Raising Twins ...

I have found a couple things helpful to me and thought I would share! I wish someone had told me some of these things! You never think about some of these things until you see someone else do it.  This is what I have found during my pregnnancy and the first 3 months!

Join amazonmom on Amazon! You get 15% off diapers, wipes, lotions, diaper genie refills, formula, etc! Basically anything baby related!

If you choose to "subscribe" and have things delivered to your house on a schedule you save another 15% and free shipping! So, 30% off!! As often as you go through diapers and formula, this is amazing! It is NOT easy to get out and to the store!!

Bottles:

• Fill up your bottles with the desired amount of water.
• Fill up the travel formula containers with the amount of desired formula. We have 3 of the travel formula containers. Buy them with even numbers of spaces! I have one with 3 spaces, kind of pointless for twins! ;)
• This makes feedings much faster! You are drowsy in the middle of the night. Doing this leaves little room for error!
• Buy multiples gallons of water at a time! We buy anywhere from 3 to 6.
• Buy multiple containers of formula at a time! We would go through 4 regular sized formula cans in approximately a week!

I feed the boys at the same time. When they first came home, it would take an hour to change, feed, and burp. They eat every 3 hours. So, if I fed them seperately I would sleep at most an hour. Not happening! So, even though the saying is "Never wake a sleeping baby" This so does not apply to twins. If they are both sleeping! Absolutely let them sleep! BUT, when one wakes up and it is time to eat, you wake the other baby! After about 2 months, I stopped waking them together during the middle of the night feedings! So, some nights I was up at 3 AM & 4 AM. BUT, this lets you know when one baby starts sleeping through the night.

I would put the boys in the boppys, put a burp cloth under their chin, and use a blanket to prop up the bottle. I found a video of doing it with triplets! Always make sure you burp the babies! ;)





Diapers:

• Buy in bulk! We go through roughly 20 diapers a day.
• We have boys, and Huggies gave us major issues. They leak out the top everytime. I think they work better for girls that don't have anything pointing up ;) Pampers have never leaked for us!
• So, with the amazonmom subscription, we need approximately a box of Pampers every 4 days!
• Have a designated area to change the babies! Makes changes easier! Everything is right there! Wipes, diapers, cream, etc.

Formula:

There was no way we were going to use a name brand formula. We would have gone through 4 cans a week. We use the Target brand Up and Up. It is amazing! It has a comparison to The cans are dramatically larger and last a week with the boys. I buy 4 cans at a time and it is $80. This lasts us a month. If we were on name brand formula it would cost $100 a WEEK. I just want everyone to know don't beat yourself up if you do not use name brand. Not a big deal.

Zip-up pajamas work best! It is no fun snapping a wiggly baby in the middle of the night! I get mine at Target & Walmart! We have a couple Carter's, but most Carters are snaps!

The best socks for us to stay on their feet are the Faded Glory from Wal-Mart.

Walmart sells the exact same things as Target and Babies R Us, but for MUCH cheaper! Swings, diaper refills, tummy time mats, cribs, changers, etc. You can do site-to-store shipping for free! We were able to get Graco cribs that we adore from Wal-Mart for $100 cheaper than Babies R Us! We have the cribs, dresser, chest, and changing table! When you are having two babies and you walk into Babies R Us for furniture. The cost is ASTONISHING! That much for a nursery?!?! It is crazy! So, I researched other places! Burlington Coat Factory has an amazing baby department! Tons of furniture, gear, etc. Wal-Mart was the other place! They have much more online than in the store! With the free site-to-store shipping it is worth it!

Cribs: $139 each
Changing Table: $89
4 Drawer Chest Dresser: $249
Long Dresser: $271

This was all much more affordable compared to furniture at Babies R Us! We love the furniture!

Another important aspect of the nursery for me was personalizing it for my boys and not breaking the bank! I went to http://www.etsy.com/ and looked up "Nursery Wall Decals" WOW! They have so many different things! You can order names, quotes, trees, etc.

I also decided to do wooden letters above their cribs! I found a very reasonable person, and she does an amazing job! You pick the style letters you would like, tell her the theme of your nursery, and she goes from there! She has a shop on Facebook  here. It shows all of the work she has done! Girl names seem much more fun to do ;)

Before purchasing any gear, bedding, etc, I always enter the name of the item at http://www.google.com/ This brings up every store that carries that item. My bedding was $189 everywhere we looked. I found it at babysupermall.com for $129!

Join a community and talk to other people pregnant with twins! This helped so much. I loved this wesbite! I feel so close with the girls that were pregnant with twins at the same time! It has been a blessing! We still talk and keep up with each other!

Have your baby shower early! I was told before 28 weeks! I ended being put on bedrest at 27 weeks! Twin pregnancies are so unpredictable, so you want to have everything ready as early as possible.

These are the things I registered for that I could not live without!

2 boppys
2 sets of Boppy Covers
2 Fisher Price RocknPlay Sleepers
2 bumbos
2 high chairs
1 pack n play for any out of town trips especially
TummyTime mat
Activity Mat
2 swings
glider
6 bottles (could use more for sure!)
drying rack
lots of burp cloths (The thick Gerber ones not the thin ones!)
plenty of blankets (some plush to be able to prop bottles in boppy's)
diaper bag
2 carseats that go with a double stroller
double stroller (Only way I can leave the house!) I love my Graco Quattro Duo!
travel formula dispensers (2 or 3)
diapers
wipes
lotions
baby wash
bath tub ( I prefer this one! I like to bathe the twins at the same time. With this, you can fit two in the bath at the same time!)
8 baby towels
wash cloths
zip up pajamas
babybook
grooming kit

It is easy to forget which bottle goes with which baby. So, who left an ounce? Who left two? Someone bought my personalized inchbugs for their bottles! It has the name of the baby and you can order in different colors. So, Hunter has blue ones & Drake has green ones.

Here is a picture of one:

Routine:

Routine is key with infants. At 10 weeks we started to really stick to a routine. Bath time starts around 7:30. The boys take a bath, get lotion from head to toe, pajamas, night time bottle and we lay them down. They are groggy typically when we lay them down. Transitioning to this routine and sleeping in the crib at 10 weeks has helped us tremendously. This is when they started sleeping through the night. 

I am sure there are more things, but this is all I can think of right now!

I hope this helps someone even just a little to make life easier with the blessing of twins!