Quad Mom

Tressa Montalvo and her husband Manuel were completely shocked when, while at the doctor checking up on their twins at week twelve, the MD found a third heartbeat. Then a maternal fetal medicine specialist found a fourth.
They had just been trying for a little brother or sister for their two-and-a-half year-old son, Memphis!

After an uneventful pregnancy with no bedrest, the brood was born at 31 weeks via C-section. Tressa had quadruplets Ace, Blaine, Cash and Dylan, on St. Valentine’s Day. Ace and Blaine shared one placenta, while Cash and Dylan shared another. Ace weighed in at 3lb 10oz, Blaine at 3lb 15oz, Dillon at 3lb 7oz, and Cash, the tiniest, coming in at 2lb 7oz. “I just thought I’d go with the A-B-C-D names to make it easier on the family,” Tressa said in our interview. “We didn’t have any ideas for names when we went in.” How can they be told apart? Ace and Blaine have different ears: one more pointed, the other rounder; Cash and Dylan have a darker skintone than their brothers.

 

Cash is still in the NICU, but he should be coming home today. “The babies had no major complications,” she said. “A lot of the others are more critical than I am.” Other than their weight being smaller than normal, nothing life-threatening was wrong with these miracle quads.

“I’ll tell you a story. I met a woman at Walmart one day and she looked at me and said, ‘Oh my god, are you having twins?’ And I said, no I’m having four, and she went, ‘Oh wow, I had four last year and only one of them survived.’ But I’ll tell you, throughout my pregnancy, I never thought, what if this. What happens if they have this. I kept a positive attitude the whole time, no negative thoughts.”

Positive thoughts are good, especially because when we asked her about how much help she was getting. None! None other than her husband, and occasionally her family on the weekends. This mama is flying solo. What makes it a little easier? “I don’t wait for them to wake up,” she says of their every-three-hour feeding schedule. “I wake them up one by one, feed them, and put them back. I sleep in the time in between at night, and during the day I play with Memphis.”

In true Twiniversity style, we rallied and got this amazing mom of five some great products to help her out. We’d like to thank these amazing companies for their incredible support!

Fisher-Price:
My Little Snugabunny Cradle ‘n Swing
My Little Snugabunny Bouncer
My Little Snugabunny Deluxe Rock ‘n Play Sleeper
SpaceSaver High Chair (Scatterbug Fashion)
Aquarium Bath Center
Discover ‘n Grow Kick & Play Piano Gym
Discover ‘n Grow Stroller Chimes
Laugh & Learn Love to Play Puppy
Poppity Pop Musical Dino
Laugh & Learn Apptivity Storybook Reader
FastFinder Deluxe Messenger Bag
SwaddleCinch Blanket

Britax:
Carriers
B-SAFE Car Seats
B-READY Strollers

Kushies:
Two-piece layette sets

MAM:
Pacifiers
Infant oral care products

St Patrick’s Day

St Patrick’s Day is March 17th, which is fast approaching. What are some themed activities for your multiples?

For those who are into tactile sensory play, you could make Rainbow Rice (with nontoxic watercolor paints, of course), or for the little ones, colored cereal rainbows are a fun, edible way to get a similar experience. Let’s be real, even if you’re not so little, colored cereal is a great way to play and have a sweet snack at the same time.

Green bell peppers are another great way to snack healthily and have some craft time. If you cut them horizontally, they are pre-made edible three-leaf clovers, and they can double as clover stamps if you want to get a little messy. Sticking with the clover theme, Shamrock Straw Toppers are a cute way to add festivity to drinks (besides the green food coloring that is so prevalent during the holiday), and Clover Hair Pins are a kid-simple way to craft and dress up for whatever events you’re planning to attend, whether it be a parade or just a family dinner. And for dessert, you can break out that green food coloring and make easy-peasy clover cookies — just roll the dough into little balls and bake! Hardly any muss, and definitely no fuss when your kids are eating them.

Wonder Bumpers? What’s Wonderful About These Bumpers?

I’m sure by now you’ve been keeping up to date with our tips and tricks for what you’ll need when you’re expecting and helping your little lovelies sleep, but just in case you haven’t, one thing that always comes up in discussion is crib bumpers. Our friends at GoMamaGo have partnered with us for this week’s #tWinsDay giveaway!

Bumpers are a controversial topic for our members here at Twiniversity. My daughter Anna needed them after her little arms and legs got caught between her crib bars one too many times, and once they were on, she slept like she’d been thrown from a moving vehicle. It was miraculous. Also, pacifier containment! So handy.

We had a discussion on our Facebook page last week about bumpers. Here’s what some of our members had to say:
“We started using the mesh ones because our girls kept rolling around and getting their chubby little legs stuck between the bars.”
“I did! Once removed from my b/g twins crib, my daughter got her leg stuck above the knee…she is skinny weeny but managed to get herself into an awkward position where we couldn’t turn her to get we out….we were forced to saw through the crib!! 😦 it was a nightmare!!”
“I put them in the snuggle nests and they slept on their sides bc that’s what they did at the hospital. When they started rolling around on their own I put up the bumpers.”

Quad cuts!

