EEK I am gaining too much weight,help!

[Strong Mama]

So............wow. First i was eating alllllllllllll the time to stop feeling sick. Now I am eating all the time because I am freaking starving. I have gained 19 pounds. I am 14 weeks on thursday. This is not good. At all. UGH.

Help me to stop eating. I am eating a lot of food all day. Like sandwiches, cereal, fruit, crackers, cheese, ice cream, yougurt, veggies, potatoes....meat, meat and more meat. I am terrified of GD. I havenever had it before, but all this weight is scaring me. I am HUGE already!

[turnquia]

Actually according to many twin books gaining 24 lbs by 24 weeks is the golden rule for twins. (There is a very well known book by "Dr. Barbara Luke" Something about A guide to twins and triplets and more. There is quite a bit of evidence based research that says its healthier for larger weight babies and going full term.

Your unable to put on much weight later due to lack of ability to eat because of babies taking up so much space. Also the weight gain later tends to be more baby grown, placenta, fluid etc. Very little actual changes in like your arm and thigh size.

So keep up the good work! I am 24 weeks and haven't gained anything. I'm just now back to pre-preggo weight from all the weight loss from morning sickness. So that would be 15lbs I'm up from my lowest point.

Congrats on haveing two!!

[herdingkittens]

yeah, that is pretty good actually. i was SUPER hungry with my twins and needed to eat 2 eggs every morning first thing to prevent getting sick. Protein all day long from what I recall. i hit a point where i was SO SO SO sick of food and eating. then things balanced out (like turnquia mentioned). i was no longer hungry and did not have all that much room for the foods anyways. i almost felt like I slimmed down a bit (in areas other than my tummy, of course! ). most likely just when you cannot take the food anymore, you will turn a corner and feel more balanced.

on another note, if it makes you feel any better, i am 17 weeks with a singleton right now and have already gained 20 lbs. from all the eating i needed to do to stave off the sickness early on. i totally know what you mean - i feel way bigger than i would prefer to feel. HOWEVER, i think morning sickness may be God's way of making sure i am getting enough food. if left to my own devises, i would most likely not eat enough and forget that i was pregnant. oh well. HTH! Oh, and CONGRATS!!!!! twins ROCK!

[mumm]

If you are eating well I wouldn't worry about the scale. I gained over 130lbs with my twins and no one (midwives, ob) ever said a thing. This is one time, imnsho, when you would rather gain too much than too little.

[ShanaV]

With a multiples pregnancy, more weight gain = better. In fact, the more the weight you can gain, the longer the babies will likely cook, which is a big concern with multiples.

I didn't eat enough, and hardly gained any weight, and I bet that contributed to my very early delivery. Not fun. I had such bad morning sickness in the beginning I could hardly eat, and at the end, the babies took up so much room in my abdomen I would feel stuffed to the gills after like 4 bites of food. In total I only gained 20 lbs and I only made it to 30 weeks.

I saw a baby show on TV with this woman who was having quads. She was on hospital bed rest at this hospital in Arizona that is famous for multiples and getting them far along before labor. This woman made it to 34 weeks!! OMG! The trick, the doctor said, was to EAT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Eat everything in sight. All of it. Healthy food as well as cake. You want calories to feed the babies. I saw this show near the end of my pregnancy, so I tried to eat and eat, but I was so stuffed it was hard! I wish I would have seen it sooner so that I would have started the gorging earlier on.

[dividedsky]

agreed, you're good!! those kiddos need the calories. you'll be ok!

fwiw, i delivered @ 32wks and was up 50lbs by then. it would have surely gone way beyond that had i carried to or nearly to term. 18mos later it's gone. worry about growing the babies now, worry about losing the weight after!

[Strong Mama]

Thank you all so much for making me feel better!!!! With my singletons I always gain 40 pounds, but usually in the last three months. I NEVER gain weight until then, so its so strange for me to have gained. So far this has been the best pregnancy I have had by far.

