Dad's Guide to Twins

By Joe Rawlinson, twin pregnancy and raising twins expertKids & Family

Dad's Guide to Twins episodes

July 14, 2021Inspiring Creativity and Keeping Tempers in Check with Jamie Tuttle – Podcast 243
Episode 243 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Jamie Tuttle, father of four-year-old identical boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Choosing to be a stay at home dad to the twins
Encouraging imagination and creativity in the boys
Having twins after being married for years
During the pregnancy, Mom couldn’t keep any food down, lost weight
Planning for a c-section
Finding success in breastfeeding and bottle-feeding
Potty Training by three
Traveling with young children
Life-changing product for feeding babies
Keeping tempers in check
Finding books that help boys with emotions
Getting back in the swing of date nights
and more…
Connect with Jamie on Facebook, Instagram, or via email.
Transcript
This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes.
Joe 0:00
Encouraging imagination and creativity in your twins and more lessons from a stay at home father of twin boys today on the show.
Intro 0:09
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast, the podcast that’ll help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins,” Joe Rawlinson.
Joe 0:24
Hey everybody. Welcome to the 243 episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com. Where you’ll find the complete show notes transcript for this episode, and all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father twins interview series with a fellow father of twins from the Pacific Northwest here in the US. But before we jump into that discussion, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com where you’ll find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for us. Families of twins, we’ve got shirts for dads of twins, moms are twins, the twins themselves, even some shirts for grandma, and grandpa. You can see all those shirts over at twintshirtcompany.com. Today, I would like to welcome to the show father of twins. Jamie Tuttle. Welcome to the show, Jamie.
Jamie 1:14
Thanks for having me.
Joe 1:15
Jamie, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age?
Jamie 1:20
Oh, they’re four and a few months. Right now just what they’re doing with their imagination, you know, coming up with crazy stories and creating their own games and sports and just the way that they just that and being the sponge that they are and just picking everything up and just playing and actually figuring stuff out even before I get a chance to teach them even at times.
Joe 1:48
That’s fun. Do you have boys girls, one of each?
Jamie 1:51
Boys.
Joe 1:51
Are they identical?
Jamie 1:52
Yep. mono-di
Joe 1:55
Mono-Di. That’s what we had. We had model day girls. So you mentioned creativity and imagination? Is there something that you’re doing to help encourage that or structure that?
Jamie 2:02
I’m an artist, so I’ve got an art studio. And so we do a lot of painting and stuff like that. But um, we I tend to foster it by kind of letting kind of starting a story kind of giving them kind of a jumpstart into something and then just letting them run with it. Basically letting them know that whatever they come up with, there’s there’s really no wrong answer. When it comes to them just creating things.
Joe 2:27
Have they shown different tendencies artistically or creatively?
Jamie 2:31
Yes, kind of off and on, you know, the, they’ll definitely one will pick up a paintbrush and like, without me teaching him he’s actually holding a paintbrush appropriately by correct the way, you know, very painterly anyways. And he’ll paint and actually put together like a scene, you know, whether it be you know, hills and the sun and everything else, he he can put it all together, or the other one will grab a pencil or marker, you know something on that line, and then start scribbling, but end up with something that nobody saw coming until he’s done.
Joe 3:16
That’s exciting that you’re able to give them some opportunities to explore those talents. Let’s rewind the clock back to when you found out that you were having twins. What was your family situation like at that time?
Jamie 3:25
My wife and I had been married for 20 years. We had both turned 40. And we my wife kind of said, Yeah, I think I’m ready. I think we should we should do this. And I was like, Alright, cool. And we tried and we it didn’t take many tries necessarily. And boom, she got pregnant. And you know, I guess that’s kind of kind of history at that point. So it was a surprise and not a surprise at the same time. We joked about having twins before the first ultrasound. I mean, we like yet watch. It’s gonna be twins. Sure enough. It was and there was a lot of laughter. Right? As soon as we found out.
Joe 4:10
That’s great. I mean, the older the mother, the more likely you are to have twins, but that’s fraternal twins, not identical. And so you ended up having identical, which is just luck of the draw, which congratulations. What do you recall about the pregnancy? Were there any challenges with that?
Jamie 4:27
Oh, yeah. Jill couldn’t eat anything. She couldn’t keep anything down. She ended up losing weight. All the weight that she did gain was just the boys. So she kind of stayed Pat. When the boys were born, she ended up like, I think she ended up dropping down to almost High School weight, which was crazy. And she was extremely happy about that. But I mean, as far as the health of the boys, they were great all the way through. Like they grew, right. They everything. All the milestones they hit it, like, whatever she was doing whatever she could do was everything right? Because the boys never had we never had any issues. Like she didn’t really go through any major. I mean, it was heartburn, you know, the usual sort of pregnancy things that you hear about, she kind of dealt with other than she just couldn’t keep any food down until, I want to, say, a month and a half before they were born. And then she could she all sudden got her first craving.
Joe 5:35
So I know one of the concerns there as his mom can eat, how do we make sure that babies are getting enough nutrition for them to grow? How did you manage that balance between mom not being able to eat and making sure babies are so Okay.
Jamie 5:48
Um, she was actually the one thing she could keep down was like, mostly liquids and stuff like that. So she was doing a lot of protein shakes. And like all kinds of different ones, a lot of vegetable based ones. And then she’d switch over and do some other ones. That way. I was making a ton of smoothies, like just as creative as I possibly could be, to make smoothies for and everything else. But it was mostly protein shakes was what kind of got her through and she’d eat, but she’d eat just to the point where she’s like, yeah, this ain’t gonna work. And, you know, then she’d be able to keep it down. If she ate just a little bit and just held off, then she’d be alright, but it was it, you know, protein shake after protein shake after protein shake?
Joe 6:40
How was the birth experience? Similar to maybe what you’d heard about? Or based on your expectations? How did it turn out in reality,
Jamie 6:48
as far as my expectations, your book actually was the one thing that I had, as you know, and what the doctors were saying, and everything else, as far as the C section went, the way that you put it so that it was your wife’s point of view and your point of view, it set me and my wife at ease, being able to see it from both sides, gave us a little bit more of an understanding. And our doctors were amazing. Like they gave us all kinds of heads up about a lot of things. They were very upfront very truthful about absolutely everything. And the hospital we were at actually had twins class kind of thing that we went to, beforehand that like gave us a ton of information and like, almost over prepared us. It as far as expectations. I think it for both Jill and I we felt as if it went almost easier than expected.
Joe 7:45
Well, that’s great. So the plan was all along to have a C section?
Jamie 7:49
It’s kind of the way my wife wanted to go. But after talking with the doctor, and the doctor said it could be kind of high risk because of your age, we could run into some problems. So why don’t we schedule your C section date in shoot for this date? And that was the date?
Joe 8:05
They didn’t come early?
Jamie 8:07
Yeah, no, we made it to 36 and six,
Joe 8:10
are the babies healthy at birth or any complications there?
Jamie 8:13
They were like, right at birth, everything seemed to be good. We got them back to the room. And then Titan ended up not being able to hold tamp. So he dropped tamp, and they had to bring in the giraffe and like, strip him down naked and just let him sit under the heat, you know for a while and he ended up equaling out. And then talus ended up with like low blood sugar for a while and ended up spending. I was close to 36 hours in the nick queue. And I know it’s not very much but it felt like it was a year.
Joe 8:55
So did everybody go home together? Or did you have to leave on an account,
Jamie 8:58
we were lucky enough that the hospital had an open room for us in the family section. And we got to hang out there until Talos was ready to go home. So we actually were able to all leave at the same time.
Joe 9:13
So the first year of twins can be kind of a blur kind of haze. And when you got the twins home, what what kind of surprised you most about having to at the same time.
Jamie 9:23
The big surprise was that honestly looking back at it would say that I was surprised how prepared we we were and how it made things smoother than expected. I guess. Like the boys were actually pretty easy. They didn’t probably the craziest surprise was the fact that Yeah, they did eat every two hours forever. It just didn’t seem like that would ever end but they were you know they didn’t sleep very much So the lack of sleep was kind of a surprise. But other than that, it, you know, we tried to keep them on schedule. And as long as we kept them on schedule it, it felt as if it went fairly smooth. Looking back at it, I mean, at the time, it was insane. It was just, you know, run, run, run doo doo doo go back forth, you know, didn’t know which end was up at times, hearing from other twin parents, it’s like, oh, maybe we had it pretty easy.
Joe 10:27
If your twins are on a predictable schedule, and that makes a big difference, because you can work around that plan around that. Even if, even if it is just two hours at a time, you know what to expect at least?
Jamie 10:39
Yeah, and that, that was the biggest key, I guess. And I heard that from other twin parents, I heard it in your book talked about trying to get him on a schedule, when we did everything we could keep them on that schedule. And the idea of, you know, don’t wake a sleeping baby is kind of bunk when you have twins, you know, and, you know, when one wakes up because he’s hungry, you wake the other one up otherwise. And we didn’t really get that right away. I want to say it took us a week and a half to finally go, this is dumb. We’re not getting any sleep. Because the minute every you know, everybody we thought was asleep, the other one would wake up. So we’re like, Okay, now we’re not doing this again. You wake up, you’re waking up, and we’re feeding you and you’re both going back down. So at least we can get an hour and a half to two hours.
Joe 11:32
And that worked for us as well. Sometimes it takes a little while for you to realize that it’s it’s very difficult to just feed them one after the other because there’s never a break for you. And that’s not enough. None of sleep were your boys are breastfeeding or bottle feeding.
Jamie 11:47
Yes. They so Jill didn’t produce right away for a little bit. It took her a little bit to catch up. But we were definitely supplementing. So we would have, you know, she would breastfeed and then we’d supplement with formula or if we had some that she had pumps or whatever, because she went back to work. After three, three months. I’m gonna say three, four months she went back to work was definitely a Okay, well, he didn’t seem to eat very good. So here’s a bottle. Like we always had backup just in case.
Joe 12:23
You mentioned that she went back back to work after about three months. What was your work time off situation like?
Jamie 12:29
I’m still not. I’m a stay at home dad.
Joe 12:31
That’s fantastic. Was that the plan before they were even born?
Jamie 12:34
Yes, yes, it was. I was a general contractor before so owning my own business. It’s like, Okay, I’m going to just hold on to all my tools and wait until they go back to go to school. And then, you know, I can either pick that back up or not. We’ll see what happens when when that time comes.
Joe 12:56
Well, that’s wonderful. So you’ve been you’ve been within the last four years?
Jamie 13:00
Yep. Yeah, from day one, it’s, it’s been a heck of a ride.
Joe 13:05
So I guess you look ahead, like another year or a year and a half, and they’ll be going off to school. How do you feel about that, that transition on the horizon?
Jamie 13:13
Excited. I’m also a little trepidation. I mean, it’s it’s still it kind of nerve wracking, especially nowadays with COVID and everything else. But I’m, I’m hoping, you know, when, when they’re ready to go to actual school to kindergarten, that will be clear. And, you know, it’ll just be them going there. They’re excited about it. Because they see their friends going and they want to go so it’s it’s definitely something where I think they’re going to thrive. So that’s going to be a big positive, but I doesn’t take any nerves off of me necessarily. I’m still, you know, it’s letting them go sort of thing, but I think they’re gonna be awesome when it comes to that time.
Joe 13:58
It’s fun to look at that, especially now that they’re the age where you can have conversations with them and they know what’s coming down the road and the future was cool. It’s fun to see your kids excited about the future.
Jamie 14:08
Yeah, I think they’re more excited about getting on a bus than anything else.
Joe 14:13
Yes, a little things, little things, right. Let’s talk about some milestones with your boys. How was the potty training experience like with them?
Jamie 14:21
It was it was interesting. Um, cuz we kind of went with letting them kind of set the pace a little bit. We tried to kind of push it a little bit when they turned a little past their second birthday and we started to switch over to training pants and we started to kind of, you know, we had a potty and just about every room I think, you know, and they would get used to it. They they go before bath time. Like no matter what if it was bath time. They would go. Like they knew it was kind of a cool thing to do that and then they take a bath, and then they put a diaper back on. But we got to a certain point, I want to say they were right at two and a half and tightened. took off. He’s like, I’m done. I don’t want these anymore. I’m, I’m potty trained. And he just did. You know, there was still an occasional accident, but it wasn’t very often. And then Taoists kind of reverted for a little bit. And then just before their third birthday, they were 100%. Good to go. Right. They, and it was we gave them a lot of positive reinforcement. Most of the time, what they wanted, what really got them spurred to do it was the craziest thing, cat videos, if they could just sit and watch cats doing silly things. They would go poop whenever, you know, it was like, Okay, it’s time to go. But I want a cat video. Alright, cool. I’d set an iPad up and let them watch cat video until they were done. And that became the thing. So it, it just became the thing for a while. And I want to say yeah, they were three, three and a couple of months and the cat videos kind of waned and went away. And they’ve been pretty solid. I mean, very rarely do we have unless they’re playing and forget sort of thing. But other than that, they’re really good about it right now.
Joe 16:36
Did you see a difference in the mastering daytime dryness versus overnight?
Jamie 16:42
overnight was happened before daytime. Like there was there was a point. I want to say before their second birthday, even nighttime diapers were always dry. Like they had just gotten fed up using their diapers at night. But they’d wake up and immediately use it.
Joe 17:03
That’s interesting. I think we saw the opposite with our kids are, they’re able to master daytime stuff, but they would still need to like a pull up overnight for much longer.
Jamie 17:12
And I kind of heard that from other parents too. And I was like, I don’t know why that was the easy side for us. But it It seemed to be what’s great.
Joe 17:21
Yeah, go with what works. Yeah, overnight stand dry cat videos, every every situation is unique. So it’s great. Everybody’s shared a bedroom this whole time. Are they in different spaces?
Jamie 17:32
They have shared bedroom the entire time there. They’ve got bunk beds now. And they tend to do pretty well.
Joe 17:41
Did you ever see them waking each other up or keeping each other from sleeping?
Jamie 17:46
No, actually, hardly ever. Mostly because tele sleeps like a rock? When he’s out. He’s out. I don’t I plain confined to his room. And he wouldn’t wake up I don’t think where Titan, little noises and stuff like that tend to wake him up. Like if the cat runs too fast or something like that. It could possibly wake him up. So we’ve got to be extra quiet when we go to our room just to make sure we don’t wake him up. But other than that, no, they they never really kept each other awake. I mean, even when they were infants, one would wake up crying for whatever reason, and the other one would sleep through it.
Joe 18:31
Yeah, that surprises a lot of people who don’t have twins. Yeah, they think one of them is always going to wake up the other one. And that’s not always the case. They’re kind of used to each other in utero, and somehow that just translates to life in the real world to where they just ignore each other and sleep through each other’s voices, whatever. Now did they go straight from like a crib to bunk beds? Or was there some transition in between there?
Jamie 18:53
There was we had a convertible setup so we had two cribs that you know the side came off of it. And their big boy beds were kind of there the transition in between and then we went to bunk beds on their third birthday.
Joe 19:10
That’s cool. How did they decide who got which bunk?
Jamie 19:13
It’s a different decision every day. And they’re they they either talk about it or they’re it’s back and forth. They just split ones on top and then the other ones on the bottom and then it’s just back and forth every
Joe 19:26
night. Well, that’s fun. That’s fun. Our kids will want to switch that every night because they think it although all their stuff on their pen they don’t want to share that stuff but they’ve like switch every week or every month or stuff like that. Or will rotate once a year he could switch beds around. So pre COVID were you able to travel at all with the with the boys with the family?
Jamie 19:48
Yeah, I we traveled almost immediately. Because we had them in November and in January, we took a train from I’m here to Minneapolis. And that was, that was a very relaxing trip. And then we’ve been on the plane, most of our family, like my parents, specifically and our grandparents are all in Iowa. We grew up in Iowa, we moved out here in late 90s. But so we’ve flown back I want to say three times that we took a train the train the first time.
Joe 20:32
So everybody’s always been good travelers then since the beginning.
Jamie 20:35
Yeah, I gotta say, we’re, we’ve been very lucky when it comes to that, like they the first time on the train, I mean, they were just months old. So they slept most of the time. And the train just loved them to sleep. And they were awesome. The whole trip, and then the plane ride. We tried to figure out where their nap time would land. And we tried to figure out, Okay, if we get on the plane now, then they’ll nap for maybe the four hour trip the three hour trip before lucky don’t that most of that. And for the first two flights that happened, the last. The last time we went back, I want to say they napped for maybe a half an hour. But beyond that. They we had on that flight specifically, we had a stewardess that had twins, and she was a twin. So she was like, Can I hold them? Can I walk around with them? If you need anything? Let us know. So we we got pretty lucky on that flight.
Joe 21:38
That’s cool. We did similar where we try to figure out what time of day would be the best to fly with the kids. And then just hope for the best. We we did travel when our kids were younger, especially if you can get him on the plane when they’re under to be for free and most most airlines. So in retrospect, I kind of wish we traveled some more. What’s the most common question that people ask you about your twins?
Jamie 22:04
Um, well, the obvious, you know, how do you tell them apart? That’s probably the biggest one. But you know, the do they run in your family? They do now sort of thing. You know, a lot of the, the normal sort of questions. I get the occasional, like actual you know, so how was the first few months? You know, they did the actual parenting questions from, you know, Singleton parents will go, Okay, how did this work? For you? You know, I’ve seen you with your boys and you’ve got this handled. But how did you do this? You know, in the end, then it’s, well, how did you do it? It was it’s no, I guess it and then it? Could they? A lot of times the singleton parents realize really quick Oh, you have no other notion of what it’s like, you know, you don’t know any different than me? Because I don’t, that’s all I had. So that’s what I worked with.
Joe 23:09
That’s right. You just make it work. Because it’s a situation in front of you. You just figure it out. You mentioned the other questions you get a lot is how do you tell them apart? Have they always been unique in your eyes? Or was there some trick you had to use your early on to tell them apart?
