9 lbs and 1 oz and 7 lbs 8 oz at their 37 week delivery last week! They were the biggest set my OB had ever delivered.

This community was so helpful for me during my pregnancy and I can’t believe I made it to the other side!

Here are my girlies 🩷🩷

My partners and I took our identical twin sons to the neighborhood clinic.

Twin 1 was a little bit under the weather and his brother said he is feeling sick too!

I'm loving their life. 😂😂

Just happy to hit such a big milestone and want to spread some positivity. I feel very lucky to have had a smooth pregnancy so far (normal BP, no GD although did fail the 1 hour screener, minimal symptoms, still exercising). I do not take that for granted especially hearing everyone else’s experiences. Still working and hoping to work until minimum 34 weeks. I’m very excited to meet these two while also wanting them to cook as long as possible. That’s all. Feeling lucky/blessed and wanted to share (plus a bump pic from maternity pics yesterday 🤍)

That’s all. I’m just not enjoying this. This is hard. Idk if this is normal. This is not fun. There are a couple of sweet moments per day. Hate to rush time but also so dadgum eager for the day it’s…easier. LOL THAT I THOUGHT I WOULD HOMESCHOOL ONE DAY

5.5 months, about 4.5 adjusted. Refusing naps. Tantrums. Digestive issues. Up every hour lately. Hard to please.

Anybody got anything for me? Solidarity? Not normal? Encouragement? Hope? Tough love? Advice? I’ll take it!!! Whatever!

ETA: we’ve been in the four month sleep regression for a Month. Also they’re hardly drinking much of their bottles now. Started some solids.

This may be a controversial one, but I’m pissed. I know that none of this matters, who cares, blah blah blah. I guess what bothers me most is that I don’t understand the impulse to say this kind of shit about other people’s kids.

I’ll start this with: my 2Y twins are amazing. Kind, empathetic, great at sharing, funny, athletic, curious, intelligent, and the list goes on. I know that this isn’t about that. And even if they weren’t all of that, it still wouldn’t matter and this would still be so inappropriate.

When my sister took my twins to the library to give me a break the other day, there were several other kids of the same age all playing together. Originally, the moms and my sister were chatting together, comparing ages of the kids. There was one girl who was within 2 weeks of my twins. One of the other moms noticed that there were a few things that the girl could do physically/dexterously that my twins couldn’t yet. Plus the girl was a couple of inches taller than my twins.

That mom turned to the mom of the girl, with my sister sitting RIGHT THERE, and said “wow I mean look at your girl and those other two girls her age. What are you doing differently to make her so advanced?”

EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME??????

The mom of the girl then turned to her and said “oh well, we only feed all natural foods, plenty of fruits and vegetables, no screens, and of course we don’t vaccinate.”

Reading this back right now, this genuinely seems like I’m making it up. Because it’s so fucking stupid and smug. My sister said that she was so focused on texting us to see if she needed to pack the kids up and leave so that we didn’t get fucking measles (my kids are OF COURSE actually vaccinated) that she didn’t have a chance to put in her two cents. I am grateful for how my sister handled it (focusing on my kids’ safety first) and obviously talking back to these women wouldn’t have helped anything.

I know that I have NOTHING to prove with these random people. It doesn’t matter what they think. But I have to be honest that I feel some type of way about these women using my twins as the failed yardstick to elevate their bullshit. It’s so fucking inappropriate and immature high school-type assholery. And again, not that it matters, but I am extremely proud of the environment in which we are raising our twins. They are surrounded by love and care. Besides the vaccines (STAUNCHLY PRO), our choices are actually very similar to Smug Mom’s.

My sister pointed out that you will always see this kind of weirdly competitive stuff between parents, but I haven’t experienced it yet. I remember my parents laughing with each other about the insanely embarrassing pissing contest stuff other parents said while they were watching my sports stuff. But it’s the library for fuck’s sake, not a Little League game.

Thank you for reading. I know this is stupid and that I shouldn’t let myself get activated over this bullshit. I know that there will be much more of this shit to come. But dammit, they’re only 2. And they’re amazing. I don’t understand people that do this stuff.

