just found out we're prego with twins AND!

[dearyanne]

my daughter is only 9 months old! oh my me... it's a lot to wrap my head around!! my mind is swimming as i try to rearrange my birth plan and sleeping arrangements at home- on top of doubling all of our baby gear and trying to figure out how to fit 3 convertible carseats into our tiny little back seat! oo buddy! i figured the first place i'd go was here to see if you good ladies could share your experiences and point me in the direction of some good resources on natural hospital birthing for twins, info on laid back/baby led nursing directly after birth (i had orginally intended to do the breast crawl, and i can't find ANY info on how that works with twins!), babywearing info, and cosleeping info. we will still have 13 month old dd in the bed with us when the twins arrive. thanks a ton in advance for all of your help!

[Tigerchild]

Okay, first things first.

Take 3 deep breaths.  Now give yourself a HUGE hug.

My daughter is 17 months older than my twins.  They came a month early, so yep, she was 9 months old when they were conceived, but I found out when she was 10 months old.

I nursed her exclusively until she was a year old.  Yep, you heard that right--no baby food no formula, until she was ready for solids, just like we'd planned.  She also nursed through my entire (high risk TTTS) pregnancy with encouragement and delight of my perinatologist and OB (the other doctors in their practices--eh, not so much, but a few good rounds of cursing straightened them out.)

BTW, you might have to kick a few clueless asinine lactation "experts" out of your hospital room (I had to!  They went running to head honcho lactation nurse who backed me up too.)

We did get a minivan which was not the horror my holier-than-AP self expected it to be--but that being said, 3 carseats in the back of the civic worked just fine for awhile.

The first thing I would advise is that you get in touch with a local mothers of multiples club.  Yes, they can be bastions of (gasp!) mainstream parenting BUT you can put that on ignore, because most of the time you will not fined better deals on multiples stuff than buying it off a MOM who wants it the heck out of her house.  I bought my triple stroller for over $500, and sold it to someone else for $50.  :D  Just sayin'.

I nursed my twins exclusively and they were child-lead weaned.  I know some people here believe in the schedule, but I couldn't do that nor could I stand nursing them at the same time unless it was an absolute emergency.  So, I nursed them at night like I did my other kid.  Daddy always changes the kids after nursing at our house anyway, so he had to wake up a little earlier and switch babies for me sometimes so I could do the side nursing with the appropriate one.  No big deal.

I know there are a few other moms here with our age spacing.  :)  But try not to freak out too much (you'd be a stone if you were not freaking out SOME, so allow yourself TO freak out every day for a set period of time if it helps!).  My boys are 7, my daughter is 8, and everyone including me is still alive and well.  :)

[lesliesara63]

Well first congratulations! I'm sure this is pretty mind boggling for you. I'm pretty new to being pregnant with mulitples myself so I don't have a lot of advice. But you can do this, and when they are all older its going to make for some great stories and a lot of fun. My doula told me that a lot of twin natural births happen just because they tend to go a bit faster. I also know a few twin moms that nursed for quite some time.