Jamie 23:22
early on there. I kind of brought them both in to our bedroom. I want to say they were two or three weeks old that maybe closer to a month, but I laid them both on the bed completely naked and I knew who was who. And I had my wife come in and go. Alright, tell me. And Joe came in looked at him both and went, um talus like, Nope, that’s Titan. Oh, come on. And then she looked closer and their head shape is just a little bit different. One is a little bit more per Titan has kind of a perfectly overhead where talus is more of a V shape from starting at the his chin going up. And then they’re once they got all their hair in and stuff like that you can if you’re looking at him from behind. tightens colic is right in the dead center of his head and calluses is off to the left. Little things like that. Also, talus has one year that’s a little pointed, kind of looks like Spock’s here just a little bit. So that was a way that we could tell just a little bit. But we did paint telesis pinky purple for the first month.
Joe 24:48
That’s great. Yeah, we always had our girls in different colors of clothing, just as an emergency backup and but over time, just like you, we’ve noticed You know, a collection of little differences between them that altogether you could tell start to tell at a glance who was who. But they still, from across the room still, for me, if I’m not focused fully on who I’m talking to, oh, yeah.
Jamie 25:17
I’ll say a name and that child will be in another room, and I’ll get to turn around and go. That’s not me, dad. Sorry, my bad.
Joe 25:28
So when you look at the baby gear, and equipment that you got, when you were expecting What’s something that you ended up using a lot, that’s kind of like a lifesaver.
Jamie 25:39
The baby briza was the lifesaver, because we were supplementing or I was, you know, making enough formula off and on that that thing, mean to have a push a button and boom, have bottles done with twins, that was such a huge help, especially at the point where my wife went back to work and was actually traveling. So I was here for, you know, two weeks at a time without any help, necessarily at the time. So it was like, You hungry, cool. In a button, I got a bottle, I got another one. And you know, just making sure that was full. That was probably the biggest lifesaver. As far as things that were kind of not necessary, like probably a wipe warmer. I that ended up getting gifted pretty quick, because when we couldn’t find a good place to put it, but it was also just cash, I got to reload this thing all the time. And it was just a pain to have there. So that was probably the one worthless thing that we just never really got any use out of it.
Joe 26:55
I wish we had. I wish we had some quick way to make formula because we were doing that by hand. I agree with you on the baby warmer. That’s something were you think about before Yeah, that the babies are like, yeah, cold. Hold, wipe on baby balm. But then you realize you change, you’re changing diapers in all different places, at home, away from home, in the car on the floor away from the nursery, there’s no way you’re gonna run back to get the baby wipes warmed up for that to happen.
Jamie 27:21
No, in fact, it was funny, because if we were out, and it was winter, and you know, the wipes were in the car or something like that. wiping the boys butts with a really cold wipe was more fun for them, I think because they would just crack up and laugh when it was extra cold. So they actually liked it when it was cold. So, you know, made things easier even.
Joe 27:46
So when you look at parenting right now what’s working for you right now with parenting your boys.
Jamie 27:51
Learning how to stay cool, learning how to keep keep tempter tempers, and an even keel because you know, running through testosterone a little bit starting to see a lot of head butting in, you know, not physically necessarily, but you know that I had that toy. But here’s one that’s just like it, but I don’t care, I want that one and end up hitting. The other thing that seems to work specifically on that side of things is they love books. So we’ve found a bunch of different series of books that have kind of helped them with their dealing with their emotions. The one set of books that they really tended to gravitate towards was the spot books. I don’t remember the specific author off the top of my head, but they’re on Amazon, there’s a bunch of them. And it talks about your spot to happiness, your spot of anger, your spot of anxiety, lots of different emotions, and it actually goes into how to make an angry spot into a peaceful spot, you know, and how to kind of meditate a little bit and bring for kids their age, it’s it’s a difficult thing to to kind of get across without I don’t want to say dumb it down because it’s not even fair to them to say dumb it down, but it’s definitely more on their level. And that’s helped such a big, big way because I’ve been able to just, you know, somebody is that angry to the point where they’re, you know, kicking, screaming, just losing it. If I can grab one of those books and sit and even as they’re screaming start to read it, they will kind of slowly come around and then sit on my lap and then finish reading the book. So that’s been a huge help.
Joe 29:58
So it looks like these little spot books. by Diane Alber Does that sound right?
Jamie 30:02
Yes, that sounds right.
Joe 30:04
Well, that’s great. So you’ve read these books with the boys before the angry moment. So yes, so they know those concepts. And then in the moment you pull it out again, as a reminder, and helps bring them back to the more peaceful state. That’s pretty cool. And we’ve had to try to do that with our with our kids, too. If you try to, if you try in the moment, the heated emotion moment, if you’re trying to teach something or correct something, it’s really difficult if there’s nothing to anchor back to something they can’t remember from before. So I love that you found a series of books that’s been good for your boys with that regard.
Jamie 30:39
Yeah, I guess we’ve been lucky that they’ve been so into books. So it gave us kind of a thing to look at to try to figure out if that would work. And luckily, for them, books are more exciting than a lot of things.
Joe 30:57
So let’s talk about your relationship with your partner, you were married for a long time before the twins came along. So how have you been able to keep your relationship strong? here for the last four years with the boys,
Jamie 31:09
it was difficult for a little while, because self care I’m not very good at, I’ll just be completely honest, I’m not very good at it. And it kind of put my I put myself kind of on an island. And that made some things just just being honest, pretty Rocky, for a little bit. I mean, we, we still talked that the nice part is we both have a lot of respect for each other. So there was a point where my wife had to actually sit me down and tell me that I wasn’t doing things the way that she pictured me doing them. And I was getting angry a lot and stuff. And now I had to kind of take a step back and look at things kind of, I guess, step out of my own box, and kind of look at things from the big picture and realize that, you know, she was right, and it took a little bit to get through that. But once we had that big talk that one night, she goes, you need to do your thing. But we also need to have date nights, we need to get back to doing that. And really, I was totally on board. And luckily, we had some great neighbors, some great friends that were willing to watch the boys for just a couple hours. And just let us kind of reconnect. And we would even just simply go for a walk, you know, not even go very far just go and kind of do some of the little things that we used to do all the time before the boys and it kind of brought us back to a really good place. And I want to say the last three years, we’re able to look at each other now and you know, we can laughter comes around a lot, you know, we we will make a bad situation into a good situation by creating some sort of comedy out of it, it’s kind of always been my coping mechanism anyways. So it’s, it’s kind of been our thing. And just, I guess, taking that time, even at night after they’re asleep. And even if we’re dragging, tired and just don’t really have a lot left, we’ll take that time just go down. After they’re asleep, sit on the couch and just talk go through even entire week. And vent a little bit and, and realize that we have our you know, our own kind of view of things and being able to actually vent to each other. And in a in a good place. Know that it’s a safe place to just say the things that we want to say. And once we could get it out, then it was it’s on the table. We can deal with it. And then we can move on and just take a deep breath and be good again.
Joe 34:04
Awesome, great perspective. Thank you for sharing what’s been working for you both. Jamie, as we wrap up today, if listeners want to connect with you, what’s the best way to get in touch?
Jamie 34:12
Well, I’m on Facebook, that’s one of the major places on Instagram I’ve got. It’s Jay Tuttle art, which I think is also my Twitter handle. It’s either that or honestly even just a straight out email would be totally cool. If anybody wants to contact me It’s beautiful brew [email protected] and it’s b o th e Ll br EWDAD at gmail.
Joe 34:43
Excellent. And we’ll link up to all those in the show notes for the podcast today. Jeremy, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We really appreciate it.
Jamie 34:49
Thanks for let me share a little bit.
Joe 34:52
I’ve enjoyed that conversation with Jamie about his adventures as a stay at home father of twin boys if you want to connect with Jamie or check out other conversations with twin dads you can head on over to twin dad podcast.com. If you would like to share your story like Jamie did today on the show, I would love to hear from you. You can email me Joe at dad’s guide to twins calm or connect with me on social media. I’m on Instagram and Twitter at twin dad Joe. Also on facebook.com slash dads guide to twins. Again today’s show is brought to you by my twin t shirt company where you can find dozens of T shirts designed specifically for us parents with twins, you can browse our collection of dozens of T shirts over at twin t shirt company.com thank you so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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The post Inspiring Creativity and Keeping Tempers in Check with Jamie Tuttle – Podcast 243 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
36 min
June 30, 2021Hospital Too Busy for Twin Delivery with Barnaby Haszard Morris – Podcast 242
Episode 242 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Barnaby Haszard Morris, father of non-identical girl twins from New Zealand. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Starting kindergarten with twins
Telling similar twins apart
Mom’s terrible nausea until the morning twins were born
Waiting 3 days for availability at the hospital to deliver the twins
When the NICU was full so couldn’t deliver twins
Mom’s complications after birth
Recruiting family to come and help with the twins
When the time comes to go back to work
Having Mom stay home with the kids
Finding out that Dad could manage on less sleep and thus take night feeds
Moving twins to two separate rooms
and more…
Connect with Barnaby on Twitter
Transcript
Joe Rawlinson 0:00
Imagine having to wait three days to let the hospital admit you to deliver your babies and being turned back each day when you thought you’d be having your twins. Today we discussed that and much more with a fellow father of twins.
Intro 0:16
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins“, Joe Rawlinson.
Joe Rawlinson 0:32
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Episode 242 and I am Joe Rawlinson. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with with a kiwi twin dad from New Zealand. But before we jump into that conversation, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my book “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to thrive as a father of twins“. This book will guide you through the first couple years of twins and help you overcome the challenges we all face during those crazy first years. You can learn more about this book at raisingtwinsbook.com now let’s jump straight into that interview. Today I would like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins. Barnaby Haszard Morris, welcome to the show, Barnaby.
Barnaby 1:13
Thanks so much for having me, Joe.
Joe Rawlinson 1:14
Barnaby, how old are your twins right now. And what’s something exciting about this age?
Barnaby 1:20
Right now they’re three, they turned three in November 2020. And something that’s really exciting about them. I mean, every day is exciting in a different way. But just this week, they started going to kindergarten, one day a week by themselves. Whereas last year, they were only going together. So that’s quite exciting and a little nerve wracking. But Nora got through it really well yesterday, and had a great day by herself at kindy. And hopefully, June has a similar story today. That increased independence, I guess. What’s really nice about this age.
Joe Rawlinson 1:56
So you’ve got two girls, are they identical?
Barnaby 1:58
Yeah, two girls, they’re not identical. They do look quite alike. Blonde hair, very blue eyes. So strangers find it hard to tell them apart, and sometimes family members.
Joe Rawlinson 2:09
So there’s a secret marks or identification that you can use?
Barnaby 2:14
Yeah, there is actually June has a birthmark on her forehead that’s quite pronounced. And it’s sort of darkened over time to make it a bit more prominent. Whereas when they are born, you know, there’s marks everywhere, it’s kind of hard to tell,
Joe Rawlinson 2:30
you mentioned that they just started going to kindergarten by themselves. So how has that transition been from what they’re doing before?
Barnaby 2:38
Tara my wife and I do our best especially Tara cause she’s home with the kids, we do our best to prepare them for these sorts of transitions and talk in a in a relaxed way as possible about what’s coming up. So that when that happens, they sort of expect it. So they started kindergarten towards the end of last year when they were about shortly before they turned to three. And they talked to her pretty well. But I actually expected that with twins, they’d be really comfortable going into social settings like that. Because they’ve always had someone around. So they’d be more they’d have a lot more experience relating with someone else their own age, what actually happened. And I don’t know what it’s like for other twins. But Nora and June kind of leaned on each other and they would stick together to the point where they wouldn’t necessarily interact with other kids so much. So the thing where we’re getting them to go to kindy by themselves for one day a week each, instead of give them that chance to express themselves in their own way, and not to be so bound to each other. But generally, the transition to kindergarten has gone really well. And they do cope quite well with transitions with notice, which is very fortunate for us.
Joe Rawlinson 4:00
That is good that they are flexible in changing times. We’ve noticed similar patterns with our twins being maybe a little dependent on each other when they’re together. So it’s good that they have had chances to do things on their own and become more independent. Like you’re describing. Let’s rewind the clock back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time?
Barnaby 4:23
They are our first and only children so far. So my wife and I had just gotten married and she got pregnant pretty soon after we got married. And then yeah, a few weeks then had the scan and the sonographer had the twins in the family. And we sort of looked at each other ahh. Didn’t get a response out but he said there are now and it was a pretty incredible moment. I was quite shocked and are really happy way. I’d actually been joking for a while that because she gotten so pregnant, pregnant so easily that I thought it was going to be twins. But I talked myself out of that. Whereas my wife had gone and thinking maybe Barnaby’s, right? Maybe it is twins. And lo and behold, it was twins. So she cried a little bit, which was really lovely. But she also said, How am I going to handle twins? And I thought the same thing. But we drove home afterwards in a sort of cloud of joy and uncertainty and just wondering what our lives were going to be like now and knowing that they were going to change. Absolutely. Even more so than having one child.
Joe Rawlinson 5:44
how did the pregnancy go? Were there any complications during that?
Barnaby 5:48
Not really. So the kids did great. They stayed in all the way to term all the way through due dates. And there are only minimal dramas where maybe Tara didn’t feel one move for a few days, got them checked out, everything was fine. No other complications beyond that, except Tara had terrible nausea all the way through, did not stop from four weeks, right until the morning they were born. So that was obviously a struggle for her, but she soldiered on as best she could. And towards the end, when she was just resting up at home. Basically, when I’d leave for work in the morning, I would make a tea, a thermos of tea and a sandwich and leave it by the bed for her so she could kind of drink some tea and eat her sandwich horizontally. And then wait a little while for that to settle. And then she could sit up and start thinking about getting out of bed.
Joe Rawlinson 6:48
I’m glad you found at least something that would help give her a little bit of comfort there with the nausea.
Barnaby 6:52
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I really don’t envy her going through that. It seems it just seems like pregnancies are really, really hard and twin, twin pregnancy, especially. So
Joe Rawlinson 7:05
yes, absolutely. I’ve we have four kids. And the first two came one at a time. And the twins, of course came together. And it was quite a striking difference. On the on the burden on my wife carrying the twins to term.
Barnaby 7:19
Sure did you have quite a different reaction, when you heard that you were going to have twins having already had two kids was it was as much of a dramatic reaction as I think it is for most twin parents, when they find out having twins?
Joe Rawlinson 7:31
I was fully expecting just to have a child number three. And I was so confident that that was the case that I send my wife to the doctor by herself for that first appointment after she took the pregnancy test. Because I said okay, I’ll just watch our, our two boys, we had toddlers at the time. So I was like, okay, honey, you just go to the doctor. And and I know what the results gonna be, they’re gonna tell you that you’re pregnant. So turned out that that she got an ultrasound and found out that we’re having twins. And that just completely blew me away. I was I knew how much work it was just have one at a time. And so the thought of having two was a little bit overwhelming.
Barnaby 8:11
I think that’s the blessing of twins being your first kids, because we don’t know any different. If you have one at a time, and you are going to have to deal with double that. That must be quite an adjustment to have to make from what you expect.
Joe Rawlinson 8:25
Right. Jut I mean, just like you, you figure things out, and you just adjust and you just make it work. It does seem a little bit overwhelming, at first and is frankly overwhelming. But you just do day by day, and you get through it. And all of a sudden, your kids are older, like yours already going off to kindergarten. And so time does seem to fly once you get out of this first crazy couple months anyway.
Barnaby 8:49
It sure does.
Joe Rawlinson 8:50
Let’s talk about the birth experience. What do you remember about that and with your twins?
Barnaby 8:54
So our birth story is quite unusual. So just getting to term with twins, I think is quite unusual. So we’re really excited about that. One was breech, I think that the correct terminology the head was facing down and know that the feet were facing down anyway. So Tara was booked in for a C section on a Friday. So we went to hospital on the Friday sort of wildly emotional, listening to emotional music on the way down turning it off, because it was making us want to cry too much. And then when we got to hospital, we waited and we waited and we waited. And I went to the nurse’s station and said, yeah so what’s what’s happening? Where are we at? Are we going to have our babies today? And they said, Not sure what the story is getting to your room and wait and we’ll get someone to come and talk to you. And we soon learned that they’d had what they call the walk in. So someone had arrived in some state of labor and needed a c-section and and then someone else arrived. I needed a c-section, an emergency c section. So we were getting bumped further and further down the list. And ultimately, about three hours after we got there, the attending obstetrician said, you’re going to have to go away and come back tomorrow, basically.
Joe Rawlinson 10:19
wow.
Barnaby 10:20
That was a very strange experience. And yeah, really confusing. Because we’d had such expectations of that day and that date, like we’ve been looking forward to the third of November, for so long, because we’d had it booked in, you know, so unusual for for a birth story as well to know exactly when you’re going to have your kids or to have a date in mind that you’re looking forward to. And then for that to actually be the days that we go in. And then it wasn’t so yeah. So we went home and had some terrible takeaways, which we couldn’t finish, because they tasted bad. And there was kind of a bad taste in their mouths anyway, and we didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, we went back and try to do best to get through another night of nausea. We went off to hospital in the morning again, waited a few hours, She managed to get to the point where she was in a gown, and in a room next to the theater, the operating theatre before they told us I’m afraid with the same things happen, you’ll have to go home again. Try coming back tomorrow. And at that point, we were sort of asking questions like so what happens if this keeps happening? Because it seems like it might keep happening. And I said, Look, we’ll just have to hope for the best, which wasn’t particularly reassuring. So we went back to our home in a daze and joked that when we got canceled again, the following day, we’d go to the movies, and we’re planning out what movie the scene I think Thor Ragnarok was on at the time. So we’re like, well, we’ll just go and see that. We went in on the Sunday, and went into a room again, I room on the ward, and waited and waited. And they came along. And they said, Yeah, the problem that we’ve got here is that NICU is full, the neonatal intensive care. And with a twin delivery, they need to have that room and NICU to be sure that they can care for them, depending on their needs after birth. There as you all know, there’s a higher risk of complications with twins that’s inherently more risky for children and mother. Ultimately, what they did is get the head of NICU to come in on her day off and move some people around and discharge some children who were doing okay. So that we could have our kids born on that day. So the third time of asking, finally, someone came into the room and said, Okay, we’ve got to go, we’ve got to go now, get into your scrubs, let’s go 15 minutes, you’re gonna have your babies. So after all this lead up while we’d waited and waited and waited for so long, and looked forward to having our babies for so long, and then had to wait again. And not know how long it was going to be. It was all happening sort of quickly on that. on that Sunday. As for the birth itself, the C section went off without a hitch. And the kids were born super healthy, did not need need NICU at all, which was great. But Tara had a bit of a scare because I think she’d been given too much epidural, and her oxygen saturations were going down which thinking about Coronavirus at the moment and how we’ve all come a lot more familiar with oxygen saturations. And how what a good level is. Now I look back on what your level of oxygen sats were then which was something like 91%. And I’m thinking that was actually kind of a close call. But they returned to normal levels and she recovered over time from her c section as that major surgery as you do.
