Having a rough time with twin toddlers

[starbuckmom]

My twins are 20 mos old and while I love them there are days I just want to bang my head against a brick wall. I also have a 5 yr old to parent, pay attention too and homeschool. I think I am at my limits with lots of stuff.

I mainly have a problem with them playing. I know it's odd for someone to say that but they don't play with toys. They love to follow big brother around the house and hang with him but right now, big brother is with the grandparents till Friday. I know my twins feel lost w/o him here. I tried entertaining them with books, toys and they wouldn't have anything to do with me. The only time they want me is to eat and to kiss boo boos.

I want to plan our play area with them in mind. I don't want to have so many toys it's overwhelming, but I don't want to have so few they get bored easily.

Whats your play are set up like? Our main play area shares the room with our homeschool area so they can be with me while I try and homeschool a bit with my older ds. I do want to try and start a bit of Montessori schooling with them too. Hoping to get them more involved with me too.

Any help or advice or anything would be great!

[hergrace]

The age gap between my singleton and my triplets is about the same as in your family. It is definitely a challenge. I have all my kids in school, so I don't have the schooling to deal with to the extent that you do. I just have homework and enrichment activities. But, it is definitely the case that big brother is often the favorite plaything at my house, too.

You may find that a few days without their big brother is really good for the twins in terms of getting them to look for other activities. Also, I found that at about that age, my triplets really started turning to each other for entertainment and not me. I still find it very strange after the amount of time I had to spend entertaining DS1 that the trio are often happier when playing with each other than when I try to do anything specific with them. I have to work quite hard to get the whole group to do anything structured, though I can often get a few minutes with one at a time if I choose a good time to suggest an activity.

I would not necessarily recommend my general play set-up to anyone. I have too many toys out and things don't get tidied up often enough. I have basically put art supplies in one area, big toys in one room, small toys and books in a third room, and I have just stopped closing the gates in the room where all of the big kid games are in the past few months - the trio are almost 3.5 now.

The one thing that has been a big success with the whole crowd is the big box of costume pieces.

I found that from about 18 months until 3, I couldn't impose much in the way of structure on the little ones and still get anything done around the house, so I just let things be loud and chaotic. One they hit 3, I started being able to get them to wait for long enough for me to actually teach one of them something at a time, without them all needing to be the prime student.

My SIL had much better luck getting her MZ twins to participate in joint activities as toddlers than I had with the TZ triplets. I think that the fact that they had so many interests in common really helped. My guys are all over the map and are off in all different directions all the time.

Sorry this is rambling. I'm over tired. But, I didn't want to leave you without a response. I hope something in there is useful.