Some Tips on Surviving Bed Rest

Once you find out you are having twins (or more) it probably won’t be long before someone (your doctor, your mother, your sister, or a complete stranger) tells you that you might have to go on bed rest.  It is NOT inevitable; there are many women who get through a multiple pregnancy without the need for any bed rest.  However, there are many who don’t.  Should you find yourself (or someone you know/love) on bed rest, here are some tips for surviving it!

It can’t hurt to hope for the best but you may want to plan for the worst.  If it doesn’t come to be, you can breathe a big sigh of relief.

You may want to take care of some things early.

1.  Take your hospital tour and whatever classes you plan to take, birthing class, breastfeeding etc. before 24 weeks.

2.  Go ahead and get the babies room(s) ready.

3.  Make a backup plan at work for if/when you go on bed rest and present it to your supervisor no later than 20 weeks.

Britax B-Agile, B-Safe and the Britax Baby Carrier all receive Twiniversity Approvals.

Once again, Twiniversity has put another set of products through their vigorous rounds of testing, and this time, Britax came out a winner.

 

Months back, some members of the Twiniversity Testers team were asked to try out the Britax B-Agile Stroller; Britax B-Safe Car Seat; and the Britax Baby Carrier. Over the course of several weeks, they were asked to use these products in their daily life and provide honest feedback.

Welcome to some new additions to our Twiniversity Team

Change is all around us. With the launch of our new magazine, Multiplicity, our Twiniversity Team is growing in leaps and bounds. We have some sad departures and some amazing additions. To help you keep track of all that is going on, here is the official scoop:

Frankie Howley. Frankie, who we have all come to know and love, is taking a tiny step back from our group, but staying on-board as a Staff Writer.  Sadly, Frankie will no longer be helping “officially” with our facebook/twitter pages, but will still remain a part of our community as a M.O.M. Like many multiples, her girls hit a stage that require Frankie to be a lot more hands on. Her twins have gone from babies to rambunctious toddlers, and are now getting into anything and everything. Frankie will still play a crucial role in our group and continue using the craft she loves, her writing. Frankie has contributed so much to Twiniversity over the past year plus, and we can’t wait for the girls to get a little bigger, so Frankie can come back on, in a more full time fashion. At the same time, we don’t want Frankie to miss a single moment, since all our twinnies grow up so fast. Frankie will never be too far away, and can continue to be reached using Frankie@Twiniversity.com.

To help ease the transition of Frankie’s departure, Twiniversity has proudly hired Charissa Lewis to our team.

Charissa comes to us from the lucky Las Vegas area, where Natalie met her last year on official Twiniversity business. Charissa will be our new Community Manager and is so excited to take on the job with all responsibly that comes with it. She will help coordinate Twiniversity’s social media pages (facebook and twitter), as well as, write reviews, posts, and help inspire our moms in any way possible. Charissa is very excited to become an official team member of Twiniversity, since she was one of our VERY first members. Ever!  After Nat and Charissa’s brief meeting in the fall of 2010, Natalie has been trying to find a place for Charissa on our team, and finally found the perfect fit. Welcome Charissa to the Twiniversity family. If you would like to send Charissa a welcome email, you can send it to Charissa@Twiniversity.com. You should be seeing a lot of Charissa, and I’m positive you will love her as much as we do! Welcome Charissa!

In addition to Charissa, Twiniversity has another welcome addition. Tracy Beecham.

Tracy will be launching our national/global Twinivesity classes as our first official Twiniversity Local Ambassador. Tracy will start teaching Twiniversity 101 and Twiniversity 201 classes, which have previously only been available via Skype and in New York City. Tracy will also help coordinate special projects such as our 24 Days of Twinnies till the Holidays that will be launching on December 1st. Tracy is a single mom of twins in the Pennsylvania area, and has been a fan of Twiniversity for a while and has some great ideas on how to help us grow as a group.

Twiniversity is proud to welcome Charissa Lewis and Tracy Beecham to our team and we look forward to announcing a few more additions to our family soon.