Joe Rawlinson 14:07
Were you with her during that time where she was having some trouble or were you with the babies?
Barnaby 14:12
Yeah, yeah, so that’s probably an important part of the story. I was somewhat blissfully unaware because I don’t know what I don’t know whether you get you like literally get dad hormones. But if you do, I had them. I was holding both of my children I was looking down their little scrunched up faces was a photo of me absolutely beaming with joy with the you know, the hair cap and the scrubs on. And meanwhile, I think at the very moment that photo was being taken. Doctors were rushing in and out of where my little rushing from to and from my wife’s bedside, trying to get her oxygen sats back to normal and actually stopped some bleeding that was coming out of her scar out of her wound. I’ve kind of pieced it together from what I remember of the doctors rushing around at that time, and from what my wife can remember from that time. And meanwhile, her parents and my mum were in a waiting room nearby, and my dad had been going to attend. But he’d only booked his flight to be there to be to be around for the first and second days of when we were supposed to have our kids. So he missed it in the end, which is really unfortunate. But we went to see him a few weeks later.
Joe Rawlinson 15:32
So there were some complications right after delivery. But your wife was able to get through that Okay. It sounds like the babies were born healthy. And so was everybody able to come home after just a few days?
Barnaby 15:42
Yeah, we sort of discharged ourselves. After four days. We weren’t sure if we were ready. But we knew that being at home was going to be better than being in the hospital where there’s bells ringing every 15 minutes. And, yeah, just getting home and trying to manage things ourselves. We wanted to get into that. It was challenging, but better. Definitely.
Joe Rawlinson 16:06
Were you and your wife just by yourself with the babies? Or did your parents or her parents stick around to help?
Barnaby 16:12
Yeah. So we were mostly by ourselves. But we’re fortunate that we have her parents and my mum, and my brother, and a bunch of other family quite close by. And they’ve all been especially helpful. Knowing that we were going to need it. And basically, we didn’t refuse anyone’s help. Particularly the kids grandmothers, Kathy and Gwyneth. They were visiting once a week, until quite recently, actually. And Kathy’s stayed. she didn’t stay with us see, traveled up on the train every day for a week, about two weeks. And after I went back to work, sorry, yeah, we were really lucky to have all that help.
Joe Rawlinson 17:00
That’s wonderful that you had some people that can come assist with taking care of the babies. How long did you have off of work before you had to go back?
Barnaby 17:09
Yeah, so two weeks. And it felt very, very strange to walk out of the house and leave my wife and my two baby infants. When I went back to work. Yeah, I would like to have had a lot more. And sometimes I wish that parental leave policies were a bit more generous to dads. Although I know in other countries parental leave policies aren’t necessarily there at all. So I guess I have to take that. Have gratitude for that. But yeah, two weeks wasn’t as much as I would like. But it turned out to be probably pretty good, because then we had one parent who was actually getting some, quote, unquote, downtime. Where I didn’t have to be completely on with the kids all the time and could come home and switch into that mindset.
Joe Rawlinson 18:00
Has your wife gone back to work or was she home with the twins the whole time?
Barnaby 18:04
Yes. So she hasn’t returned to paid work. Since giving birth, she’s, I like to say she works at raising our kids. And that’s been really good for us. I think, I figure, I figure if you both go to work, then you still have to pay someone to kind of help raise your kids. And that’s really important for a lot of people. And I totally get that. But for us, it worked out better to have my wife stay home with them.
Joe Rawlinson 18:34
We had my wife stay home with the kids as well, from for several years. And that was a great arrangement for us as well. It was wonderful to have her be able to be with the kids and helping raise them. Did you have any kind of trading off with your wife? So you would take times with the twins so that she can get a break? When you get home from work? How did how did those things work out?
Barnaby 18:55
We’ve tried a bunch of things over the years, the main thing was about a month, or a month and a half, or a couple of months. And we realized that I could function a lot better on less sleep than she could. And because she was going to be home with them all day. Whereas I was going to an office job where I sort of looked at a computer all day. I wasn’t operating heavy machinery or anything. I could kind of manage the sleep deprivation better. So more than taking over over the chores or the work of raising kids. When I got home from work. I would take the night feeds. Yeah, so that was the main division of labor. She still has done vastly more of the work of child rearing, and just all of the little jobs around that than I have.
Joe Rawlinson 19:46
Yeah, I felt the same way. I felt like I had the easy job, just go to work, go to the office, and then she’d be juggling all four kids here at home. She always worked harder than I was working at any given time, for sure. So when you look back at the first year, what are some of the milestones you remember? made a difference in maybe your quality of life or they were exciting to see with your twins?
Barnaby 20:05
I’ve generally found that it’s become challenging in different ways, as they’ve hit new milestones challenging and rewarding in different ways. And I would always be quite fearful of the change. For example, when we introduced solid foods, I was really stressed out about having to learn a new way to feed my children, when I’ve gotten so good at bottle feeding them when they start moving around, crawling, when they start vocalizing, our kids, first word probably happen towards the end of the first year. It was that, and they would use that for pretty much anything that wanted to express that was quite funny. Yeah, but I guess in terms of quality of life, I have to admit that when they started sleeping a little better, which never lasted for long, but whenever they were sleeping well, it has been very, very good. For my mental health, and my general quality of life.
Joe Rawlinson 21:03
Yes, sleep is an amazing thing. And it’s, it’s hard to realize that until you don’t get enough of it. And then you realize something is truly missing. Do you find that one twin hits a milestone first? Or is it always the same twin that hits that?
Barnaby 21:18
Yeah, yeah. So they kind of alternate with that, quite often what we’ll find is either Nora, or Joan will do something first, like rolling over or starting to crawl. And then the other twin will shoot past them. So they’ll do it a couple of weeks later. And then they’ll advance their ability to do that, like crawling or walking faster than the first one head. And then they’ll eventually gradually catch up to each other.
Joe Rawlinson 21:48
Yeah, that was interesting for me to observe as well, with our twins, as soon as one of them figured something out, her sister would watch and then start to mimic that behavior as well. And I think in that way, they’re able to kind of alternate back and forth, sometimes like you’re describing and maybe figure things out a little bit faster, than just if they’re by themselves. What’s the most frequent question that people ask you about your twins?
Barnaby 22:12
Um, that’s probably what’s it like having twins? And my answer is usually, it’s great. And I don’t know any different. So if they have one kid at a time, I asked, What’s it like having one kid because I have no idea. And I literally can’t imagine. The other thing that people always ask on the street is are they identical. And the usual twin questions.
Joe Rawlinson 22:39
is there a particular piece of baby gear or equipment you found very helpful along your twin journey so far?
Barnaby 22:46
Ah, yeah, a few things. So finding the right bottles, if you’re bottle feeding is really important. We use bottles made by the brand, mam, mam. I don’t know if you have them in America. And when we discovered those, it was like, a whole new lease on life, we didn’t have to worry so much about little vomiting after feeds or so much gas. I don’t know what it is about those bottles, but they just really agreed with our kids. Another one is a twin tri pillow, which is kind of a three pronged, a big three pronged pillow, that you can set your twins and adjacent to each other and feed with two bottles like a bottle on each hand. I mean, there have been a bunch of things over the years that we wish we’d realized earlier, but mixing up formula and a jug and putting them in the fridge and just pouring it out into bottles over the course of a day and heating it up. Rather than making new rounds of formula and bottle each time you needed to feed. We discovered that several months. And I was like, we’ve just saved us so much time. And yeah, highly recommend doing that. If you’re bottle feeding.
Joe Rawlinson 24:07
Have you girls shared a bedroom? Are they in separate spaces?
Barnaby 24:12
Yeah, they shared a bedroom up until about two and a half or two and three quarters. That worked pretty well until they started throwing books or other hard things into each other’s cots and hurting each other. So that wasn’t cool. And we made the difficult decision, as it always is to completely change their lives and give them separate bedrooms. And it took a little while for one of them to adjust to that. She was used to having a sister in a room but now it’s just just how it is. They sleep much better. They started sleeping much better generally when they moved into separate bedrooms So yeah, it’s one of those things we you end up trying something different because you feel like you have to, and then that’s what you stick with because it seems to be working.
Joe Rawlinson
Were they still in their individual cots when you moved them to their different rooms? Or did you move them to larger beds?
Barnaby
Yeah, they were still in their cots and they still are, although the side goes up and down, so we just leave the side down now and there’s a chair next to the bed next to the cot that they can use to climb out, if they need to come out. They roll around a lot. So we’re not quite ready to move them to big beds yet, although it’s probably just about getting on for time.
Joe Rawlinson 25:36
How have you been able to find time to spend any one on one time with each of your twins?
Barnaby 25:42
hardly at all, Joe. And this is something that my my wife Tara in particular, has wanted to do more of over the years, but through the haze of you know, making more food changing nappies, getting outside, all of the stuff that you have to do, we just haven’t really gotten around to it plus, they’ve been so kind of codependent. If one goes somewhere the other one wants to go to. If one stays home, the other one wants to stay home too. So this thing where they’re going to kindy one day a week by themselves, I think will be really big for that. And the flip side of that is the one who doesn’t go to kindy gets a full day with Mum, just the two of them. So that’s quite exciting as well. Although it’s gotta be tiring for my wife.
Joe Rawlinson 26:37
What are some things that you’ve done to be able to strengthen your relationship with your wife over the last three years?
Barnaby 26:43
That’s really, really important. I think you focus so much on your kids, especially when you have twins just getting through the day and meeting all their needs. So that’s easy to forget that you’re you’re doing it with someone and they’re just as important. Tara and I try and go on dates about once a month. That’s huge. It was really huge. When we first had our we had our first night away from the kids doing something just for us. And the other thing that we’ve done is call for 10 to 15 minutes every day when I’m at work, usually around 930 in the morning when I’ve been at work a couple of hours and she’s gotten through breakfast, and other bits of the morning routine that calls often just a debrief of what happened at the night feeds or how the morning routines gone so far. But I think it’s really valuable for us to share that with each other. And to be aware of what the other person is going through on this crazy awesome, tiring, exhausting, challenging journey that we’re on that keeps us connected to each other’s needs as well.
Joe Rawlinson 27:54
That’s great. Those are some great habits and routines to be in to keep things working together as a partnership on the on the parenting journey. Barnaby as we wrap up today, if listeners want to connect with you, what’s the best way to get in touch?
Barnaby 28:07
So I’m on Twitter @barnabyhm. You can also email me [email protected].
Joe Rawlinson 28:15
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. We really appreciate it.
Barnaby 28:19
Thanks so much for having me on Joe. I’ve listened to this podcast for coming up to four years now before my kids are born. So it’s really awesome to be part of it. Thank you.
Joe Rawlinson 28:29
You’re welcome. Hope you enjoyed that chat with Barnaby about his adventures as a twin dad. As always you can find the transcript for this episode and you can listen to all previous podcast episodes at twindadpodcast.com. If you’d like to share your story like Barnaby did today, I would love to hear from you he can reach out to me via email [email protected] or I’m on Instagram or Twitter @twindadjoe and of course on facebook at facebook.com/dadsguidetotwins. Today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads, Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins. You can learn more about this book and pick up a copy for yourself at raisingtwinsbook.com thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next time.
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The post Hospital Too Busy for Twin Delivery with Barnaby Haszard Morris – Podcast 242 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
30 min
June 16, 2021Becoming a Father of Twins via Adoption with Grant Holloway – Podcast 241
Episode 241 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Grant Holloway, father of boy/girl twins. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Raising one-year-old boy/girls twins
Becoming a twin dad through adoption
Preparing for twins last minute
Determining who does what with infants
Which parent wakes up to care for twins at night
How to feed twins by yourself
How to handle both twins at the same time
When twins start walking
Day in the life of one-year-old twins
Introducing the dog to the babies
and more…
Transcript
Joe 0:00
Becoming a twin dad through adoption and surviving that first crazy year with twins today on the podcast.
Intro 0:08
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson.
Joe 0:23
Hey everybody, and welcome to the 241st episode of Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can check out all previous podcast episodes and the show notes and transcript for this episode at twindadpodcast.com. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with fellow father of boy/girl twins. But before we jump into that episode, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads of twins. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins“. You can learn more about that book and pick up a copy for yourself at raisingtwinsbook.com. Now let’s jump straight into that interview. today. I would like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins Grant Holloway. Welcome to the show, Grant.
Grant 1:02
Thanks for having me.
Joe 1:03
Grant. How old are your twins right now. And what’s something exciting about this age?
Grant 1:07
I saw they just turned one a couple days ago. And I probably the most exciting thing is really starting to see their personality come out. You know when they’re babies newborn, they’re very clingy, you know, you don’t really get to see their personalities a whole lot. But now they’re one they’re independent. They’re laughing they’re giggling they’re talking to each other. They’re playing with each other. You really get to see who their kind of are becoming. It’s quite fun.
Joe 1:33
That’s great. I would say if you can survive the first year with twins, you can do absolutely anything. So hats off to you for making it through that big milestone. Do you have boy/girl twins?
Grant 1:42
We have a boy girl twin.
Joe 1:44
Well, let’s rewind the clock back to when you found out twins would be joining your family. What was your situation like?
Grant 1:48
Yeah, so I became a twin dad through adoption. We found out on a Friday. And my wife and I we’re just we were at an aquarium just having a great day. We went out for lunch. And we got a call from our adoption agency that said that we had been matched with a birth mother who were interested who was interested in our profile, and wanted to meet us. And so we met our the birth mother on Sunday, two days later. And the next day, we went to an ultrasound and a doctor’s appointment. So we got to meet our twins for the very first time. Three days after we found out we’re going to be twin parents. And then a week went by and we went to another doctor’s appointment with our birth mother. And the doctors say well, not this week, well, we’re gonna probably wait a bit longer. The babies are healthy. birth mother was healthy. So there was no real concern about the baby, but babies being born. And so we went home. And we were a little disappointed because we thought that that was going to be the day we would become twin parents. But we went home and we got a call. It was a Wednesday. So about 10 days after we found out we were going to be parents. We got a call about five in the morning. And they said our birth mother was going to the hospital the babies were on the way. We are twin parents because of adoption. We had about ten days to prepare for this whirlwind tour of being a parent to two little ones. But it was a really fun week just preparing the house, get everything ready. And just getting ready to be a twin dad, it was an adventure.
Joe 3:33
That’s fantastic. How long were you waiting until you finally got word that there was an adoption possibility?
Grant 3:39
Yeah, we were on a list for about a year we were matched with a birth mother in November. And that adoption actually fell through. And so we put back on the list in December. And so a little over a year, we had waited to become parents.
Joe 3:57
And it sounds like the birth mother was pretty far along when you found out that that you’re going to be twin parents. Do you remember how many weeks along in the pregnancy she was?
Grant 4:04
Yes, she was 35 weeks pregnant when we found out that we were going to be birth parents. And it moved really fast as the doctors thought that she was going to be delivering very soon. And so this whole thing’s happened really quickly.
Joe 4:19
So you have about a week to get ready for twins. So you go from I suppose this you and your and your partner to all of a sudden you’re gonna have babies in the house. What do you scramble to get together in that timeframe?
Grant 4:30
We kind of stocked up that year with some diapers and wipes. But once we’ve had that we’re having twins we had a switch mindset of having double of essentials at least because we were adopting. There’s always the possibility that it might fall through the birth mother might have a change of heart so we didn’t want to get completely carried away with having twins. So once we found out we’re having a boy and a girl twin, we had friends that were our neighbors, and they had, at the time a 10 month old girl. And, and so we call them let them know. And we were able to kind of get some girl clothes, we had some boys clothes, we knew that the babies are probably would be premature, because one of them was measuring about four pounds, four and a half pounds. And so we bought some premmie clothes. I remember that day we found out we went shopping at a consignment store. We found a double stroller. So that was real. That was half off. So that was a great deal. We had a friend that had their child had just outgrown their car seat. So we already had one. So we were able to borrow another one. And we had a car seat, some clothes and diapers, just the bare minimum, just in case the birth mother had changed her mind. But then once we found once we had the children, you know, we obviously started looking at cribs and bassinet and things like that, that were going to be kind of more essential for us to have.
Joe 6:09
I love your creativity in sourcing gear and supplies from all over the place. That’s fantastic. All crammed into such a short timeframe.
Grant 6:16
Right? It worked out really well.
Joe 6:18
Your twins were born and did they have any complications that required they stay longer in the hospital?
Grant 6:23
We were really fortunate and we arrived at the hospital bout an hour after the babies were born. The adoption agency had met us at the hospital and we were given a room. And they brought the twins right to us. And we were so there right from the beginning, which was a with us very, very early on where they’re concerned because one of our twins was four pounds ten ounces, that we may be doing some NICU time, which is very common with twins. But are the one that said Well, that was concerning. She had gained all her weight back her oxygen levels are great. She passed her test. So we were out of the hospital in two days.
Joe 7:09
I guess you just have to pick it up out of necessity, you know how to feed babies and change babies and such? What was kind of the most surprising thing about having twins?