If you had identical quadruplets, how far would you go to tell them apart? Would you shave their respective birth order number on the tops of their heads? That’s what one family in China did for their 6 year old identical quadruplet boys.

I guess that is one way for teachers, to tell them apart, especially since they have to wear identical uniforms to school. Even their own parents have a hard time telling them apart. Do you think this is a good solution? What would you do to tell your kids apart if in a similar situation? Share your thoughts.

2012 Parenting Olympics: Who will win the gold? You or the kids?

Any parent who does their best to raise well adjusted children is deserving of a gold medal! If you are a parent of young children you have your own “games” to compete in every day, here we discuss just a few of them.

Parenting Games :: Multiples Division

Hurdles– running though the house over large and small toys strewn about randomly to reach the toddlers in time before they either

A: Have the bookshelf they are climbing fall over on them

B: Put something disturbing in their mouth

C: Throw your phone in the toilet.

Judging- Points will be deducted for amount of injury to toddler and property.

Blind Hurdles– Running though the house in the dark while one or both of your twins scream from their bedroom while trying to avoid stray shoes, and sharp rouge Legos.

Judging- Points will be deducted for injury to self and swear words vocalized.

Teakwondoo-doo– The goal is to change a dirty diaper without getting poop on yourself, your clothing, the changing table, other children and pets. Do this all while keeping your hands on the baby/toddler you are changing and the baby/toddler’s hands from coming in contact with poop as well.

The Best Laid Plans: Part 2

This article was written by Mike Poff, a great writer for Multiplicity. A following of the wit, wisdom and everyday adventures of one of the foremost at home dads around! 7 kids, one set of Quads, a slew of dogs, cats, horses, cattle all on a 40 acre farm in the Beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. What could go wrong? Mike Poff contributed the amazing article: The Best Laid Plans in our inaugural issue of Multiplicity. Take a look his blog, So Not your Average Dad, to find some interesting info about life as the “Quadfather”.

 

“Pressing the emergency ringer, I hugged my daughters tightly and instructed them to go by the window and pray for their mom. There was a little Christmas display of cards and a little wooden Christmas tree with four happy snowmen waving from it there. They went and began urgently telling God how much Mommy needed His help.

At that moment my in-laws appeared in the room and I quickly explained that their daughter was in convulsions. I instructed them that they needed to stay and pray with their granddaughters while I quickly had to find a doctor. Running to the nurses’ desk, I found myself calmly explaining what was happening, though I was emphatically pressing upon the urgency that they needed to get our doctor right away.

I have always been one to remain oddly calm in a crisis and this trait had served me well over the years. So now I was finding help, explaining the situation, and keeping everyone else as calm and focused as possible. Rushing back to the room with a nurse and an on-call Ob/Gyn Doctor in hot pursuit, calmness was not what we encountered.

Pacifiers 101: How to use em, when you’ll need em, why they could help your twinnies.

The MAM contests has ended but there are still really great tips about using pacifiers!:

Today we are talking about pacifiers!

If you are expecting a few bundles of joy or are a new parent of multiples, you might be stuck with the great pacifier conundrum. Do you use em or not?

Many parents of multiples find that pacifiers are a must have in their children’s lives. Perhaps the the need to “pacify” one child while tending to another, but there are many other positive effects that a pacifier can have on a child.

Twiniversity Tip: Telling Babies (and things) apart!

If you were blessed with same sex twinnies, every parent worries about telling them apart after birth.

There are many options that parents have, and some are super simple. The most commom? Nailpolish! It’s one of the oldest twin parenting tricks in the book. Nowadays you can find, organic or all natural nail polishes in your local drug store or whole foods store. Some great options are Piggy Paint and Priti. These non toxic polishes will give you a solid piece of mind, if you need to give your newborns a mani/pedi.

Keeping their hospital bracelets on is another surefire way of making sure you don’t mix up A & B! These might get a bit mucked up after a few baths, but it might give you enough time to learn their cries and sounds and differentiating characteristics.

If you have older multiples you may have asked yourself more than once, “Who’s boots are those?” or broken up a fight over who’s Transformer is who’s.

Suitable Solutions: Buying vs. Creating Halloween Costumes for your Multiples

With one week left until Halloween, there is still plenty of time to decide whether it’s better to buy or make your twinnies’ costumes. When weighing out the options, there’s nothing to lose, whichever you choose. But not so fast! Before you get started, here are some tips to help you grasp, the most suitable solution for your twinnies.

Just like anything else that involves multiples, planning means everything. So whether you decide to buy or make your costumes; it’s never too early to start, for they both take time and money.

Since one of the biggest concerns for multiples parents is saving time and money, buying costumes for multiple children may be too costly for some; while making costumes too time consuming for others. So what is a multiple parent to do? Keep it simple.

Costume Themes to make your Multiples Gleam this Halloween!

Twiniversity member, Danielle Mahoney's twins

Still on the prowl for the perfect pair of Halloween costumes for your twinnies? Fear Not. This is Halloween, where everyone can make a scene, with or without a matching theme.

Whether you choose to exactly match your twinnies costumes or pair them up as a theme; here are some ideas to help your twinnies gleam this Halloween.