I just feel like I am HUGE, I mean HUGE. I started this at 141. I am 5 foot 7 inches. I am now 160. Its all belly too........ no weight has been gained anywhere else so far!! Its like, I know they are only so small so where is this belly coming from. I LOOK pregnant, not fat, you know.??
But they are doing good and I am doing good so I guess its all good! Nice to know it comes off too!

[Llyra]

I want to echo the PPs-- you're not gaining too much. You're doing great! This is the normal healthy pattern for multiple pregnancies-- that you gain a lot, and a lot of the weight gain happens before 20 weeks. You'll want to concentrate your efforts to eat a lot of protein especially. Personally, I found I had to cut the carbs a LOT to get enough protein in-- you need what seemed to me like mind-flowing amounts of protein.

[poppan]

I gained over 50 pounds by the time I was around 33 weeks, and actually lost weight the last two weeks when I went on hospital bedrest (I delivered at almost 35 weeks). It turned out to be a good thing that I had some extra fat on me because once the babies arrived, I was too busy to eat much, good thing I had the extra fat to draw on to make milk. The pounds melted off me afterwards because I was nursing out so many more calories than I could take in in a day.

That said--I struggled to gain in the first trimester and had begun feeding myself "premium" (high fat, like haagendazs) ice cream and milk shakes in order to gain. But once I hit the second trimester the pounds came on much more easily and I cut out the ice cream and milk shakes to get a handle on the gaining, and it actually helped almost immediately. So I dunno how much ice cream you're eating... but if you're at all concerned maybe cut down on that but keep eating the good foods?

Also wanted to say that I got constant comments from everyone about how big I was... I would be 5 months and they would say I looked 7 months, by the time I got to 7 months random strangers in the grocery store would say "oh any day now right?"

[butterflies]

Just to echo what everyone else has said-- I was eating all day long in the 1st and 2nd trimester (and often waking up for a snack at night!) I did focus on adding extra protein and found that just by following my body's hunger signals, I gained 25 lbs by 25 weeks. I started out "underweight" by the BMI charts.

I'm now entering the 3rd trimester and truly, I have to force myself to eat. Especially dinner... I just feel so stuffed by the end of the day. I'm trying to sneak in calories in smoothies (and now that someone mentioned ice cream...yum.. that sounds good!) but the constant hunger seems to have disappeared.

[JenChaffee]

I gained 90 lbs. I carried my babies 41w. They were wonderfully healthy.

I felt generally ill the entire pregnancy. Eating helped. I worked through 35w. I would carry a huge bag of food with me every day and just nibble all day since I could not eat large amounts at one time.

I had read the Dr. Luke book and knew that I needed to gain weight, but I was gaining even more than was recommended in that book. My MWs kept assuring me that weight gain was good and that every woman deals with weight gain differently. In fact, they even told me that the same woman can have entirely different weight gain experiences in different pregnancies.

My first OB group (I left them ...) had told me that I was gaining weight too fast, even for having twins. They said I should go on a low carb diet! I was convinced that this was bad advice.

[ladydodson]

does anyone have information on how much weight one should gain if they start out a little overweight? will the babies still grow/thrive as well if i dont eat/gain as much as quickly?

[mamaeliz]

I gained 80 lbs (maybe more) and now sit here one pound over what pre-baby weight. Eat to hunger, drink to thirst, and keep focusing on healthy foods. You'll be fine. Better yet, you and the babies will be great!

[mauri456]

Originally Posted by mamaeliz

I gained 80 lbs (maybe more) and now sit here one pound over what pre-baby weight. Eat to hunger, drink to thirst, and keep focusing on healthy foods. You'll be fine. Better yet, you and the babies will be great!

I completey agree with this. I havent had my babies yet, but your body will do what it needs to do. My midwife told me 40-60 lbs is typical but not to really obsess. My OB said no weight restrictions, just eat healthy/protein.

I feel like the weight has come on much quicker with the twins than with my singleton pregnancy. I think your body is just trying to figure out how to nourish THREE people. Isn't that amazing?