Grant 7:16
You knew from the beginning that you’re going to have to tag team. I don’t think you can. It’s I mean, I I’ve seen some parents are single that have managed it. But right from the beginning, we were both on call changing feeding. But I think that immediately, we knew that this was going to be a team effort. There’s not going to be one parent and parent over the other We both are going to be have to be involved to raise the twins.
Joe 7:45
Yes, that is so true. It’s like all hands on deck, because there’s always something that has to be happening. And usually it’s twice as much stuff happening all the time, how were you able to navigate time off of work to take care of the babies, both you and your partner?
Grant 7:58
We were very fortunate that we have a fairly flexible job. So once we found out that we were matched again, we only had a little over a week to really prepare for this. So immediately, we obviously let our boss know that this was going on. They had known that we were adopting then. So they’re with us in this journey. But it was a very easy conversation to say, you know, we have been chosen, we are matched for this birth mother. And it was we were going to be parents. And so we immediately we kind of planned the next month, the essential things that were gonna be happening with our job. So we got that in place really quickly. And then I was able to take two weeks off of work. And so right from beginning I had some time with with them, my wife was able to take full maternity leave. So she actually had the full six weeks off of work. And then we were back at work for a week and then quarantine happened because of COVID. And so we after that we we tag teamed who was at home and who was at work because we work together. So each kind of took turns out who was who was home with the twins and who was working. And so really right from beginning we were able to just have a lot of intentional one on one time with our twins, which is really really really great. But so yeah, I have a two weeks my wife had about six and then for the first probably five six months of their life we were their primary caregiver.
Joe 9:30
So when they would wake up in the middle of night, would both of you wake up or did you guys take turns taking care of them in the night time?
Grant 9:35
my wife really enjoys a lot of sleep. I function pretty well I’m little sleep I don’t need as much. It’s always kind of been our life before kids. And so we had one one twin seem to wake up more often than the other one did. And so a nighttime I just took the one that woke up woke up more often. Because I was able to function on little sleep. So our girls wake up once or twice a night, usually just once in the one night, really right from pretty early on. But our boy twins, he would wake up every three hours on a dot ready to eat ready to go. Like we call our hangry one because he was really every three hours needed to be fed. And he like he knew, you know, it was time to try to eat. So I was wanting to look up with him throughout the night.
Joe 10:29
Is that kind of personality difference been consistent, like your son versus your daughter?
Grant 10:34
Yeah. And there’s that even even now, you know, we’re off of really formula or really solid foods. Some might even still, my son will let you know it is time for food, he’s hungry. He gets very cranky. So good. We just we still are hangry one, our girl is still a really good eater, but she does not get as cranky as our son does was time for food.
Joe 11:00
I guess that’s a nice thing to kind of balance each other out in that regard.
Grant 11:03
Very seldom are they both cranky, which I really do appreciate that they have made that work out for us.
Joe 11:08
That’s one thing you never quite know what you’re gonna get with twins is … are they both gonna be mad all the time, or they just can’t take turns. What were some of the challenges that y’all had over this first year, maybe health wise, or other things getting used to having twins in house?
Grant 11:21
Yeah, I mean, it is definitely an adjustment having two in the house. I believe I talked to the other twin dads about this before. But there’s something about that six month mark that just kind of switches from there sleeping more throughout the night, you’re getting more sleep, so it gets easier. But that first six months is is really challenging. And because they’re both waking up a little naive, they’re both needing feeding, they both really need your constant attention. But that’s six months when they’re starting to crawl and walk and play. It’s that your attention is not as needed, you’re still present. But that six month mark is really, if you can make it six months, I think you’ll be you’ll be set. So does take a little bit of change, you know, your undivided attention is really given over to them. And compared to a singleton, you know, you’ve both had to be present. I remember the first six months I’m on my days that I’d be watching the twins by myself. It was always challenging. How do you figure out how do I feed both of the babies at same time? Or how do I get them both changed or out the door for a walk. It’s always it is challenging, just that shift that has to happen to make it work, because get two little ones. But as far as you know, as far as health challenges, the only health challenges we’ve had was my son, and just having just some kidney issues. Those were kind of discovered before he was even born, we knew that we were going to have just some work done. And so when he was born, you know, we had he had a surgery to just correct an issue that was going on. And so we have monthly visits with a doctor just to kind of make sure he’s doing well. And fortunately, I mean, he’s been progressing, which has been great. But you know, every but throughout every doctor’s appointment, they’re gaining the right weight. They are a developing well. So we haven’t had too many health concerns outside of the one thing for my son.
Joe 13:24
You mentioned discovering how to feed the twins by yourself, what are some of your tricks to make that successful?
Grant 13:29
My wife and I, we were walking in the park one day with our twins. And we ran into another couple that had twins and they had said hey, we have this twin chair for feedings our kids. Our kids have outgrown it and do you want it? And we said Sure why not. So they the next day we met up again, with this couple, they gave us this chair. So you know, it’s really easy for them to prop them in this in this twin chair and have the feedings. Sometimes we would have rolled burp cloths so that we could prop the bottle. So they could eat without having both hands at the same time. That was really big. And but yeah, being able to prop the bottles, because you’re already tired after a while. So having that was really great.
Joe 14:18
Whenever you can get some gear that helps, you know, support the babies or support your arms or whatever it may be. It’s such a huge win.
Grant 14:24
Right? Your arms just get tired after a while but you really do.
Joe 14:28
It’s true because you’re just kind of holding them out there indefinitely.
Grant 14:32
You never know how long they’re going to take it feeding if they’re gonna take it slow or fast you never know.
Joe 14:36
So tell us about when you’re taking care of the twins by yourself and they’re both kind of fussy and cranky. What do you do? Who do you take care of first?
Grant 14:42
You know, I mean, obviously check out the essentials. Are they dirty, the diaper change? Are they just hungry? I guess fortunately, they’re very seldom both cranky at the same time. So we kind of lucked out on that one. But you They’re both cranky, a lot of times, they just want to be held. I definitely noticed with my son, that he really likes that physical connection. So oftentimes he just wants to be on your lap. But my daughter likes to lean up against me too. So sometimes just having both them on my lap. We also found I, you know, on YouTube, there’s an, we found a an aquarium video. It’s nothing more than just fish with some calming music. I found out one day when they’re both really cranky, and I couldn’t figure out what to do. And so I found this calming video. And that has worked wonders. We’ve used this video for quite long car rides, or just when they’re just being really cranky, and they need something to call this, like the fish. The music’s really calming. And it has worked wonders for us,
Joe 15:49
Are they walking at this point or are they still crawling around?
Grant 15:52
My son is walking full time, my daughter, she has proven to be someone who likes to do things at our own pace, and you just can’t force it on her. And so she’ll she’ll do, you know, three or four steps. But after those couple steps, she’ll sit down, just crawl. She’s not completely convinced that walking is a great thing, but my son is full force walking, and he loves walking over to people or things and grabbing them. So kind of one of each.
Joe 16:23
Was that pattern the same? Maybe it was when they started crawling, did your son start crawling first?
Grant 16:29
Hey, my son rolled over first my son crawled first. He’s always going to be the first one to do those things.
Joe 16:35
That was always fun for me to watch with my girls to see who would do what first? And then how long it would take for her sister to figure out how to do that same thing. What’s the most frequent question people ask you about your twins?
Grant 16:47
Since our twins adopted, our twins are black, and we’re white. So we do get the question of are they yours? quite often. And so we remind them yeah, they’re ours. So we get asked that a lot, we get to ask Are they? Are they both boys are both girls, we have one of each, we get asked that one quite a bit. And then we also get asked quite often how you do it. You know, people have this perception of twins. And there are some truths to it. But we do get asked quite a bit, you know, how do you do it? How do you manage having two of them? So those are quite often the frequent questions we get.
Joe 17:26
What’s your typical day in the life of right now as far as the schedule goes with them waking up and eating and things like that?
Grant 17:31
So right now, my wife and I, we take turns the morning who gets up with the twins now they’re now that they’re a year, it doesn’t necessarily take both of us in the morning. So we do take turns, who gets up first in the morning. And so usually, once they’re up in there, they’re usually about 10-15 minutes apart from each other as far as waking up goes. And so we just kind of wait till they’re both we can both can see them moving a little bit and calling us so go in, it will pick them up. And then we go downstairs to as we have a playroom basically. And will immediately will just change your diaper and get a bottle and we’re in that transition phase of moving away from a bottle of moving from formula to regular milk in so mixed to bottle first in the morning. And then we kind of let them just play for the next half hour 45 minutes. Just kind of get them woken up and happy. And then we’ll go sit down in a highchair or have breakfast together. Which is I always enjoy breakfast time. I think my my son seems to really enjoy the food so he he’s very loud and vocal when it’s when it’s a meal time. So it’s it’s very humorous to me, just watching them interact and eat. My daughter likes to steal my my son’s food even though they both have food on the same on a tray. Their other highchair shows reach over, he’s not paying attention and grab his food. But I think it’s hilarious as well. So we have breakfast, and then we just kind of play around until usually 8:30 when the other my wife or myself will come down and that person will come down with just a change of clothes. And so we try to change their clothes, we do their hair. And then we usually out the door by 845 or so. Our daycare is about seven minutes away from our house, so it’s fairly close to us. So we get the daycare and then we usually pick them up from daycare around four o’clock or so. And then once we’re at home, again, it’s usually it’s playing time till dinnertime, and then we eat together at dinner time and then usually about 530 or so. We try to FaceTime a relative, whether it’s a grandparent or an uncle, or friend, you know, COVID. So it’s been really hard and we haven’t been able to, for them to even meet their, their cousin, or some family members. And then once we do that, we usually about six 630. We’ll get into the bathtime getting pajamas, get a bottle, read a book, and then we put them down for bed. Usually by 6:30-7:00, they’re in their beds. And we’re thankful. Because right now they are going to bed very easily. I know that’s going to change in the next few months, as you know, the twos approach. So I know it’ll change but we’re enjoying the peace and quiet that we have right now. Once we put them to bed.
Joe 20:48
Yeah, sounds like a great daily routine. Are they talking to me saying anything right now?
Grant 20:53
Um, they will say mama dad, which is really great. It’s always it’s it is a joy hearing your name for the very first time. So that’s always really good. They, my daughter likes to babble a lot. I mean, she will look you dead, right dead within your face. And she’ll talk to you, you have no idea what she’s saying. But she loves talking. So you know, you listen and interact with her. And it’s great. And they are starting to make you know, some animal noises. They especially like making a you know, the dog bark, which is hilarious. And they’re starting to get “bye”, and yes and no. Which is great. And my daughter likes to just say, oh, a lot, which is great. When when our son gets in a little bit of trouble. She usually will say, oh, like she, like she knows that he got in trouble. That’s great.
Joe 21:50
So do you have a dog in the house?
Grant 21:51
Yeah, we do have a dog. Yep.
Joe 21:53
How? How did your dog receive two babies coming to the family?
Grant 21:58
Oh, and that was, I was I will admit, I was really worried about that. And, again, I read a lot about how to introduce a dog to a baby. It’s just a concern of mine. Our dog has always been really gentle and kind to our friends’ kids. But you know, you never never know. So I had done a lot of research, how to make that interaction happen. And so the first few days, our dog was not in the house. He was at a friend’s house. But we had, you know, started wearing some lotion, some things that the people dog experts tell you to do. So the dog gets used to the center of the baby. And our dog has just really handled the twins really well. when they were first born, when we would do tummy time with the twins, he would go right there on the mat with them and just lay next to them, which was really cute. Watching that interaction. And now our dog will bring a rope over to them for them to grab. And so he likes to try to get used to playing with them, which has been really great. Our dog has been really, really helpful. It’s been a really good interaction. I will say our dog has chosen one twin over the other. So when our daughter would cry in a crib, and he would constantly would come into a room let us know, and walk to the daughter’s room or crib to make sure that she was okay. So those definitely that was his person that he watched over it was really great.
Joe 23:36
Are you twins in the same room together?
Grant 23:39
At nap time they’re in separate rooms, we have a pack-n-play set up in the guest room. Because you never sometimes one will sleep for an hour and a half and one will see for 45 minutes, sometimes asleep for two hours, you never really know. So we do nap time separate. But then at night time they’re together in the same room.
Joe 23:58
We had to do that same trick for a while because they would just they would want to keep playing or interrupt each other. So separating them for naptime was a huge discovery for us as well.
Grant 24:07
You know, and it goes day by day, you never really know how they’re going to nap if they’re tired. And so just having them in separate room, their own space, and that time it really helps them get the sleep that they need.
Joe 24:18
So as you look back over this first year with twins, how have you been able to keep your marriage strong with your wife through the ups and downs of parenting?
Grant 24:25
I think we both at times have needed just encouragement. Yeah, recognizing that we are both pulling our weight, there are some things that I will do just make sure they get done. I like the dishes. We’ve gotten into the routine of there’s like a what we’re going to what each each one of us will do. But also even sometimes when we don’t see it making sure that we have thank each other or recognize that we are we’re the other partner persons doing tasks. I think has been a really great to see this too. affirm, and to say like, I thank you for making dinner. Even though I wasn’t at the home, I didn’t see it and to say thank you, recognizing what the other partner is contributing and doing, I think makes each both of us feel valid validated in parenting, and being part of this family. So I think that’s been a really big thing. Also, recognizing, I think our own limits there, you know, there are some times when it’s been a hard night, and there’s, there’s teething, there’s growth spurts, there’s just times when just one of the twins is a will not sleep for whatever reason. And, and so just offering grace, you’ll say, even though it’s not my morning, get up, I’m gonna get up so you can sleep because I know that you’re up all night with one of the twins. So that’s been really helpful. I think just taking time for each other too. I think about two weeks ago. We know we had somebody, we had our babysitter, watch our twins for us overnight, we got a hotel room, and just had a great date, date day where we got dinner together, we had a hotel, it was nice to sleep in. We had breakfast together before we went back to our home, we didn’t really go anywhere, we were only probably five minutes away from our house. But just getting away for a night and just reconnecting that has been really great. The other thing is, I think just learning what how each other receives love and gives love. It’s also just really big. I know my wife really enjoys gifts. And so you know, periodically buying a gift on Amazon or flowers or something. Or her favorite she might my wife really loves stickers about the holiday things, you know, stickers, heart stickers, Christmas tree. So when that I’ve gone shopping and find a couple, bring them home, just to say that I love you. And I appreciate all that you’re doing. And I’m just to affirm that she’s so a great parent. So those are some of the things we’ve done just to keep connected and to make our marriage function for the first year of parenthood.
Joe 27:09
That’s great. I hope any dads listening will be like, Okay, I’m taking notes, because those are some good ideas of some practical things they can do. So thank you for sharing those. Grant. As we wrap up today, if listeners want to connect with you, what’s the best way to reach out?
Grant 27:24
And you know, Facebook is always a great way I am. I am a part of lots of different dads of multiple groups. And and also, you know, I am happy to receive messages or comments, I have found that having that connection via Facebook groups. So Dad’s of Multiples has been really helpful, great community. Lots of great advice, lots of great resources, and it helps remind you that you’re not alone. Other dads have done this. It’s been really great. So I think that’s the best way right now.
Joe 27:57
Fantastic. Well, Grant, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. We really appreciate it.
Grant 28:02
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Joe 28:03
I hope you enjoyed that chat with Grant, about his journey as a twin dad and surviving that first crazy year. If you would like to share your story like Grant did today on the show, I would love to hear from you. You can email me [email protected], or you can reach out to me on social media. I am @twindadjoe on Instagram and Twitter. Or you can find me on facebook.com/dadsguidetotwins. Again, today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins.” This is the perfect guidebook to help you through those first couple years of raising your twins. You can learn more about this book and get your own copy at raisingtwinsbook.com. Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next time.
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The post Becoming a Father of Twins via Adoption with Grant Holloway – Podcast 241 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
29 min
June 02, 2021Lingering Effects of a Traumatic Twin Birth with Steven Driver – Podcast 240
Episode 240 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Steven Driver, father of three, including twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Keeping up with active 18-month-old non-identical twin girls
Keeping kids safe inside the house
Finding a pushchair for 3 children
Toddler’s reaction to newborns
Making sure oldest has time with parents
Typical daily schedule for 18-month-olds
Emergency c-section for second twin after the first was born naturally
PTSD to the traumatic birth experience
Improving interactions with the twins
When birth doesn’t go as planned
Helping Mom recover from a c-section
Breastfeeding twins for the first 3 months
Managing time off work and getting creative with paternity leave
and more…
Transcript
Joe 0:00
So what do you do when the birth of your twins does not quite go according to plans, and that has some lingering challenges for both mom and dad? We talked about that and much more today on the show.
Intro 0:10
Welcome to the dads guide to twins podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson.
Joe 0:25
Hey everybody, welcome to the 240th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. You can find the complete show notes and transcript for this episode and listen to all previous podcast episodes at twindadpodcast.com. Today, we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of twin girls. But before we jump into that story, I want to let you know that you can get a free audiobook version of my first book for dads. It’s called “Dad’s Guide to Twins”. If you visit freetwinbook.com once again, that’s freetwinbook.com. Now let’s jump straight into that interview. Today, I would like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins, Steven Driver. Welcome to the show, Steven.
Steven 1:04
Hello. Thanks for having me.
Joe 1:06
Steven, how old are your twins right now and what’s something exciting about this age?
Steven 1:11
They are nearly 18 months old in about, I’d say about two weeks. And what’s really exciting is that they’ve recently started walking. And basically, that’s given us a lot of freedom with them as well, you’d have to kind of put them around in the pushchair and in the rain. And they’re actually today they’re out in the rain in puddle suits, splashing around having fun playing together. And that’s just a joy to see them playing together. And that’s just really exciting to see them develop and become more like toddlers rather than babies.
Joe 1:44
Do you have two girls? Two boys are one of each?
Steven 1:47
We have two girls. Yeah.
Joe 1:49
Are they identical? Or fraternal?
Steven 1:52
They’re not identical.
Joe 1:54
And are these twins your only children? Or do you have another?
Steven 1:56
No, we have a child that’s only 18 months older than they are. So an older sister.