On a separate note, I’m sure you heard by now, but we will SOON be launching a new online Magazine called Multiplicity. We assure you that this will be the GO TO magazine for everyone in our community. Our Multiplicity Team consists of Natalie Diaz, Joscelyn Ramos Campbell and Talitha McGuinness. This trilogy will knock your socks off! With the team building efforts of Natalie, the connections of Joscelyn and the talent of Talitha, this is sincerely a match made in heaven. All three of them CAN NOT wait to show you what they have up their sleeves for the launch of the magazine. So keep your eyes peeled.

We hope you are as happy with the changes as we are. We continuously try to improve our group daily and if you feel there is anything we are leaving out, or should look into further, we hope we can depend on you to tell us. As always, our fearless founder Natalie is always around for ANY member. You can email her at Natalie@Twiniversity.com or you can even call her at 917-442-2020. She is on call for our members (almost) 24 hours a day.

-The Twiniversity Team

Getting Out of The House with Twins

Unless you want to be housebound for a very long time, you will need to figure out how to get out of the house with your twins.

At first the idea of leaving the house with twins may be a little overwhelming but if you don’t do it you will feel trapped at home with them.

 

Here are some tips from Twiniversity MoMs for how to do it:

• If you are really nervous you could practice with a run to a drive through to get coffee with the kiddos strapped safely in their car seats.  This will get you out of the house and keep everyone contained.  Bring a good book with you to read while they nap as an extra bonus!
• Scout out your local parks/playgrounds that have only ONE entrance and exit. That way you can always stand guard to ensure no one escapes.
• “Baby Leashes” are often frowned upon by the masses, HOWEVER if you feel more comfortable and in control using them. Do not worry what people think. These are your children and it’s your job to keep them safe first and foremost.
• Pick a “safe” place for your first outing perhaps the mall or a grocery store near your home.   Don’t expect to get a lot done.  Just enjoy the fact that you are out of the house!
• Never leave the house without a copy of your medical insurance card and a photo ID. Heaven forbid something happens, you don’t want to have to worry about not having proper identification.
• If your toddlers are toddling in different directions, it’s not bad to go out with a buddy. It could be another mom or a family member or friend. But an extra pair of eyes is NEVER a bad thing.
• Don’t leave your camera at home. It would be a shame to miss that cute moment of their first time on the slide or the first time on a swing.
• Practice makes perfect. Taking short trips out of the house leading up to a big one will give you the confidence to know you can do it.

Be prepared to be stopped by EVERYONE and asked the 100’s of questions you will continuously get because you have twins.  When your twins are small they attract a LOT of attention so take this into account for time management but enjoy the attention.

Prepare as much as you can in advance and just do it!  It might be easier than you thought or more difficult.  But it will get easier with practice!

Good Luck and have fun!

Ashton Kutcher is a twin?

Recently on our Facbook wall, a mom just discovered that Ashton Kutcher was a twin. Surprise! There are TWO of him!

His fraternal brother, Michael, lives in Iowa selling retirement plans while raising his son. This life must seem very distant from his twin’s, who is constantly hob nobbing with the rich and famous. Ashton’s celebrity status has actually helped his brother out a lot, in more ways then you can imagine.

You see, Michael Kutcher has Cerebral Palsy. He was diagnosed at a very young age. “I was the kid with the big Coke-bottle glasses, the hearing aid,” Michael Kutcher told Details Magazine in 2008. “There was a lot of teasing, a lot of the normal mean stuff.”

As a kid, Ashton protected his brother from other children who would bully him. Now, he helps his brother raise awareness for Cerebral Palsy and Michael’s charity of choice Reach for the Stars, which provides a foundation of hope for children with CP. “Being Ashton Kutcher’s brother, it gives me the opportunity to be that voice, and I realize that I needed to use the opportunity to help others,” said Michael during a trip to Washington DC a few years back.

If you would like to donate money to Reach For the Stars, please visit their website.