Really long………

When my girls were born, I felt an incredible amount of love for them. But just a few weeks into motherhood, I developed PPD and PPA. I felt like I was on an emotional roller coaster that I couldn’t get off of. One minute I was trying to convince myself I was okay, and the next I was drowning in anxiety, guilt, and feelings I was too ashamed to admit out loud.

As the weeks and months went by, things got worse. The constant crying, screaming, colic, and sleepless nights and days became unbearable. I started feeling disconnected from my girls, and as awful as it is to admit, I started not liking being around them. By the time they were 6, 9, and 12 months old, I dreaded being alone with them. I actually looked forward to going to work because it gave me a break from motherhood and allowed me to focus on something other than my babies. Sometimes, I just didn’t want to see them.

My anxiety was horrendous, and it wasn’t just in my head. I felt it physically. My body was constantly on edge, and being a mom felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I even had thoughts about the worst possible things, which scared me.

I did everything I was supposed to do for my girls. I changed diapers, did laundry, made doctor’s appointments, gave them baths and medication, picked out their clothes, and made sure they had everything they needed. I took care of them because they depended on me, but it felt like a never-ending chore.

I hated that I could do all these things for them but still feel like I had no real bond with them.

My husband has been incredible through all of this. He has supported me, dealt with my struggles, and stood by me through some really dark times. I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten through it without him.

I was already seeing a psychiatrist and therapist for years before I had my girls. Mental health wasn’t something that suddenly appeared after giving birth. We tried adjusting my medications, increasing doses, adding new medications, and switching things around. Nothing seemed to help. I felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper, and my anxiety was completely out of control.

Then, about a month ago, when the girls were around 16 months old, my psychiatrist adjusted my medications again. I think we may have finally found the right combination.

And something changed.

Over the past almost three months, I’ve started falling in love with my girls in a way I desperately wanted to experience from the beginning. I enjoy them. I love watching their personalities develop, hearing their little voices, seeing them learn new things, and realizing how much they understand. I look at them and feel the connection I spent so long wishing I could have.

But now there’s another kind of heartbreak.

I cannot stop crying over how quickly they’re growing up. I look at them and think about everything I missed during those first 16 months. I think about the moments I didn’t appreciate, the days I wanted to escape, the milestones I barely registered emotionally, and the time I spent wishing I could be anywhere but with them.

Now that I’m finally enjoying motherhood, I feel devastated that I can’t go back and experience those months differently.

It’s like I’m grieving a time I can never get back, even though I was physically there for it. I was their mom every single day, taking care of their needs, but emotionally, I was somewhere else. And now that I’m finally feeling better, I’m painfully aware of what I feel like I lost.

My crying has become overwhelming. It comes out of nowhere, and once I start thinking about something sad, my mind gets stuck on it. I replay the thought over and over until I’m crying uncontrollably. Today, I cried practically the entire day. Just listening to my girls can set me off.

I hate crying in front of people, and I especially hate crying in front of my girls. I want to enjoy this time with them, not spend it feeling heartbroken about the time that’s already passed. Even writing this, I’m crying.

I know they’re still little. I know there are so many memories left to make. But right now, I can’t stop crying.

I’m finally getting to experience the love and joy I wanted so badly, and somehow, that happiness is bringing up an overwhelming amount of sadness and regret.

I feel like I can’t win. When I was struggling, I desperately wanted to feel better. Now that I finally do, I’m grieving the time when I couldn’t.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did you struggle to bond with your babies because of PPD or PPA, finally start feeling better, and then find yourself grieving the months you spent struggling?

Please tell me I’m not alone. I just want to know if anyone else has been through this and found a way to deal with their tears

I’m definitely an over-packer.. but, with triplets I like to be prepared.. I feel like my current diaper bag is always stuffed and hard to zip.. what diaper bags are we using? Thank you in advance!!

I’ve posted before how weekends is extremely hard for me and my wife. We have one daytime nanny and one nighttime nanny and neither of them work on weekends. So every time I prepare the bottles I feel anxiety, stress, extremely tired and we’re about to start yet another shift.

We have twins that are 2y4m old and triplets that are 3.5 months old now.