Joe 2:02
So you mentioned that your girls have just started walking was one of them started that process early. And the other followed, are were they kind of the same time?
Steven 2:11
Kind of the same time. What was really funny was that one of the this is where their personalities are so different. One of them have has been trying to walk in for a very long time, months and months. But it’s so reliant on other people, just the personality of someone who’d rather be helped to walk. But the other one kind of stormed through in a couple of weeks when they realize oh, it’s much better to walk same time because then the other one realized, Oh, it’s better if I actually get up and join in. So yeah, it was about the same time that came from different angles.
Joe 2:45
We saw that pattern in our girls, where one would figure out something in this case, maybe walking, and then the other sister would want to do that same thing. And so she would learn just by watching her sister do it.
Steven 2:56
Yeah, I think there was a collaborative experience there. I think she’s the one who actually eventually started walking first, actually had seen the other one being lifted up and walked around a load more because she seemed more eager. But I think the whole time she was just studying it. So when she came through was she just surprised us all, with her eagerness to do it. And then the other one realized, yeah, I want to join in, I’m going to let go of dad’s hand and go for it.
Joe 3:23
So now that they’re walking, there’s no stopping them from getting into trouble or mischief. Have you done anything around the house to try to keep them contained or safe?
Steven 3:34
Yeah, we have a playpen in the middle of the living room, my wife calls it the baby jail. Which is perfect, really we open it up and but lock in the area that we want them to be in. And they seem to love that. It keeps them safe. Otherwise, they’d be going up and down the stairs, which would be really dangerous. Our house so yeah, we use a playpen, keep them contained.
Joe 4:02
You have another girl who’s not much older than the twins. So what gear or equipment or supplies did you need that you couldn’t reuse from your first singleton?
Steven 4:13
The pushchair was major one. So we had to look into something that could handle three children at the same time because you know, she was only 18 months old she wasn’t gonna be able to walk for long distances and still can’t really like it’s a lots of fun, nearly three year old and so we had to research and find one that would suit our situation and that took a long time. And thankfully, my wife’s grandparents gave us some money so we could buy this really nice one. But if I can say what it is but it’s Lots of Babies one which is just brilliant for us because you can have This attaches from the front. So if you wanted just to be for two kids, you can but also it can handle three. And you can actually get an attachment with handles for. So that’s been really, that’s a big thing that we had to adjust to we also got a bigger car. That was our immediate response was that all we needed a bigger car to handle it all.
Joe 5:25
What was the was the brand name of the push chair?
Steven 5:27
It’s called the Lots of Babies T3.
Joe 5:30
And that fits nicely in your new car as well?
Steven 5:33
Yeah, we had to get an estate to do it big boot. But it fits, yeah.
Joe 5:38
Were there any other changes around the house, they needed to make to accommodate two new ones?
Steven 5:42
we had to change the room layout which room we were in a room the living room was in. So basically, just to make sure the cots could fit. Because there would be two of them. I don’t think much else that I think we were already in a very strong place with the first child who like to say 18 months old, you’ve got things ready, which was a, you know, a real blessing to us to know that. Actually, we didn’t have to, really, we were already in shape of looking after a baby. We were just adding two.
Joe 6:18
There’s already so much changing with the addition of twins. So if you already have some things in order, that’s fantastic. So your older daughter was, was still very young, when the twins were born, what was her reaction to having two little sisters?
Steven 6:30
initially incredibly excited. You know, she, she loves babies. She had already got like a little baby doll and things. And so she’s just been really excited about the whole thing. She doesn’t like them crying. That was very clear, very early on, she would get quite distressed when the girls were crying at the same time. I think she joined me in with me, really, my wife when both of them were going at full pelt that we then had to calm her down. Because she you know, she was getting quite wound up by the fact that babies wouldn’t stop crying. So it’s kind of a domino effect, something that we still encounter. Now if both of them go, our eldest will cry with them. Because she’s distressed for them. Which is very sweet on one side, but also, you know, it’s it’s a very difficult situation when you’re pushing a pushchair up a hill to have to then try and calm all three of them down at the same time.
Joe 7:34
Yeah, that can get a little bit overwhelming when all three are going at the same time for sure. How are you able to manage getting them down for naps, or bedtime when they may all be on different schedules, the twins versus your three year old?
Steven 7:46
We’ve gone come with the solution that our eldest deserves her own time with us. And so she will always get an hour later than what the twins have. So she’s so recently we just moved the schedules around a little bit. But we always put the twins down one hour before. And then she needs less nap time anyway. And so we get them all up at the same time. But she goes later. And she’s been incredibly flexible with that it doesn’t seem to disturb things too badly. And initially, there was no issues anywhere because there were so different that she just did her thing. But when we got into a routine of nap times, she there was definitely a pattern that emerged that she would have an hour later, particularly the big morning nap.
Joe 8:37
What is the typical schedule on a daily basis right now for your twins, like what time do they wake up and eat and things like that?
Steven 8:43
They’re waking up to between seven and eight in the morning, which is great. They’re sleeping through now that’s just started happening. One of them didn’t for a while, until very recently, and then would have breakfast soon after that. Then the we play they’ve got, they play in the playpen, run around, do do activities. Normally now we’re putting the need snack at some point and some activities to more to stimulate them and to entertain them a lot more than they use to. 11 o’clock they go down for a nap. It’s their only nap of the day. Then we they wake up at about one o’clock they have two hours. And then they have lunch. And then the afternoon we do the big activity because there’s a big swell of time. So we normally go out which at the moment during lockdown is just we’re surrounded by countryside where I am. So basically a walk in the countryside and dinner at five, five o’clock six, and then about an hour long bedtime routine. They’re down at seven o’clock in the evening. That’s that seems to be what’s consistently come out now as being their day.
Joe 10:01
So as you look back over these last 18 months with your twins, what were some of the things that surprised you, maybe they were different than with your, your first daughter?
Steven 10:11
I think the biggest surprise for me is that is that for the my first one, I everything kind of went as well as it could have gone in terms of her her sleep patterns when she was born, like she was really easy to use quite she self entertains as well. She all that kind of stuff. But the second one is the labor was really, really difficult. My wife had an emergency c section on the second child. So the first one came out relatively normal with an epidural. And then the second one was a C section. And I got a minor form of PTSD that I didn’t realize that had until about six months later, where I had counseling, and the counselor said, Oh, you clearly got this. And that shock, everything. So my reactions to things, when they were very little, or much more extreme, not just because there was two of them. But because the relation I had to the that the labor, and that was really shocking to me, obviously, to struggle with something that came quite easily with the first child, that the labor had this big effect for at least their first kind of nine to 10 months of their life. So it’s only in the last six months, really that I’ve managed to get out of this kind of loop, and into a more positive way of dealing with them. And now what it does feel very similar to how it was with our first child.
Joe 11:53
So how have you been able to change maybe your interactions with them or your behaviors to make that a more positive experience?
Steven 11:59
Well, it mainly affected with one of the twins, it was really odd. The first one that was fine was I had a great relationship with quite easy, I didn’t react second was the issue. So I did everything that I could to spend one on one time with the with that child and you know, bring them upstairs and play with them, if they were crying be the one to deal with it. So I could get used to how they reacted to things. It’s all you know, treat them as their individual person that they are. And, and I found that to be really helpful, I think I still do now is to try and separate them from time to time, just so I can spend one on one time with all three of them, and know what their reactions are to things because they are significantly different people and and reacting to them takes practice to know what works for them. So it’s not it’s not I can’t, I can’t treat them all the same in the way that I deal with that crying needs to be different. So that was something I learned by taking action. In my parenting, I guess.
Joe 13:08
that’s great. I found that when I spend one on one time with my children as well that you’re able to build that relationship, that bond with them a little bit easier and able to see their individual personalities and that really helps nurture that relationship. So it’s great, you’re able to find that time to do that. You mentioned the birth did not quite go as you had expected. And obviously they had some ramifications down the road. Let’s go back to when when you found out it was time to have the babies. How did you find that out and let’s talk through that day?
Steven 13:36
So my wife was induced. So we had a date. That was two weeks before her official due date. Don’t know if that’s common where you are but it is where we are. And the so we had this day and she had a she was already apparently a centimeter gone, which is great. And so it is very kind of very organized, the way that it all happened. We knew that there were different very likely that there’ll be a c section and all that kind of stuff. It took a long time, the whole process, there was a induction that happened that the induction took a long time to really work. And then we got to the point where we actually got moved to a surgical suite where they were they did some kind of a little bit of hormones into my wife’s system to really speed things along which led to the epidural because the epidural, the hormones, were making things so severe that they needed to give her an epidural to deal with the pain of that because it was far more than you would normally experience the day just kind of went really it was very, very slow for a very long time. And then it was very, very quick. So first, first one came out within like 10 minutes of being told she was going into they’re going to deliver now And then the speed of which they took her into an actual surgery theater room. And I came in late and it was very difficult. That whole thing because you just don’t know what to expect, and you’re holding one child’s, and then your wife is in a different room, and you don’t know what’s happening to her. And you are then put in late. And then you see kind of all the things you’re not supposed to see, I think I normally try and keep your, your eyes away from kind of the surgery of it. But because I came in late, I did see things I really shouldn’t. And then so I was just holding this child I hadn’t really met. And then given this other child that had caused my wife, a lot of distress in her body at this, she was actually quite drugged up. So she had no idea what was going on. But I knew her body did suffer quite a lot. And then we had the normal kind of recovery period, afterwards, which meant that she couldn’t do very much my eldest was with us. And so she couldn’t pick up my oldest when she was crying, and still had the twins as well. So there was a lot on all at the same time. So it was a bit of a difficult, very slow thing became very quick, and then became hugely impactful. We knew that having twins would be impactful, but I think that the whole combination, made it that much more.
Joe 16:27
Yeah, everything is kind of turned upside down. Very quickly. In those moments, I can see why you had some lingering challenges with that after the birth. Did your girls have any complications? So they needed to stay in the hospital? Or were they able to come home soon thereafter?
Steven 16:41
Yeah, we were out within a few days. Yeah, there were a good size, I can’t I think it was five pounds that they were which was both so they were even in weight, there was no issues with their feeding. And I think also there was a false confidence in us because we had, obviously again, we had a child, a baby or a baby that just become a toddler. So I was them watching us to make sure we knew what we were doing. They felt like they could just let us get on with it. So yeah, absolutely fine.
Joe 17:12
How was your wife’s recovery from the C section?
Steven 17:14
Really well, she was definitely textbook in what they said it would be like her recovery. I think the big shock and and I think maybe helpful to others to hear is that once you get to the C section, you’ve got you go into you’re in a hospital bed. So if you want to get up, you can just press a button that helps you up and you don’t realize that you’re not using muscles when you’re doing that you are using the bed to do that. And so when we came home, it was a huge shock to us, actually, that she couldn’t get out of bed. She couldn’t, she couldn’t lift her body up. And that was she actually had to sleep on a chair for a long time, for a lot of time because she just couldn’t move in any other way she couldn’t pull herself up, because our bed just wasn’t suitable. And so then if it’s helpful to others to hear listening, but the idea of just having that in mind when you come home if your wife has had that operation that there’s issues when it comes to just getting themselves up in the morning or out of bed at any point.
Joe 18:26
We discovered after my wife’s csection, just how tall our bed was that we were not you know, we weren’t expecting that so easy to jump in and out of bed until you have major abdominal surgery and then you realize oh maybe this is a little higher than I’m used to how did feeding go for the infants? Were was mom able to breastfeed or did you bottle feed?
Steven 18:44
Yeah at the start she breastfed both of them and did so for the first three months and very successfully. You know, she she got into a position of you know of comfort doing it and it was great. Though she got incredibly tired and exhausted, you know that late nights babies up or nice and and going into that position that my mom actually said, we came over we stayed with my mom and dad and my mom persuaded us and helped me persuade talk to Sarah, Sarah and talk to her about it as well. To not stop breastfeeding but to to mix feed because she was getting really tired to the point of she was getting ill regularly her body was just exhausted from the whole thing. So we now she until they were a year old they don’t really have bottles now and that’s just go to bed. Going to sleep at night but she mix fed because it was just destroying her ability to do anything. So yeah, that’s what she does. Now. What she did until they were a year old.
Joe 20:01
that’s a great reminder that it’s okay to adjust course as we go along with twins, sometimes feeding works one way and then you have to make sure that’s working for both the babies and mom and the family as a whole. Otherwise, it’s okay to adjust and do something different. How was your work situation when the twins arrived, and how were you able to manage time off with them?
Steven 20:19
my work were fantastic. I work for a church in in my town as a youth worker. And they were really gracious. So they gave me a month off. I remember my boss saying you’ve got two so you get two we get two weeks, usually in the UK as paternity leave. And he gave me a four. Because he said to get double it for the two kids. So that was great. But not only that, the and also the option to do it, how I wanted to utilize the paternity leave the way I wanted it. So they way we chose to do it was we had two weeks normally, and then utilizing my date, days off mixed with my paternity leave to fought to basically mean that I’m only going into work or doing any work maybe once a week for and I think that lasted for about it lasted for quite a long time about 10 weeks. So I was really I had a really good run of very little work. And on top of that the church because I worked for them and knew our situation. For the first month and a half they fed us so they cooked meals for us every single day. So we’d have like someone knock on our door and give us a pie or something. So yeah, my work situation was absolutely the best you could imagine. To be honest. It was really, really good. And the same goes for my wife’s one as well. They were that school that she’s a teacher. And they they’ve been brilliant with her as well.
Joe 21:52
That’s fantastic. Yeah, they have such a supportive workplace and community to help you get started with your twins. That’s, that’s wonderful. have both you and your wife come back to work at this point?
Steven 22:01
Yeah she’s, she wasn’t full time after the first anyway. But she’s going back to two days a week and I work full time. So yeah, so I work five days a week, full time as well. So it that’s worked out fine. In lockdown. It’s been interesting. Teachers here to do mobile learning. So she’s working from home. And I’ve got the kids downstairs in the living room. And I’ve been able to have furlough. So I’m not working one of those days as well as my day off to supplement that. So and that’s been absolutely fine. That’s where we’re at at the moment. So where I take days off and have a furlough day to look after the kids when she’s working. And I work on the other days,
Joe 22:49
As you look back over the last 18 months with your twins and three years as a father, what are some things that you’ve been able to do to keep your relationship strong with your wife?
Steven 22:59
We’re very passionate about date nights, and making time for that. And for also not being ashamed of our kids knowing that it’s a date night and all that stuff. So you know, we we set time, once a month, at least, to have an evening together, where we can just have fun, enjoy each other’s company, do something special. So you know, we had a special date night on Saturday, where we watched one of these kinds of live theater things that are streamed, which was fantastic. And that that kind of stuff that would just make us laugh and spend good quality time together. That’s been really special and something we’re very determined to keep going.
Joe 23:06
For sure. That’s a wonderful tradition to have. Even if it’s just taking time while you’re at home and the kids are asleep. You don’t even have to leave the house to make sure you’re spending time together. That’s great. So Steven, as we wrap up today, if listeners want to connect with you, what’s the best way to reach out?
Steven 24:01
Facebook is definitely the best place to get in contact with me.
Joe 24:05
Excellent. And I’ll link up to that in the show notes for this episode. Steven, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. We really appreciate it.
Steven 24:10
Great. No problem. Thank you for having me.
Joe 24:12
I hope you enjoy that chat with Steven about his adventures as a father of twins plus one if you want to connect with Steven I’ve linked up his contact information in the show notes for this episode over at twindadpodcast.com if you would like to share your story like Steven did today, please reach out to me, my email is [email protected] or you can reach me on instagram or twitter @twindadjoe. And of course we’re on Facebook as well. facebook.com/dadsguidetotwins. Hey, since you just listened to a podcast I know you love audio. And so you can get a free audio book version of my first book “Dad’s Guide to Twins” by visiting freetwinbook.com. Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next time.
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The post Lingering Effects of a Traumatic Twin Birth with Steven Driver – Podcast 240 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
25 min
May 19, 2021When Mom Loses Her Job Because of the Twins with Darrell Mosley – Podcast 239
Episode 239 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Darrell Mosley, father of five boys including two sets of twins. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Raising five boys including 9 year old and 18-month-old twins plus a 14-year-old
Dealing with 18-month-old mobile toddlers
Both sets of twins were born at 30 weeks
Some time in NICU and challenges of getting twins ready to come home
Getting kids to different sports at the same time all season long
Tracking food and medicine via spreadsheets
Keeping infants on a feeding schedule for 24 hours
Getting a third set of hands to help with newborns
Routine for keeping the electric breast pump parts clean for Mom
Taking time off of work due to bed rest and NICU
When his wife lost her job due to too much time off after the first set of twins
Surviving financially on one income
Finding space for all the kids in the house
Getting kids involved with chores
and more…
Transcript
Joe 0:00
When you have a second set of twins, you do things a little bit differently the next time based on what you learned the first time around make that doubly so when you have all boys. Today we’re talking with a twin dad and what he’s learned along the way of his twin journey.
Intro 0:12
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson.
Joe 0:27
Hey everybody. Welcome to the 239th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. You can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com where you can find the complete show notes and transcript for this episode. And you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we continue our father of twins interview series, with the father of five boys, including two sets of fraternal twins. Before we jump into that chat. I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com where you’ll find dozens of T-shirts designed specifically for families of twins. There are designs uniquely made for fathers of twins, mothers of twins, the grandparents of twins, and the twins themselves. You can browse the entire collection over a twintshirtcompany.com now let’s jump right into that chat. Today. I’d like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins, Darrell Mosley. Welcome to the show, Darrell. Darrell, how old are your twins right now. And what’s the most exciting thing about this age?
Darrell 1:15
My first set of twins are 9 a second set of twins are 18 months. The most exciting part. For the for the nine-year-olds they are in third grade. They go to school every day. Learn new stuff at school. The 18-month-old twins, they are now both mobile and move through the house at will and it is tough to stay in front of they they always find a new way to bypass the child safety locks on drawers and cabinets and climb chairs. We have found one of them sitting on top of the dining room table. It’s always something going on.