Happy Thanksgiving

We wish you a day filled with family, friends, food and NO STRESS!

Enjoy it.

Gobble Gobble

The Twiniversity Team

 

Check out our Facebook Page for best Thanksgiving Photo Contest to win either a Loving Family Beach Vacation Mobile Home or a Thomas & Friends Trackmaster Cranky & Flynn Save the Day! playset.

The Biology of Twins

If you have twins you have probably been asked, “Are they identical?”  The answer to this question may or may not be obvious.  You may also find that complete strangers think they know the answer better than you do!

Here is a short primer on the science behind twinning.

Identical twins are monozygotic – they originate from the same fertilized egg.  If the egg splits very early (before the 4th day), the fetus’ can have separate placentas and separate amniotic sacs  (Dichorionic/Diamniotic, also called DiDi) making them almost indistinguishable from fraternal twins in the womb.  If the egg splits between 4-8 days, the twins will  share a placenta and have separate amniotic sacs (MoDi).  If the egg splits between days 8-13 the twins will share the placenta and the amniotic sac (MoMo).  If the egg splits between days 13-15 the twins will be conjoined.

Fraternal twins are dizygotic – they originate from two different fertilized eggs.  There will be separate placentas and separate amniotic sacs.

Fraternal boy/girl twins are the most common type of twins.  Fraternal twins that are girl/girl or boy/boy may look quite a lot alike but that does not mean they are identical.  They share the same amount of DNA as siblings from different pregnancies.  It is possible but highly unlikely to have boy/girl twins that are monozygotic (“identical”); due to a female with Turner syndrome.

Unless you have MoMo or conjoined twins it is nearly impossible to determine if you twins are identical without performing genetic testing.  The test is simple, and can be performed by requesting a test kit from a lab.  The kit will most likely contain a swab that is rubbed on the inside of the cheek and a card to apply the collected cells to.  Tests can be obtained for about $150.

Is It OK to Invite Only One Twin?

by Christina Baglivi Tinglof

Short answer? Yes. Please do.

One of the more entertaining aspects to writing is sifting through all the interesting search terms people use in order to find my blog. Most are obvious and self-explanatory such as “twin pregnancy blog” or “can identical twins look different?” Some are puzzling like “which twin to introduce first?” But my all-time favorite has to be “what is the teeny twin used for?” (Don’t ask me what they were looking for–I haven’t a clue.)

This week, however, I spotted a search phrase that stuck a cord. “Is it OK to invite only one twin?”

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this question from (I presume) a parent without twins. A few years back, for instance, a friend who is the mother of two singletons, called me for a bit of advice. It seemed her young, fourth-grade son was friendly with a twin at school and wanted to invite him over for a play date but my friend was hesitant because, she explained, the twins do everything together. She felt uncomfortable excluding one twin. But her son was only friendly with the one twin, not the other. In fact, he didn’t particularly care for the other twin. Yet despite my urging, my friend couldn’t bring herself to call the other mother and just invite the one twin. So her son never had his play date, and ultimately as the school year progressed, the friendship cooled as the relationship didn’t have a chance to blossom and grow.

When I pressed my friend for her reluctance in trying to invite just the one twin, she couldn’t get past the fact that the twins were always together–in the classroom and on the playground, playing on the same sports team and belonging to the same clubs–and she didn’t think that they’d want to be separated. In short, she didn’t want to be viewed as the “bad guy,” the mom who tried to break up a twin pair before they were ready.

As the parents of multiples, we know that our twins often enjoy being together. After all, they’re not only twins but friends, too. Yet they also appreciate their time alone. It’s great that twins share so much but it’s equally important for each twin to venture out all on his own whether it’s to a summer camp or to a birthday party. But how do we convince parents with singletons that it’s fine to reach out to just one twin? We need to encourage them. And often.

