worry about "being decent" at any given hour if we had company over to help in the early days. It was just an added stressor, in my mind.

But once we had both babies home from the NICU, the true exhaustion set in, and I changed my tune pretty quickly. It's okay to want, need, ask for, or accept help. It doesn't mean you can't handle things. It just means there are twice as many things (babies, but also tasks related to each of those babies) to handle and that you literally need more hands than are available on each parent. And that's okay. It's expected.

Take as much help as you can get–in any form you can get it. Whether it's someone coming to hold the babies, so you can sleep…or coming by to do your laundry and dishes, so you can sleep…or getting your groceries so you don't have to go to the store and can spend that time sleeping instead. Are you sensing a theme?

Sleep is SO important and so rare in those early months. There were times when we'd get through a cycle of waking the twins, getting them changed and fed, burped, and held upright to avoid major spit-ups from acid reflux, etc., and then back down to sleep and we'd have about one hour left before they were up again. And in that hour, I'd need to pump, so that left 45 minutes for us to cat-nap before doing it all over again.

Some people might offer help. If so, take it graciously. Others may not, and it could be because they don't want to seem like they're encroaching or they truly may not know how to help. You could always make a list of things you feel will help you most (check out this list of what helped us and other twin parents!) and if someone asks what they can do, then you can refer to the list and they can pick what is doable for them while knowing it will be helpful to you.

Prep ahead where you can

Give your future selves a leg up whenever you can. While you might not be able to get into a steady routine for a while because a) you're learning how to take care of two brand-new babies, and b) things are constantly changing with so many variables (wake windows, how much your babies are feeding, bath days call for extra energy, working around pediatrician appointments during the first few months, etc.), there are some things you can do to make things easier on yourselves.

If you're using expressed milk that has already been refrigerated or thawed or are formula feeding, prep your bottles for the day all at once, so you can just grab them from the fridge and warm them up as you need them.

My biggest, "Why didn't I think of this earlier?" moment was when I realized, many months into twin-life, that I could have a full feeding station upstairs by the bassinet (and, later, their nursery) for the overnight feeds. This was after they switched to a full formula diet, around five months in. Rather than hurrying downstairs to grab things when it was time for a feed, everything was within reach, so I could even make a bottle for one baby while holding the other baby's bottle in place for their dream feed.

Everything was pre-measured–their water for the first feed in their bottles, and then their top-up amounts of water, so they could just be poured into the feed bottles without having to be measured. All that was needed was the scoop of formula and to remember to close the bottle before shaking things up. Having this station set up was a game-changer because not only would it potentially stop the twins from waking each other up when they got hungry, it also helped whichever parent wasn't on baby duty to hopefully sleep uninterrupted during those overnight feeds.

These are small things to incorporate, but having fewer steps when it's time to feed your babies makes things monumentally easier.

Invest in a few key items for the early days

Get a swing or glider for each baby. They will help you through some late nights. We thought we could get by with only one, but there were often times when both babies would need the glider or swing to be soothed, and sometimes, one would prefer the swing and the other would only want the glider.

Get two rocker chairs you can work with your feet, so you can soothe them to sleep or just help them be relaxed while you fold laundry or grab a bite to eat.

Another thing that helped during the newborn stage was having an arsenal of feeding pillows. There are a few different styles available (you can go with a tandem feeding pillow like the My Brest Friend or the Twin Z Pillow, or you can go with two individual Boppy-style pillows).

We invested in a dual feeding pillow and were also gifted two singular pillows. I thought we had too many pillows, but I quickly learned how helpful the single pillows were when anybody wanted a one-on-one snuggle or to do an individual feed with one of the babies. The tandem pillow was helpful for simultaneous feeds and also for propping and supporting both babies during supervised tummy time.

Get them off of pacifiers as early as you can, if possible

Our twins were "on" pacifiers during their time in the NICU, so we continued with them when we got home. During the day, they enjoyed their soothers, but at nighttime, they spit them out constantly and would cry until the pacifier was put back in its rightful place. We were in an endless loop of rolling over to put the pacifier back in their mouth every few minutes. It was an excruciatingly exhausting and continuous chore.

Then, one night, our twins suddenly stopped crying for their pacifiers when they were 3.5 months old, so instead of putting them back in their mouths out of habit, we discreetly pulled the discarded pacifiers out of the bassinet while they were sleeping. We'd have been ready to hand them back over if they cried for them later that night or during the coming days, but they never did, and we suddenly slept so much longer and deeper once the pacifiers were out of the picture.

Use a sound machine, especially when the twins are right beside you during the first few months

Newborn babies make a lot of sounds in their sleep–grunting, snuffling, wriggling around in their bassinets. When you've got two babies, there's twice as much noise and the "fun" chance that they could wake each other up with their little noises.

A sound machine, whether it's on your phone, on your baby monitor, or on a separate device, will help everyone, babies AND parents included, sleep more soundly, so you're, hopefully, only waking up for the overnight feeds and not for every little sound in between.

Save time while pumping and breastfeeding

If you decide to breastfeed and are able, try tandem feeding your babies. It can be tricky in the beginning, especially when they don't have much neck control, but if you can get set up with a dual feeding, you'll save a lot of time by being able to feed both babies at once.

After you've fed both twins, pump on each side (we like this hands-free, double electric breast pump by Medela), so your body recognizes it needs to make more milk to keep your supply up with the demand of your babies.