Joe 1:55
Now, what’s the mix of twins – do you have boys, girls, some of each?
Darrell 1:59
I have all boys. My oldest boy’s a singleton. The rest of them are fraternal boys.
Joe 2:05
Your Singleton came first?
Darrell 2:07
Yes, sir. God bless us with that one because he’s our guinea pig baby. And we kind of learn the way of a boy for about five years. And then we got two more. They sent one home at a time. They were born at 30 weeks, they spent time in the NICU. So baby a got sent home first. And then two weeks later, his brother joined us. So we had a little time to get acclimated to having a baby in the house again. Last time the 18-month-old twins. They were also born at 30 weeks with the steroids shot that the wife was given in anticipation of it happening. And again, their lungs were better. They didn’t spend nearly as much time and the NICU. And they both got sent home together during the middle of baseball season for the other three kids.
Joe 3:00
So your older three are all involved in baseball, right when the newborns are coming home?
Darrell 3:04
The oldest one place travel ball. So we have practice Mondays and Wednesday nights games on Saturdays and Sundays. The first set of twins play with the city’s league with games and practices on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. So we are at a baseball field everyday but Friday, unless it’s raining from March through October.
Joe 3:29
That’s intense. Are the twins on the same team?
Darrell 3:32
Yes, actually, it was July 27, when the second set was born. For whatever reason, baby a from the first group decided he wanted to play football in the fall. So we had the oldest kid playing baseball on the weekends. One playing football Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. And he went all over the county that we lived in. And then the other one played baseball, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Joe 4:01
So that just makes my head spin just thinking about all the different places you need to be with the different kids
Darrell 4:05
A lot of help from my wife’s mother, my mother. And you know, the wife is going back and forth to the hospital or practice or games. And my mother or her mother would pick up whoever got leftover.
Joe 4:21
So now you’ve had three, basically, three rounds of infants come through the house. What are some of the differences and similarities between each of these experiences with the singleton and then each of the sets of twins?
Darrell 4:32
With the singleton, that was our first baby. We didn’t know anything about babies. You know, just taking the doctor’s advice on what time to feed and how much to feed and the wife was recovering from a C section. So I was having to manage, you know, when she got you know, certain medications and how much food the baby got and what time to give it to them. I actually I’m an accountant by degree, I made an Excel spreadsheet, put, put the medicines across the columns and the times down the rows. And I would have to go in and check. You know, when I gave everybody food or medicine first round of twins, they were in the NICU for a while. They got put on a schedule there. They ate at 8, 11, two and 5. am and pm. Whether they wanted or not, because if you let them get off schedule, you will never sleep. The second set of twins, cause we had already had some born at 30 weeks went to the NICU. Some things you never forget the sounds of the beeps and buzzers and feeding schedules. So we knew when they got sent home 8, 11, two and 5 (am and pm). When they get off schedule, you will never sleep. And we have also figured out and this will be helpful information for anybody that fixing in to have twins, we brought my mother-in-law in the second time. Cause if my wife feeds em both at eight o’clock, my mother-in-law feeds on both at 11. Then I could feed em at two, and then my wife comes back for five and the mother-in-law eight, I don’t come back until 11 o’clock. So I could actually sleep three in the afternoon until about 1030 at night seven and a half solid hours of sleep. With a newborn, that’s usually unheard of.
Joe 6:35
That’s great. Yeah, it is unheard of to get that much sleep. Having a third set of hands is huge.
Darrell 6:39
We made it to the two day checkup, my wife had her hair and makeup done. We made it on time, we had done this many times before. And at least I was able to get you know, the wife was breastfeeding. So she didn’t get to sleep for the whole year just about. But I was able to get about seven hours solid sleep most of the way through. Get a third hand as long as you stand more in there.
Joe 7:05
I would agree with that. We had similar setup where my mother-in-law or my brother in law’s sister in law came down, took turns staying with us. And that helped create that nice schedule like you’re describing where someone’s able to get a little bit more sleep.
Darrell 7:17
And if it’s just for the weekend. Every little bit helps.
Joe 7:21
That’s right, every little bit helps. Yeah, some people think that can’t convince someone to come stay with them for a long time. But even just one or two nights can help recoup that missing sleep that you need.
Darrell 7:31
Yes, sir.
Joe 7:31
You mentioned that your wife breastfed the twins. Were there any challenges with that or just worked pretty well with each of the boys?
Darrell 7:37
worked pretty good. She had an electric pump. And then I can fill in on the dad side, you know not, I don’t produce the milk myself. But we had multiple sets of parts so that whenever I went back to work, I could go ahead and wash up enough so that she could pump through the night and have clean parts each time. And then right before I left to go to work, I could wash all the parts that would get her through the day, until I got home from work without being home. After going back to work, you know, the best I could do was keep enough parts clean. That she didn’t have to do dishes on top of taking care of babies and breastfeeding and changing diapers and all of that.
Joe 8:24
That’s brilliant. Did you have anything else that you’re able to do like kind of to get the house ready before you went off to work?
Darrell 8:29
Keep the diaper stacker full, wipes handy. You know empty the trash when it’d need to go out load the dishwasher. You know after dinner at night, unload it before I head out, you’ll try to minimize the workload around the house. It’s a lot taking care of two babies at one time. And anything that I can do to smooth that load while I’m gone. Makes it easier when I get home in the evening.
Joe 8:57
How much time did you have off of work after the boys were born?
Darrell 9:01
Because they were in the NICU for such a long time. I took the full 12 weeks available under Family Medical Leave Act
Joe 9:09
And was your wife working at the time and as well?
Darrell 9:12
She was. She went on bed rest in October for the set that was born in December. They were born early. And her 12 weeks of job protected leave ran out. They called her one Friday and told her that her time was up. And that if she was not at work on Monday. Don’t bother coming Tuesday either. She wouldn’t have a job.
Joe 9:36
So how did that play out?
Darrell 9:37
We went and got the first baby that Friday from the NICU and she didn’t have a job. So for two years, I took on some additional work assignments that allowed me to make additional income. This was back in 2007 when the mortgage rates bottomed out between my additional pay we also refinanced the house. We left everything, just as it was in terms of the amount we owed, and the length of time remaining on the house. We merely paid to lower the interest rate, you know, effectively what happened when we refinanced with my extra pay. And what we saved on the mortgage, it replaced what she would have brought home after paying daycare. So it was a net change of zero. When it was all said and done, she stayed home for about two years, then when the terrible twos hit twice. She asked me if, if I was certain that it was a net zero, whether she worked or didn’t work. And I told her that I was. And she said, that’s the case. She’s going back to work and pay for daycare, because two two year olds would was too much. And it’s easier to work.
Joe 10:57
Well good for her and good for you guys for being so creative in how you’re able to rework your finances to make that happen to manage the job loss of your wife.
Darrell 11:05
When the phone call came in that, hey, if you’re not at work on Monday, don’t bother coming Tuesday that cut our income in half. And we you know, we we just added two more mouths to feed, that phone call happened nine years ago. I’m still a little salty about it somehow, some way we have been provided for and it’s worked out so far. And we got surprised about a year and a half ago. The wife wasn’t feeling well. She, she went to the dollar store and got a pregnancy test. She came back and it said she was pregnant again. So we went to the doctor. The first time we went to the doctor, they did the sonogram. And because with the first twin pregnancy, you know, you see a lot of sonograms, it’s not like the single baby, so I’m not a sonographer. But I thought I saw the little second black hole over there. And I asked the sonographer, Is that another one over there? She was reluctant to answer and said that she saw a spot that concerned her that she had to get pictures for the doctor and she would she would get back over there in just a minute. As she left the room, I never saw her again, until I ran into her at a baseball game one afternoon. They didn’t she didn’t even tell my wife. We went upstairs. And a doctor said that he saw the pictures saw an area that concerned him. But then at this point, my wife’s 39 years old, and there’s nothing we can do about her age. So we’re not going to come back and see me next week. And let’s figure out a game plan. And I told my wife all week long. That’s not how that first visit went last time. You know that doctor was the man with the plan. You come in every two weeks, you go to this specialist. You know, this is how it works. And then that day he was like, Yeah, you’re 39 there’s nothing we can do about that. Come back next week, we’ll figure something out. And I told her I said the way the sonogram girl just walked out of the room and never said a word. And then the doctor was kind of cagey and evasive. I’m sure I saw another spot. And the next week we went back they told her she was having twins again. I was right. I did see that other spot.
Joe 13:22
Did she believe you originally or she wanted to see with their own eyes?
Darrell 13:25
not originally. But like I said, if they say come back in a week, so this was on Monday, and I guess it was around Thursday night. I said How long has he been a doctor? She said oh like 20 or 25 years? How many sonograms Do you think he’s seen? She said 10s of 1000s? I said do you think he didn’t know what he was looking at? When he saw that spot that concerned him? She said oh my god, we’re gonna have twins again. I said, I’ve been telling you this all week. You just haven’t been trying to hear me. And when we went in Monday, it took them no time to find two heartbeats. Send us upstairs to the doctor. And he’s like, Alright, girl, you’re having twins again. She’s like, Yeah, I know that now. But my husband says you knew that last week just wouldn’t tell me. He just looked at me a smile shook his head. So we’ll see in two weeks.
Joe 14:17
There’s several years difference between your nine year olds in your second set. So did you have leftover gear did you have to start from scratch buying what you needed?
Darrell 14:25
Start from scratch. When when the nine year olds every time we got done with something, you know, we’re not having any more babies send it on down the line. We had nothing.
Joe 14:34
What’s some gear that you maybe got the second time around that you knew for sure was going to be very helpful and maybe some stuff that you’re like, we’re not going to get that because we’re never going to use it?
Darrell 14:41
The diaper genie is a good sales pitch that they’re hard to find the bags for. They’re a pain in the butt to twirl those bags every time you change a diaper. They are worthless. We’ve got a stainless steel can that the top slides on, throw a diaper in slides, slide it back shut, just uses regular garbage bags. So we knew we didn’t want a diaper Genie. What we found that did not exist nine years ago that I’m aware of was the mamaRoo. They put one of the babies in it at the hospital, it really stopped. If the wife wasn’t there, he would he would get upset and go to holler and the nurses would try to just holding them rocking as best they could you know when they could. But the nurses put him in a mamaRoo. And it kept him pretty chilled. So when we got home, we got one. And it turns out we we did need two. Some things you can get by with one of them let them alternate use. We did end up with two mamaRoos. And they’re worth it.
Joe 15:57
Yeah, once you find something that works helps those babies relax. It’s like gold.
Darrell 16:00
Those owlets for preemie babies that have spent a lot of time in the NICU making sure that their oxygen saturation, pulse and all is always in the range where it needs to be. The owlets provided a lot of peace of mind.
Joe 16:17
Do they have it where you can just have the one app tracking both babies?
Darrell 16:19
Yes, she had one app. And there there’s a baby a and baby b. We did have to make sure to label which sock went with which monitor cause if they ever get mixed up you never know who’s beeping at you.
Joe 16:37
So both of your sets of twins had to spend some time in the NICU. Was there any doubt that they’re going to be making at home or what are they growers and feeders?
Darrell 16:44
with, with the first set, it was 30 weeks, they were a little over three pounds each baby b at a very rough start. We didn’t know you know, anything was going on at week 30 they gave my wife a steroid shot to try to you know, get their lungs better developed before they had to induce you know, the next morning that I think they gave him about 24 hours after that steroid shot. And then and then they took ’em. Baby b on that first set had a very rough start. They were pretty much just eating and growing at that point. And then one day, we went to the NICU to check on him. And he was not on the oxygen, the nurses thought the respiratory therapist took it out, the respiratory therapist or a doctor had ordered him off his oxygen. As it turns out, he simply pulled the oxygen out of his nose. He was doing fine. So the doctors and nurses and respiratory therapist all agreed that as long as his oxygen numbers stayed where they needed to be, they could leave him off the oxygen. For that day forward. He was breathing on his own. They waited a few days he was eating his entire bottle every time without passing out, you know, stayed breathing the whole time. So after a week of that, they sent him home too. Second go around. They went ahead and gave my wife a steroid shot and we 29 just in case, they had to take it week 30 again, and she was doing really good. We honestly figured we’d get 34 weeks out of her. That week 30 came. Preeclampsia or high pregnancy induced hypertension, it all started showing up our regular doctor was out of the country. So his partner came in and wasted no time. There was actually less than a minute between the two babies when he called the time for baby a he went right back in and before he called again, the nurse told he said Hang on, and she pointed out the clock and as soon as the minute flipped, he snatched the other one so that they would be born in separate minutes.
Joe 18:54
pretty fast. That’s like a NASCAR pit crew.
Darrell 18:56
It’s about 45 seconds between baby a and baby B. They had to wait on the clock to flip to the next minute to keep them from being born at the same time.
Joe 19:05
You go through the whole pregnancy seeing one doctor and expecting that doctor on game night and then you show up and you get somebody else but it sounds like things still went pretty smoothly for the delivery.
Darrell 19:15
You going in and out of the doctor’s office every two weeks, you bump into the other doctors in the practice. My wife also worked at that hospital where they routinely deliver babies. She’s known him and seen him for the last nine years. So um, he wasn’t an entirely new face.
Joe 19:37
So let’s talk about some of the other milestones that your kids have hit that have made life a little bit easier now that you’ve gone through a singleton and a nine year old and now your 18 month olds are coming up on those. What are some things that some milestones they hit that made life a lot easier for you as a dad
Darrell 19:50
Potty training.
Joe 19:50
Has I started with 18 month olds yet?
Darrell 19:52
Oh, no, no. I could just remember back my oldest one was potty training. And of course I’ve got all boys which I get all the trips to the bathrooms in public because they don’t want to go to a girl’s bathroom. We went to Jacksonville, Florida. We live just outside Jackson, Mississippi. We traveled at night down there while he was sleeping. But when we got ready to come home, he figured out real quick like what the rest areas were. And I think I sanitized every rest area toilet from Jacksonville, Florida back to Jackson, Mississippi, it’s nice when they can just stand up and pee all by themselves.
Joe 20:29
That’s so true. We took a road trip when our girls or twin girls were potty training age. And it was it was brutal.
Darrell 20:36
That here’s the little things. It’s nice not to have to sanitize a toilet every time you walk in some where.
Joe 20:42
Are your boys sharing bedrooms?
Darrell 20:44
They do they share we have three bedroom house in a subdivision when it was just the three oldest boy had his own room. And then the the nine year olds, you know when they when they were born, they had their own room, you know, they shared room, they went to bunk beds, they liked it for the most part as they’ve gotten older and they are very different. One has long blonde hair and doesn’t care if the sun doesn’t come up so long as we have honey buns and peanut butter in the pantry. His brother keeps a military style cut. He’s very type A personality, he is going to be on time with all of his homework completed a day ahead. They don’t like being in the same room because most of the time.
Joe 21:25
but they’re roommates so they have to be in the room at some of the time
Darrell 21:28
they at least sleep in the same room. But other than that, you know they they they play out in the yard whether it’s baseball, football, Nerf guns, they’re always playing course we eat dinner together but they just really don’t like having this sleep near the other. And to an extent it’s been like that since they were born. My baby a was always very independent guy just learned by hands-on doing you know trial and error. Baby b, you tell him That’s the rule. You never have to worry about it again. It that’s the rule and he just does what he’s supposed to do. No problems. He always liked to be held at all times until he got ready to go to bed. At 8:30 he will just get up walk in his room, get in his bed. You will not hear from him again until six o’clock in the morning. The independent brother to never like anybody to stop him from doing whatever he felt like it around 8:30 would come walk into you with a blanket and want you to hold him for about 15 minutes so he can fall asleep and then you go drop him in his bed.
Joe 22:32
That’s interesting difference between daytime behavior and when it’s time for bed. That’s great.
Darrell 22:35
But he always had to hold somebody’s baby b all day until he got ready to go to bed. Baby a, don’t touch him until he’s ready to go to bed.
Joe 22:43
How’s that played out with your other set of twins as well?
Darrell 22:46
I see a lot of similarities. My baby a is very independent kind of likes to go and do likes his holding here and there. Baby B is wide open all day long till it’s bedtime and you have to hold him a lot longer. My baby a soon as you take him out of the tub, put his pajamas on. He starts yawning on the changing table. All you have to do is passing from the changing table to his bed he has done for the night. Baby b needs about 30 more minutes of holding and rocking before he’s ready to go down
Joe 23:19
Is younger set still in cribs?
Darrell 23:21
They’re in baby beds. Yeah, getting close to time to move to a toddler bed. But right now they’re still in their baby beds.
Joe 23:26
Do they wake each other up or want to play with each other. Are they able to sleep through each other’s shenanigans?
Darrell 23:31
Oh no, they’re hard sleep when they go down for the night. You don’t hear from them again till the next morning when it’s time to get up for breakfast. What we learned with the first one you moved into my house, so you kind of have to play by my rules. And we treated it like that. So we’re you know, we had a schedule to keep in places to go. He came with us. You know, if you had to vacuum the floors, you vacuum the floors because if you’re quiet and you tiptoe around the baby’s schedule, you’ll have to be quiet but the baby’s whole life. So we just get we will watch TV we vacuum floors. We come and go they just have to get on our schedule. so far. It’s worked. Vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, washing machines, barking dog, nothing really bothers them.
Joe 24:14
You make an excellent point there if you can’t be quiet forever so you might as well move on with your life and let them adjust to the regular ambient noise.
Darrell 24:22
Now the oldest one, I asked him one time I was getting ready to vacuum I said Do I need to wait to vacuum the floor? Is it going to bother you with your nap? He laughed and he said you know I’m not going to hear it. He laid on his bed and never heard it.
Joe 24:38
That’s great. How have you been able to involve the children with chores around the house.