When my twins were in second grade, for instance, a mom approached me after school. Although her son had invited only one of my twins to his birthday party, she wanted me to know that it was fine for my son to bring along his cotwin. I smiled and thanked her but told her that I’d prefer if he went alone. She looked puzzled. But when I explained that twins sometimes don’t get a chance to have experiences all on their own, and that I wanted my son to have a unique memory separate from his cotwin, it finally made sense to her.

Still, it’s also important for parents of multiples to reflect upon how they are presenting their twins, triplets or quads to the community around them. Are you sending a subtle message that your twins are a package and not two individuals? That’s not to say you should force your twins to play separately or attend different after-school activities. Twins are first and foremost friends, a wonderful sibling bond that will endure through good times and bad throughout the course of a lifetime. It’s precious and sacred. But twins will grow up and go their separate ways each having a family all his own. They need to learn the art of navigating life sans twin. And they should learn these valuable lessons at home from their parents.

So the next time a classmate shows an interest in just one of your twins, encourage the relationship. In fact, why not approach the mom and suggest that just the two of them get together for a play date? She may just welcome the offer.

—————-

About Christina Baglivi Tinglof

Christina Baglivi Tinglof is a twin parenting guru and the author of five books including Double Duty 2e (McGraw-Hill 2009) and Parenting School-Age Twins and Multiples (McGraw-Hill 2007). She’s also the editor of Talk About Twins, a website devoted to twins and twin relationships, and is a contributing writer for Twins magazine. Before the birth of her fraternal twin sons (and subsequent singleton son), she wrote extensively on travel for the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Herald, the San Diego Union Tribune, and Westways magazine.

Sleep Babies (Toddlers and Kids) Sleep!

I did not know what sleep deprivation really was until I brought my twins home from the hospital.  The first several weeks were nothing short of grueling.  I did not know a person could survive sleeping in 45 minute intervals for weeks on end.  All of our pre-twin research indicated that the most important single thing we could do was to put our twins on a schedule.  After a few days of following their cues and letting them adjust to life outside the womb we began with a very simple, wake, eat, play, sleep schedule based on feeding them every 2 1/2 to 3 hours.  It didn’t matter if it was light outside or not, feeding happened according to the schedule and alarms were set.  The priority was getting weight onto the babies.

Finally, once the babies had put on enough weight, they were cleared to sleep as long as they would during the ‘overnight’ hours.  The first time they slept through a feeding I woke up with a start and ran to their room to be sure they were OK.  Eventually, they slept longer and longer until we reached a 12-hour night (6pm-6am).  I wish I could say that it stayed that way! But then teething reared it’s ugly head and one of the twins did not take it well.  She would only sleep if she was held.

Once the 2 year molars were cut, my husband and I explained to our children that we did not want to stay in their room and ‘help’ them go to sleep; they needed to do it themselves!  After a few nights of upset, they figured it out.  Then came the toddler beds!  Add to that the monsters, occasional illness and a bad dream here or there, there were so many ways that our sleep was interuppted.  And unlike having a single baby, it was as if they were a tag team.  One would sleep and the other would wake.  Sleep had become an unpredictable roller coaster ride.

Over the years, I have read many a post on solving sleep problems.  I have learned that a sleep problem is not a sleep problem unless you consider it to be one from Elizabeth Pantley, author of the No Cry Sleep Solution and the No Cry Nap Solution.  I have also heard about “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins” and “The Happiest Baby on the Block” but not had the time to actually read them.

What I have learned is that there is no one size fits all approach to getting your children to sleep.  I also know that just because they ‘can’ sleep through the night doesn’t mean they will.  Every family has to pick the approach that works for you, and your individual children.  Set your ground rules and stick to them firmly and consistently.

Sleep definately has it phases around here.  And one day when they are teenagers and want to sleep in, I am planning to take them for early morning hikes on Saturdays to enjoy the sunrise.  Maybe they will learn to appreciate it as much as I have learned to!

Have you seen this controversial co-sleeping ad?

Have you seen this ad that equates co-sleeping to laying them down to sleep next to a knife?  Do you think they have gone too far?