Alternatively, if you're doing bottles with expressed milk or formula feeds, having each parent feed a baby can save you just as much time.

Possibly the biggest time-saver when it comes to pumping (and we didn't learn this until about two months in, when the public health nurse blew our minds with her best piece of advice during one of her visits): you don't have to sterilize all of the pump pieces after every single pumping session.

You can store the pieces inside a sealed stainless steel bowl inside of the fridge and safely reuse them for up to 24 hours before needing to sterilize everything. Removing those extra six or seven sterilization sessions throughout the day was so incredibly freeing, and we couldn't believe that with everything we'd asked, before the babies arrived, about setting ourselves up for success with newborn twins, no one had mentioned this trick until we were already several weeks in!

Pick your binge-worthy shows

Choose some television series or movies you've been waiting to see (or rewatch) and line them up for some major marathon-watching during the first few months with your newborns.

With feeds happening every three hours, you'll be logging some serious time with a new series. Pick a few you'll want to watch as a couple, and also pick some that you're happy to watch on your own for the times you trade off dual snuggle duty, so you or your partner can go get a serious sleep session in.

Focus on the key things that absolutely must get done–and forget the rest

I'll be the first to admit, I loved having a pretty, pristine house before the twins were born, but pretty soon, you'll forget about having a perfect house or lawn–at least for the first while–because you will truly be in survival mode and will think about nothing but getting through the current day with everyone fed and their basic needs met.

If you have friends or family nearby, they may offer to come hold the babies while you do any essential tidying (but really, you'll probably opt to sleep, instead), or if they really like you, they may offer to cut your grass when you just don't have the time nor the energy to prioritize lawn care.

The biggest thing to remember is that everyone will remember how cute your babies were, not whether there was a layer of dust on your mantle.

When it gets difficult, break time down into small chunks

You may have moments when the monotony of the first few months will start to get to you. There could be points when it seems like time is actually standing still.

If you find you're having a hard time, it could help to break the day into more manageable segments. Look at the clock and tell yourself you just have to make it through the next hour. Or take it 10 minutes at a time, or even one minute at a time, if you have to.

Having these temporal milestones–as minute as they may be–to look forward to can help. Every chunk of time you get through is one chunk closer to bedtime. Not that I ever wanted to wish time away with our babies, but when the going gets tough, this idea helped us, and other twin parents we know, get through those stretches.

When sleep training, set a timer

When it comes time to sleep train (this is the way we trained our twins to sleep through the night), set a timer for yourself. What feels like an absolute eternity of your little babies learning to soothe themselves to sleep is, usually, only a couple of minutes. As torturous as those few minutes may feel to a parent, try to watch the clock instead of the monitor.

On the first day of training, I remember thinking it had been almost 10 minutes and that we had to get into the nursery to hold our sweet babies for just a minute, but before barging into the nursery, we checked the stopwatch, and it had only been two minutes. Knowing it hadn't been nearly as long as it felt definitely helped make that process easier.

After a few days, the twins were able to consistently put themselves back to sleep if they woke in the night (unless they had severe teething pain or needed an overnight bottle before we weaned them off nighttime feeds). And because they had learned how to soothe themselves back to sleep on their own, that meant we didn't get woken up by crying babies, and we slept in much longer stretches as a result.

If you need a break, even for just a minute, put your babies in their cribs

It's important to keep in mind that no baby ever got hurt from crying in their crib for a few minutes.

If you ever just need a couple of minutes to recenter yourself–or to have your first speedy shower in five days–remind yourself that your babies are safe in their cribs (on their own, with no blankets, stuffed animals, bottles, etc.) and will be okay for a few minutes. Just keep your monitor nearby and take those few moments to do what you need to do to keep you, and the rest of the household, going.

Plan bathtime for when both parents are home

However often you choose to bathe your babies, try to plan bathtime, if possible, for when both parents are home. If you can do this, you'll (likely) have smooth sailing to Snooze Town because one parent can keep one baby busy and happy (read: fed), while the other parent bathes the other baby.

If you have to do bathtime when a parent is flying solo, grab that handy rocking chair you hopefully invested in, and Baby A can splish splash while Baby B is safely buckled into their rocking chair to watch their sibling get squeaky clean. Then, you can safely get Baby A changed into snuggly pyjamas and into their crib, draw a fresh bath and swap who's in the rocking chair, and repeat it all with the other twin. Be sure to pick some boppin' tunes for bathtime; they can help blend your babies' crying if they're just not feeling it and you can rock out instead of crying on the inside with them.

It gets easier

You may hear it often from other twin parents you run into in the wild, but it really does get easier. I never quite knew what they meant because they never elaborated beyond those three words, except for the pregnant pause that hung in the air as they stared at you, their eyes filled with empathy. Yes, there were times that were, looking back now that we're on the other side, undeniably difficult. Even with help, I don't know how we did it, but we did. And I loved the newborn twin stage, as hectic and as hard as it was. I just remember waking up one day, about four or five months in, and realizing everything was suddenly just easy. I didn't know how or why. It just was.

The same thing happened again around nine or 10 months in. We woke up one day and we were suddenly just in the swing of things and cruising along on autopilot, and we didn't know how we got there, but we weren't asking any questions! We'd already asked enough when we first found out we were having twins, so when this day came, we knew we'd finally made it to the other side of the newborn stage with our twins. And you can do it, too!

Do you have any tips we didn't cover for surviving the newborn stage with twins? Let us know in the comments section below!

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