Darrell 24:43
The oldest boy is 14, he just knows when you come home from school go ahead and unload the dishwasher so that when we cook dinner, you know we can put dishes in as we go to try to have the kitchen as clean as possible. By the time We get done eating dinner, he is very helpful. He can do dishes, he does his own laundry. If you can work an iPad, you can work a washing machine. The nine year olds, one is actually very good at folding towels. We take advantage of the strengths where they have them, he handles, washing the towels that they have in their bathroom, to wash them, drown them, fold them, put them up, he actually likes to vacuum and mop the floors. So um, we take advantage of that. He’s not gonna complain about it, he likes it. So he can do it, baby b there for the oldest group, he’s pretty good at keeping things organized. So we let him organize the bedroom to keep it nice and clean, make the bed, whatever they’re good at, we let them go with that.
Joe 25:42
Yeah, build on their strengths and what they enjoy doing and then can expand the responsibilities along the way. That’s fantastic. So Darrell as we wrap up today, if if imagine your best friend comes to you, and it says that he’s going to be having twins, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to him?
Darrell 25:58
keep them on a schedule, because I’m telling you, if one is 30 minutes to an hour off of the other one, then keep it in mind you only have that three hour window between feedings. So between the start of feedings. So they’re going to eat, you’re going to change the diaper, then they’re going to sleep for roughly two hours. If they get off that schedule, then where you have a two hour window to either sleep or do laundry or cook dinner or take care of the other kids. You’re going to reduce the size of that window. Every time you let them get off schedule. And for your own sanity, they have to stay on schedule.
Joe 26:48
Absolutely. We lived and died by the schedule too. That’s great advice.
Darrell 26:52
Even today, with my older kids. We catch the bus at 6:30. We get home from school at 3:30. We eat dinner at six o’clock we start taking baths when we get done with dinner. Like you know how the day is going to go every day. It makes it a whole lot easier for everybody to know what’s going on when it’s going to happen. So that it’s not so much chaos. When you’re trying to keep five kids going to baseball or football or schoolwork. You got to have the schedule.
Joe 27:28
Well Darrell, thank you so much for sharing your story with us tonight. We really appreciate it.
Darrell 27:32
Glad to be here.
Joe 27:33
Hope you enjoy that conversation with Darrell about his journey as a dad through five boys and two sets of twins. If you would like to share your story like Darrell did today on the podcast I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me [email protected] or you can reach me on Instagram or Twitter @twindadjoe. Today’s show is brought to you by twintshirtcompany.com where you’ll find the perfect gift for your favorite father twins, mother of twins and the twins themselves. Check out all the shirts there at twintshirtcompany.com thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next time.
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The post When Mom Loses Her Job Because of the Twins with Darrell Mosley – Podcast 239 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
29 min
May 05, 2021Having Two Sets of Twins from Two Different Marriages with Scott Johnson – Podcast 238
Episode 238 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Scott Johnson, father of two sets of twins (22-year-old boys and 5-year-old girls). Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Having two sets of twins from two marriages
Differences in the two twin pregnancies
Raising identical vs fraternal twins
How having one set of twins helped with the second set
Getting the right gear for twins
Becoming a stay-at-home dad
When the older twins chose the same college, same degree, and the same type of job
Dealing with competition between twins
When twins are super similar vs totally different
Potty training boys vs girls
Coparenting twins after divorce
and more…
Connect with Scott via email here.
Transcript
Joe 0:00
Imagine having one set of twins then getting married again later and having a second set of twins. That’s part of the story we’ll talk about today.
Intro 0:08
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins. Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson.
Joe 0:23
Hey everybody. This is Joe Rawlinson and welcome to the 238th episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast. You can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com where you’ll find a transcript for this episode, and you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a father of two sets of twins. I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads it’s called “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins”. You can learn more about this book at raisingtwinsbook.com. Now let’s jump right into the interview. Today I’d like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins Scott Johnson. Welcome to the show, Scott. So Scott, you don’t have just one set of twins. You got two sets of twins. So what’s what’s the age gap? And ages of those twins right now?
Scott 1:06
The oldest twins are 22. And the youngest twins will be five next month.
Joe 1:12
So that’s that’s kind of an atypical spread for ages for kids. So how did you how did you end up with with twins on on both ends of the spectrum.
Scott 1:19
They’re from two different marriages, the first marriage, we were teenagers and just came naturally. And the second marriage, she was having issues ovulating. And they ran a camera in there and it pushed two eggs out and twins again.
Joe 1:36
So your first set of twins: are they boys or girls?
Scott 1:38
The first set of boys?
Joe 1:39
And are they identical?
Scott 1:40
Yes.
Joe 1:41
How about the second set?
Scott 1:43
They are girls, and they are not identical.
Joe 1:46
Okay, so back when you find out that you’re having twins to start with 22 plus years ago, what was your first thought when you heard that you were gonna have twins?
Scott 1:53
A lot of shock. Like I said I was a teenager. And we have the doctor was questioning why she was getting so big so fast. And did a sonogram and it was me her and her mother in the room. And he said, oh, there are two babies in there. And we didn’t say anything for the rest of the time until we left. And we were shocked and surprised and happy.
Joe 2:14
So how did that compare to your reaction the second time around when you found out that you’d be a dad of twins again?
Scott 2:18
Wherever we found out that we were pregnant. Everyone asked, you know what we were hoping for a boy or girl. And I kept saying twins. And when we went in for the sonogram. The lady said there are two babies in there. I laughed so hard. I immediately wondered how the oldest set of twins would think about it. I called them I called them and they were excited as well.
Joe 2:46
So they would have been in their mid teens. Is that about right when you’re when your girls were born?
Scott 2:50
Yeah, they were seniors in high school I do believe
Joe 2:53
How are your older boys able to be involved with the preparations for the for the girls?
Scott 2:58
Did what they could being teenagers. They were busy with school and sports. They tried to help set everything up, they could watch them little toys that they could share and play with normal sibling stuff.
Joe 3:10
Let’s maybe look at some of the commonalities similarities between these two twin experiences and some of the differences when you look at the pregnancy the first time around and second time around how are those the same or different?
Scott 3:23
Well, the first pregnancy you know it was all new to us. He ended up going into labor 36 weeks in second pregnancy she went full term.
Joe 3:32
So first time around everything was brand new, probably a little bit overwhelming. How did the first set of twins prepare you for having another set?
Scott 3:38
Just knowing you know how to handle them with feedings and getting them on schedules and sleep schedules and having the right equipment to deal with them. But it was definitely nice to go through it once to then again do it the second time you kind of knew what to expect a little bit
Joe 3:56
You had experience with twins but your your second wife, this was brand new for her as well. Right?
Scott 4:00
Yes.
Joe 4:00
Did you have any other kids besides the twins
Scott 4:03
with the first wife, we had another son and the second wife she had a child coming into it.
Joe 4:10
You mentioned equipment having gear and stuff was very helpful with twins. What do you remember being most helpful there?
Scott 4:16
Diapers for one for the first twins we had the little vibrating bouncy seats we call them for feeding and the second time we went with the vibrating swings was nice and helpful. We did the formula route both times. So no one to have extra formula and different variations just in case you know normal kids stuff if they didn’t react well to one of them.
Joe 4:40
There’s lots of gear that we can get. That’s helpful and there’s some gear that we can never end up using. We thought it was a good idea when we got it or when it was gifted to us but is there anything that comes to mind that you think Well, that was kind of useless? I didn’t actually need that after all.
Scott 4:53
No, I think with the first step, you know, we learn as we went and I don’t think we’ve really got anything that we didn’t use and the second time I know as we were shopping for things you know we discussed oh this would be nice and then I being in the expert that I am said no I don’t think we’ll need that you know turned out that we didn’t really have anything wasteful.
Joe 5:16
Experience is a good teacher so I’m glad the second time around a little more efficient process. So how were you able to prepare your second wife because you had gone through this experience before so what are some things that you were able to help her understand about what was coming with twins?
Scott 5:30
Knowing about schedules knowing that one of us was not going to get sleep I ended up being the stay at home dad with a second set of twins because I had more knowledge you know just understanding that sometimes you need help when there are two of them.
Joe 5:49
There’s so much to do with twins and you had other kids in the house as well that one of the parents it’s in the best move just to stay home to take care of everybody how did you come to that decision because it’s not just a who’s going to take care of the kid’s decision and it’s also like a financial decision and juggling work and such so how do you decide which parent was the best fit for that role?
Scott 6:08
She has the better job financially able for me to stay home so that made it really easy to then just have a knowledge of how to deal with two children at once.
Joe 6:20
And how long did that last did you end up putting them into daycare or wait till they were school age?
Scott 6:26
yeah they went into daycare the newest set of twins went in a daycare around a year so the first set of twins their mother stayed home with them the entire time they with her and her mother you know they took care of everything and they never needed to go to daycare or anything
Joe 6:45
so your your boys that are that are older what do they do after high school did they head off to college or trade school or work what was the plan there?
Scott 6:52
they’ve both been very close their whole life I think they were like 10 by the time they moved out each other’s bedroom they both went to the same college they both went for chemical engineering they both just graduated this past year and they both got jobs in West Virginia like they’re 40 minutes away from each other
Joe 7:14
wow that’s that’s pretty amazing. do they plan everything to be the same or did just one of them take the lead and the brother’s like hey that sounds pretty good I’m gonna do that too?
Scott 7:21
Kurt is the oldest and he usually took the lead on everything for a while and Kyle would sit back and watch and learn and eventually it seemed like Kyle took over he would just pick up what Kurt was doing and then he tried to do better, constant competition we had entered into the same things they’ve always had the same friends they love being with each other told them it was okay to do different things and they’re like no this is what we want to do said whatever makes you happy
Joe 7:53
Were they roommates in college?
Scott 7:54
yes
Joe 7:54
So the first time they really got separated was after they graduated and got jobs?
Scott 7:58
yeah I asked them if they were going to be okay with that and they said you know we’re not that far away from each other no matter where they go you know they know they can call each other facetime whatever i think they were a little bit anxious about maybe separating but I think they’re okay with it
Joe 8:15
you mentioned they were kind of competitive with each other how did that manifest itself as they were growing up?
Scott 8:21
it was never like they were always best friends I mean they fought small amounts but they were always really good friends and just football they played football they would always go for a similar position and they would just try to outdo each other the same with school if one of them were getting better grades and the other the other one would be you know concerned that he had to work a little bit harder but as they kept going they work together as a team and if one needed help the other one help
Joe 9:00
that’s great so some competition led them to better themselves and get better that’s pretty awesome. Do you see similar characteristics with your younger set, with your girls?
Scott 9:10
no not at all they are totally different personalities. Bacara is more outgoing and Bianca sits back and watches Bacara was walking first crawling first talking first Bianca just sits and watches so I kind of see that similarity where one sits back and watches the other one they haven’t been competitive yet but I’m assuming that’s gonna come
Joe 9:48
so at five are they in preschool or kindergarten right now?
Scott 9:51
preschool
Joe 9:53
and do you have them together or separate in that?
Scott 9:57
they’re together right now as they progress through the daycare Bacara was ahead in certain things so she might have spent like a day or two out in to the bigger class and that’s when Bianca would turn her like start doing things knowing that she needed to be with her sister
Joe 10:18
okay so with with a pair of boys and a pair of girls let’s talk about potty training and that was a long time ago for the boys but which was easier? Potty training twin boys or twin girls?
Scott 10:29
the boys I potty trained them in one evening. The girls it took a little bit longer time. The same with the one ahead of the other one Bacara took to it much quicker than Bianca you know once all the other ones go into the party the other one was going to do that too
Joe 10:50
so you said you trained your boys in one evening so that sounds like a magical feat any tricks of the trade there to pass along to other dads?
Scott 10:58
I’d come home from work and I was tree trimmer at the time that was outside and the cold and the weather got home and we were out of diapers so I looked at em and said okay we’re gonna do this thing we’re gonna try to go to the potty and I’m gonna ask you every five minutes if you have to go to the potty the first five minutes they said no we don’t have to five minutes later they had both gone into the diaper pretty much that evening they were done they hadn’t had any accidents or anything after that I don’t know how, it was the greatest thing ever.
Joe 11:33
we found with our kids that in about a day we got them to understand the mechanics of going to the bathroom and and starting to realize when they would need to go but it definitely took longer for them to always get that right and kudos to you that’s awesome just one evening
Scott 11:50
yeah i was i was hoping that would happen with the girls but it was a one time thing
Joe 11:55
so what are some things that maybe you’ve done differently the second time around with twins than you did the first time?
Scott 12:02
less doctor visits for one because you kind of understand you know had kids for a long time but also when one kid is sick you just take them both in because they’re probably going to end up with the same thing instead of making multiple trips
Joe 12:21
yeah I agree with you on the when one twin gets sick the other one almost always get sick too because they’re always with each other it’s inevitable for sure. Have you seen so you mentioned that they’re together right now in preschool is that the plan going forward to keep them together?
Scott 12:39
I would hope so iIknow my son’s they kept them in the same class until they went to middle school and they were a little worried about that but they were fine they saw each other in the halls . I would hope they would do that with the girls I know even though the girls have the same friends they also have different friends and every time i see a picture that the daycare sends they’re sitting at different tables so they’ve already you know decided to sit away from each other so I don’t think it would hurt them as much but it would be nice for them to stay together for a little while to help each other out with confidence or you know getting along with people
Joe 13:32
Yeah, we’ve had our girls together and separate and sometimes it’s really good for them when they’re apart because like you mentioned they can form new friendships and can learn to be a little more independent from each other so let’s talk about co-parenting what how do you determine what a good routine is good interactions are to make that work?
Scott 13:51
I’m divorced twice we’re co parenting anytime you have to go through that but you have to think of the kids going what’s going to help them out the most keeping the same routine at both homes is the biggest issue anytime you know a kid has to go through that they might act a little bit so you have to try to keep the same basic rules and do the same things same schedules.
Joe 14:22
Is the time kind of split half and half between the two of you?
Scott 14:25
yeah we dropped them off daycare different days pick them up different days I’m sure once they start school because I actually moved a couple towns over now we were just having a conversation this morning about we’re gonna have to talk about you know what’s going to happen when school starts and how to figure that one out
Joe 14:48
how many kids are left in the house right now?
Scott 14:51
well I have a 14 year old and he’s here on weekends and we have a 13 year old daughter plus five year old twins,
Joe 15:04
do your teenagers volunteer to babysit? Or is that off the table?
Scott 15:12
Not so much babysit. They might help out every now and then. But teenagers being teenagers, most of the time they get annoyed with little kids when the little kids could be annoying sometimes.
Joe 15:27
I’ve got two teenagers and my twins are almost teenagers, they are 12 and a half. And they get annoyed at lots of things. So I think that’s just I think that’s just the age. So Scott, if you found out if you found out that maybe your best friend is having twins, what kind of advice would you give to that friend?
Scott 15:43
Well, first off the pregnancy, you’re gonna, you know, she’s gonna be really uncomfortable. She’s gonna get really big, because there’s two babies in there. As far as my first set of twins, they were 36 weeks when they were born, they were right around four pounds. We were told they would be in the hospital for a few weeks. They were only in there, in the NICU for a couple of days, I think three days and we were home. The second set of twins, they went full term. Left in, you know, a couple days when mom was ready to go. So you can’t really be too worried about that. Of course you might have different circumstances. But definitely, definitely buy diapers, lots and lots of diapers, catch up on some sleep because you’re going to miss some sleep for a couple weeks until you figure out what the feeding schedule and the sleeping schedule. That’s the biggest part.
Joe 16:45
You never know how important sleep is until you don’t get it in the right amounts. And it’s interrupted all night long as that can be quite brutal. So Scott, as we wrap up today, if listeners want to reach out and get in touch, what’s the best way to get in contact?
Scott 17:01
By email: [email protected].
Joe 17:07
Excellent. And we’ll link up to that in the show notes for this episode. Scott, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today. We really appreciate it.
Scott 17:13
All right, thank you.
Joe 17:15
I hope you enjoy that chat with Scott about his adventure as a twin dad times two some of the things that he learned and did a little bit different the second time around. If you’d like to share your story on the podcast like Scott did today, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me via email [email protected] or I’m on Instagram or Twitter. You can message me @twindadjoe. Today’s show is brought to you by my second book for dads called Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins. You can learn more about that book and pick up a copy for yourself at raisingtwinsbook.com thank you so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
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The post Having Two Sets of Twins from Two Different Marriages with Scott Johnson – Podcast 238 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
18 min
April 21, 2021Raising Active Three Year Old Twin Boys with Steve Wisniewski – Podcast 237
Episode 237 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes
Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Steve Wisniewski, father of three-year-old identical twin boys. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:
Twins having their own language
Having a toddler when the twins are born
How his teenager helped with the twins
Graduating from cribs to full-size beds
How the older child interacts with the twins
Having grandparents help with kids a few times a week
Finding the right daycare for infant twins
Getting kids out in nature and camping
and more…
Connect with Steve via email here or on Facebook.
Transcript
Joe 0:00
Finding out that you’re having twins when you still have an infant in the home. That are much more on the podcast today.
Intro 0:08
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, “Dad’s Guide to Twins”, Joe Rawlinson.
Joe 0:23
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 237th episode of the Dads Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. As always, you can find me on the web at twindadpodcast.com. Where you will find the complete transcript for this episode, and you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series, a fellow father of identical twin boys. But before we jump into that story, I want to let you know that you can get a free audiobook version of my first book, Dad’s Guide to Twins by going to freetwinbook.com. Once again, that’s freetwinbook.com. Let’s jump straight into that interview. Today, I would like to welcome to the show fellow father of twins, Steve Wisniewski, welcome to the show, Steve.
Steve 1:08
Hey, Joe. Thanks for having me.
Joe 1:10
Steve, how old are your twins right now? And what is the most exciting thing about this age?
Steve 1:15
Right now they’re almost three and a half. And they, for me, the best part now is just watching them every day. And learning from them and learning what they’re learning. And just to see him communicate with each other. It just still to this day amazes me that that they say that they have their own language. And I see that every day. I think they have their own language.
Joe 1:45
Do you have boys or girls or one of each?
Steve 1:47
I have identical boys.
Joe 1:50
So tell us about this unique language that they have? What does that look like or sound like?
Steve 1:55
They sit there. And sometimes they have the tablets and they’ll play their games on it. And they’ll sit there play together, they’ll use the one tablet. And then I’ll just sit back and listen from time to time. And they where just talking to each other. And I don’t know if they’re using words they don’t use English language words, are they using their own words, but they communicate with each other and nobody know what each other’s they’re staying to each other and they agree on it, or they’ll start fighting with each other.
Joe 2:29
That’s interesting. I noticed something similar with our girls where they could understand each other. And if one of me or my wife had trouble understanding them, maybe one of them would act as a translator for her sister.
Steve 2:41
Exactly that. And then if I say if I guess what they’re saying. And it’s wrong, though, that they will say no. And so I will have to go through the whole charades or however they do it and try it till I figure out what they’re saying. Me Out me or my wife.
Joe 2:57
Let’s rewind back to when you found out that you were having twins. What was your family situation like at that time?
Steve 3:03
We had just got through with a newborn, we had a nine month old at the time. So it was and I have a at the time was 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage. So we had, you know, still with the baby stage. And it took us a while to get to get pregnant with him. And so to find out that she was pregnant again was quite, you know, but Oh, geez, that happened fast. So we were still adapting to, you know, having pretty much newborn in the house when we found out that, that we were having another child that time, let alone two.
Joe 3:46
Having been a dad before. How was that able to help you prepare for the twins?
Steve 3:52
I mean, I don’t know if anyone’s ever ready to know that they’re having twins, but we were still in the routine, you know, the diapers, you know, the bottles, the stuff like that. So it was, you know, we didn’t know what to expect. But we knew what we were kind of expecting, you know, like I said we didn’t know right away that we were having twins until probably a month or so later. So, but we were you know, we kind of knew what to expect because we were still in those stages.
Joe 4:29
Yeah, no rest for the weary has you add two new infants to the mix there. Well, how did the pregnancy progress with the twins? Were there any complications?
Steve 4:38
Actually, no, I was at a fairly smooth pregnancy. You know, we were seeing the regular ob and then we were going to see a specialist to make sure that they were measuring the same size. You know, there were no abnormalities with one or the other. So it was it was actually fairly smooth. So all went well.
Joe 5:01
That’s great. That’s not always the case with twin pregnancies. That’s awesome. So when your twin boys were born, your other child was nine months old. And then you had a teenage daughter? How was your older daughter able to help with the infant twins or participate?
Steve 5:17
Oh, she was excited, obviously. So yeah, I actually when the twins were born, our oldest son was already probably a year and a half, we had found out when he was at nine months. So he was a year and a half. But my daughter was very excited to be another, to be a big sissy again. And super excited to have twin brothers. You know, that’s not something everybody can say. But she had already, like I said before, she was already part of the process with our oldest son, you know, to the date from the day he was born in the hospital, helping the nurses, you know, take his footprints and do the check the well checks and so she’s always been a big part of their lives and a big help.
Joe 6:05
That’s great to have extra pair of hands. And she’s obviously had some practice already with your other son, by the time the twins arrived. But regardless, I mean, having a one and a half year old and newborn twins not that’s a lot to handle all at once. Because as you mentioned, your your one and a half year old, still taking naps, and still probably in diapers, and then all of a sudden infants come into the mix. How were you able to juggle the needs of all of these very young children at the same time?
Steve 6:32
The twins were different than our firstborn, the firstborn, who was just he never wanted to sleep nap for 15-20 minutes at a time. But the twins were actually a little bit easier. Because if one would go, Well, I should say easier, but one would go down for a nap or whatever. The other ones stay awake. And then the other one go down the other one to get up. So the constant rotation. But yeah, there were definitely challenges and all of it for my wife, and I just there was never any downtime, really I mean not even for 15 minutes. So we’re always, you know, changing the diapers or one feeding the other one feeding our oldest son. So there’s never was never really a break. So it’s always a constant. Go go go go go.
Joe 7:28
Yeah, understandably, did you have enough room in your house to accommodate the influx of kids? Or did you have to upgrade anything there?
Steve 7:36
We did have enough room. At that time, now we’re finding out that we do not have enough room because we could keep them the twins in the same room, the cribs, you know, together, and then they just recently graduated to full size beds, eventually, we would like to have them in their own rooms bedroom, I think they enjoy sharing a room, even when we do upgrade, I still believe they’re gonna sleep in the same room regardless of whether they have their own rooms or not.
Joe 8:06
Right, tell us about that transition from cribs to beds.
Steve 8:09
Well, they went from the cribs and toddler beds, but and then they were always getting out, we had to figure out a way to basically, as what we end up doing is putting our toddler beds together where they would just have one big area to lay down. And they would eventually learn how to find their own way out after that. But then we just recently probably in the last two to three weeks, were able to get their big boy beds and they love them. They still, you know struggled to sleep in them by themselves. But for the most part, they’re doing pretty good with them. They just think it’s something cool, they can jump across from one bed to the other right now,
Joe 8:55
When your twins are born, your one and a half year old probably didn’t really know what was happening. I know that he’s a little bit older, how is that relationship evolved over time?
Steve 9:04
They get along very well. For the most part, he is very protective, even if the twins are having their differences. And one will have an advantage over the other one, he’ll step in to make sure the one who has a disadvantage will be taken care of. So he’s very protective. Very good Big Brother. But there are times where he will look at me or my wife or not. He’ll say to us, mom or dad what’s wrong with those two, but overall, he’s a good Big Brother.
Joe 9:37
That’s fun. It’s funny how he is the mediator or the judge in the arguments. Our middle child, one of our singleton’s kind of fills that same role of mediating the other siblings. That’s interesting. I don’t know if that’s just a second child thing or a middle child thing or what but it’s fun to observe. So tell us about kind of balancing work and family were you able to get time off When your boys were born?
Steve 10:01
Yeah, especially with the twins, I, I’m in a position where I, I am the manager, so I was able to have extra time off with the twins. And it was very beneficial just to get acclimated to the whole new world that we’re stepping into, as we know, we didn’t know what we were getting into. And we have a great support system with grandparents that you know, are able to come and sit, you know, and babysat a couple of days a week for us. And then we felt it was very important to get them into daycare and get them around other kids and, and let them have that experience as well. So we balanced the schedule, pretty good. My wife does the majority of the hauling, you know, to daycare and, you know, pick up and drop offs. And this because I get up early and I need to be at work earlier, she has the luxury of being able to go in later and take care of the main duties of, of the drop offs and stuff like that. So, but we balanced the schedule out pretty good. If I’m needed, then it’s you know, it’s, we’re, I’m well aware of what day what time where I need to be, I need to pick them up. If I need to drop them off, or she needs to go early for a meeting, especially these times where she’s in the healthcare field where we needed to make some adjustments.
Joe 11:29
How are you able to find a daycare that best fit the needs of your family,
Steve 11:33
We searched around, there are a lot of good ones where we live, we went to three or four by recommendations of friends or family that they have had their children go there, but we just look for the ones that we thought best fit our schedules. Because they don’t go every day they are home two days out of the week with grandma. And then the other three days, they’re there so that it was able to work out pretty good. But we did our homework and I just found what best fit what we were looking for.
Joe 12:10
Were all three of your boys at the same daycare, or just the twins?
Steve 12:13
Yes, they’re in different rooms, as part of the public school system, the older boy right now. He is in preschool. And then the twins are now in. I believe they’re in the tyke room. So it starts out at newborn toddler tyke, preschool. So I think at some point this year, they will all be in the same room for the first time.
Joe 12:37
And what age were able to get the boys into day care?
Steve 12:41
They were three months old at the time, by the time he went to daycare,
Joe 12:44
So based on your experience so far, what milestones or when has it gotten a little bit easier, as a parent?
Steve 12:49
To be honest with you, I think it gets easier every day. The more they communicate, the more they learn. I think the turning point for me is when they were able to start understanding and talking and we’re able to communicate with each other where our you know, may have been a struggle to try to figure out what they were saying and what they wanted. But you know, at once we started, you know, learning I guess learning their language and it became easier the daycare they go to they do a really good job. Pretty much like school, they learn their alphabet they learn all the basic stuff to help them along so you know the big jump was from for me was from toddler room to the tyke room where they’re you know, the alphabets the shapes the basic, you know, when it started developing our language
Joe 13:38
Communication is so important otherwise everybody’s kind of frustrated the kids are frustrated because you don’t understand them and you’re frustrated because you can’t understand them. And so once they can start to communicate even at a basic level it’s a big breakthrough. So when we when you have kids you have to buy a bunch of stuff a bunch of gear equipment clothing cetera. what’s so two questions here what is a piece of equipment that you purchased that was like a lifesaver with your twins and what is something that you got that ended up not being a big deal you never really used it?
Steve 14:10
I mean obviously the double stroller is always a big thing. And that’s always huge. And we bought we upgraded vehicles because at the time my wife was driving a Traverse which was almost impossible for even me to have to get him in there. I usually take the one open the hatch to get it through and swing him in the back way. By you know the bottles were a huge thing because we were only having we only had to had the one at the time. You know the one son and so we have to double up on bottles but you know, definitely a vehicle that we ended up going from a Traverse to a Ford Transit van which was kind of a letdown for my wife. But now she seems, actually, when we talk about letting her get in or wanting her to get a new vehicle. She said, I like the room. It’s easy to get in and out. And if there was one thing to do without so many different things that we have not used that we’ve had from even our firstborn being son like that. We’ve used the Baby Bjorn. Once. There’s just a lot that we have not used.
Joe 15:29
Your comments without the van remind me when we had to go from a more regular car to a minivan I swore I would never get a minivan but it worked out OK, you know, there is more space, it’s easier to get in and out of the sliding doors. So having kids definitely opened my eyes there as far as the utility of vehicles.
Steve 15:48
Yeah, this is a 10 seater. And we know we could take a bench seat out where the twins will sit towards the back and we have that room for all the gear you know, whatever they want to take now it’s not gear anymore. It’s just whatever they want to haul in the van at any given time and our older son sets up towards the front and they have their DVD TVs playing and everyone seems to be happy for the most part.
Joe 16:15
That’s great. Do your kids have a dedicated seat in the vehicles that they always go to?
Steve 16:21
Yes, twins have their seats in the back towards the back of the van and then our oldest son has the one at the front although there are some fights sometimes that one of the twins wants to sit up in the front that was just be a matter of moving some seats around to make that happen but for the most part they have assigned seating and if I if I don’t recognize one or because I still to this day cannot sometimes pick out who’s who. And I grabbed the one and he’s not in a seat I put him in the wrong seat he’ll tell me no not my seat.
Joe 16:56
We had I mean when our kids were much smaller about you know the age of your kids and younger like the carseat was always kind of mounted in the car so they had like permanently assigned seats but then as I got older and went to like booster seats and stuff, and they wanted to move around more often and now they definitely want to take turns moving about but they always seem to like leave a mess behind them like they leave a mess for their sibling to sit in later. So it’s a trade off.
Steve 17:24
That is a fact there’s always something left over and one of the cupholders in the in their car seats, whether it’s theirs or someone else’s but there is always a stack in here usually stale but there’s always something left in one of the cupholders.
Joe 17:40
So when you look at the ups and downs of parenting right now what is something that is working and working well for you and your kids?
Steve 17:48
I think it is life in general to be honest with you. I mean we have a good balance of work and home. You know when we’re when we’re home on the weekends we always are engaging them. wanting to do things with them even with the way the world is now with COVID you know, up here in Michigan, you know we have our snow so you know we get a fresh coating of snow we’ll take them on sled and run them out to the grandparents house. I think there’s that there’s a good balance right now. You know with everything going on. Like I said this we just try to keep them busy. Especially in the summertime. When it’s beautiful out here you know they’re outside from from sunup to sundown. And you know, we just always try to keep them busy, keep them engaged.
Joe 18:44
Have you been able to do any traveling? I mean maybe before COVID or now with the whole crew?
Steve 18:50
We’re campers so we have a camper and it only this past year. It only took one camp trip away from us which was our Memorial Day weekend camp trip but we made up through it, for it throughout the throughout the rest of the summer where we were able to hit you know 5, 6, 7 times out camping which is normally what we try to do at the campgrounds they have their restrictions just like anywhere else mashed inside you know the campgrounds store and any public area but it didn’t really slow us down as far as is any of that is concerned
Joe 19:25
Do your kids enjoy camping equally or are some just kind of dragged to along for the ride?
Steve 19:30
Now they all enjoy it even tonight coming home. Someone had a fire going in their fireplace in their house and one of the one of the boys said Oh campfire, he could smell it in the air. But there are typical boys Up, up and out and dirty from the minute they hit the ground. So they all love being out there and either going, you know going swimming or going for a walk on for a bike ride around the campground, camp fires to smores. to the whole experience of camping.
Joe 20:06
That’s great. Yeah. We’ve noticed too, that our kids are happier when they get outside and enjoy nature. It’s been great to really get them out and explore the beauties of our world. So Steve, as we wrap up today, if listeners want to reach out to you, what’s the best way to get in touch?
Steve 20:25
I have an email. It is [email protected]. Also, I’m on Facebook at Steve Wisniewski. You’ll recognize the picture of the twins in the family out there. So I’m always willing to share experiences and give any advice I can because it is a new world.
Joe 20:54
Steve, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We really appreciate it.
Steve 20:58
Thanks, Joe. I appreciate it. I really appreciate you inviting me out.
Joe 21:04
I hope you enjoy that chat with Steve about his adventures as a twin Father, if you want to connect with Steve I linked it to his contact information at twindadpodcast.com and the Show Notes for this episode. You can also listen to all previous podcast episodes there on the website. If you would like to share your story like Steve did today. I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me via email [email protected]. I’m also on Instagram and Twitter @twindadjoe. And I would love to hear from you. Again. Today’s show is brought to you by my first book for dads. It’s called Dad’s Guide to Twins and you can get a free audiobook version of my book at freetwinbook.com. Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next time.
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If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review on iTunes by clicking here. It will help other parents of twins find the show!
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22 min
April 16, 2021 Which twin is older? (and should you tell them)
As a parent of twins, I’m pretty sure that you know the answer to the question “which twin is older?”
It is, of course, the child that was born first.
Should you tell your twins which twin is the oldest?
One of your twins is older than the other. But should you tell them who is older?
Even though twins are born on the same day, one of them’s coming out of mom before the other. They could be seconds apart (but more likely a couple of minutes apart), depending on the type of delivery.
Strangers or family or friends will ask, “Which twin is older?” long before your twins ask that question. I share some responses you can give strangers in a moment. But first, what to do with your twins…
Should you tell your twins who is older? We did. We did from an early age, and it hasn’t been a big deal. Now, granted, our girls aren’t teenagers yet, but even with those mischievous toddler years behind us, it hasn’t been a problem. Most twin parents I’ve talked to aren’t afraid to tell their twins which one is older.
Telling Your Twins Who Is Older
When it comes time to tell your twins, consider a few of these things:
It might not even matter to them which twin is older. If they don’t bring it up, maybe you don’t have to bring it up either.
Alternatively, you can bring it up preemptively so that they know, “Well, you were born two minutes before your sister.”
In our situation, one of our identical girls was born two minutes before her sister. And we haven’t really made a big deal about it. They both know who’s the older one and who’s the younger one.
Guess what? Their birth order doesn’t seem to matter.
As a family, we take turns rotating through activities or taking turns for everything. For example, we take turns doing an activity with daddy or simply saying a family prayer. We rotate through all of our kids. There’s no discrimination against the older or the younger child in the mix.
If you as a parent don’t make a big deal about which twin is older and don’t give preferential treatment to one over the other, then your kids will follow a similar pattern. They’ll follow your example.
How to Answer the “Which Twin is Older” Question with Strangers
While this may seem obvious to you, determining which twin is older is a source of intrigue for strangers who feel prompted to ask you probing questions.
When you are at the store with the twins, a random person will ask “which one is older?”
Why does this even matter to someone who doesn’t even know my family? Are they hoping to see a difference in an older versus younger child?
Here are some ways you can respond:
“This one” or “she/he is” – this response will likely answer the questioner.
“He is [insert time] older” – so for our girls, we’d say “She is 2 minutes older.”
“Hey, they’re twins. They’re the same age. They were born on the same day.”
Alternatively, you could tell a tall tale and stump the person questioning. For example, “this one is two weeks older”. At first, someone would say “OK, that’s nice.” but then be wondering how that is even possible.
Feel like talking for a while? Tell them the Nigerian legend that the oldest twin actually pushes the younger twin out of the womb. So the firstborn is really the youngest.
Answering the “which twin is older” question from strangers is one thing. Fielding the questions from friends, family, or the twins themselves is another story. You should discuss as a couple your approach for answering this question with people you know. You don’t want to be too snarky in your response.
Does it Matter?
Regardless of which child is older, you must ask yourself if it matters who is the older twin.
In Biblical times, the firstborn got the birthright, the inheritance, and the responsibilities those entailed. That was a big deal. If you were born second, you lost out.
Remember the story of Issac’s twin sons, Jacob and Esau? Esau was older but sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob for some pottage. Oops. This became a source of conflict for generations to come.
In our modern age, the oldest child typically has more responsibilities and expectations just because they are the oldest when compared to the rest of the children in the family. This dynamic is different with twins because they are the same age. You don’t want to give preferential treatment to one over the other just because of a few minutes difference.
Which of your twins is older? By how much time? Let us know in the comments.
Pictures by Donnie Ray Jones and Nathan
The post Which twin is older? (and should you tell them) appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
6 min
April 07, 2021 How to Avoid Comparing One Twin to the Other with Simon Gellibrand – Podcast 236
Episode 236 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes Today we continue our father of twins interview series ... Read more
The post How to Avoid Comparing One Twin to the Other with Simon Gellibrand – Podcast 236 appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
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March 31, 2021 How early can I know the gender of twins?
Recently, I was asked by a dad expecting twins, “How early can I know the gender of twins?” While you ... Read more
The post How early can I know the gender of twins? appeared first on Dad's Guide to Twins.
6 min

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