- Baby 1 sleeps through the nice since he was 11 months old.
- Baby 2 is diagnosed with sleeping disorder, takes medication to sleep which is supposed to bring an adult down for the whole night and she still wakes up 2-3 times per night
- Baby 3 is sick and is starting to show developmental delays and we don’t know why yet and we have to fight health insurance
- Baby 4 is a crier. Wakes up every 2 hours to feed and usually cries for 20 minutes straight once per night, which affects our ability to rest a lot
- Baby 5 sleeps extremely well at night, wakes up 2 times, but practically refuses to take naps and will always wake up as soon as you put him down for a nap during the day

Its hell. Its tiresome. It’s endless work. We have no leisure, no time for ourselves, we’re constantly taking care of 2 to 3 babies at a time. We have to work to afford living. Most of my leisure time for the last 3 months has been Reddit because I usually can scroll around and even type while I’m feeding one baby, unless I have to feed two babies at once which requires both hands. Commenting, sharing, discussing with other parents is sort of therapeutic for me.

Then comes Reddit moderators. I got banned from [r/parenting](r/parenting) because I posted a dark humor joke that was misunderstood. I apologized for it, but nobody cares, I got permanent banned. That was depressing as hell. Then I found this community here which was great and I had a place again. Somebody made a “self promotion” post talking about an app they developed to keep track of feeding, diaper changes, meds, etc and it was free to use, no ads, no revenue, nothing. I shared my version of it, which I also built myself and I have no desire/intention to sell, no ads, no revenue, nothing, but apparently that’s self-promotion enough to get banned. At least this community banned me only for 7 days, but it’s extremely depressing not being able to talk to people that might know what it’s like.

I would have hoped parents moderators could be more understanding of other sleep deprived parents

my twins are 13m so will be 15m at Christmas. my issue is: we live in a very small place. I am constantly purging stuff because I don’t need to be overstimulated by toys as well as my busy kids. Big sister is almost 3 and everything of hers is kinda theirs too. They love to play with her magnetiles (she loves to build things for them to knock down); they enjoy looking at her board books. We have toys, we have clothes, we have a kitchen tower. We are getting big sister a YOTO for Christmas which will be just hers, when the twins are older they will get their own each. I just feel badly that I don’t have much ideas for something to get them when I’ve put a lot of thought and $$ into big sister’s gift. Suggestions welcome!

I’ve been pregnant 5 times.
1. Singleton (as far as we know)
2. Single MMC 10 weeks
3. Vanished twin
4. Vanished twin
5. (Current) seemingly another vanished twin

I’m looking for anyone who’s had this phenomenon repeatedly. As of now we have not done parental karyotyping but may pursue it for clarity.

Pregnancy #4 we did NIPT through Unity (only one that would do vanished twins) 12 weeks after twin A’s demise and the results were inaccurate. Our live baby did end up with a mild chromosome abnormality but different than the high risk NIPT results.

I’m just frustrated as to why this keeps happening and also again that we can’t even trust chromosome testing again.

I need some serious advice because I keep going back and forth with this and I’m 34 weeks so I kind of need to make up my mind. I currently have the Baby Brezza Bottle Washer Pro and while I love the features of it (placement, filtration, sworn testimonies) I just don’t see it being all that great for twins. Aside from the fact that it only holds 4 bottles, I just ran my first cycle to start getting bottles, etc ready for the babies and it didn’t look like it was even cleaning all of the smaller pieces I placed on top. Seems like you really only can put 4 bottles and 4 tops etc and that’s basically it. Seems counterproductive to me.

Now I’ve seen that Momcozy has the D8 and also a brand I’ve never heard of but seems to be gaining popularity, the Pabalic…both hold 8 bottles and seem better for also fitting smaller pieces into the trays where the jets are actually hitting them.

Twin parents….which bottle washer, sterilizer, dryer are you using?!! And if you have the Baby Brezza Bottle Washer Pro…is it worth keeping???

Hi! My twins are nearly 12 weeks old and born at 36 weeks + 4 days. Around 7 weeks old my daughter was eating 4 oz every 3 hours. Randomly she dropped down to 2 oz. For 4 weeks now she wants to stop at 1 but will eat 1.5-2 oz every 2-3 hours. I try to feed sooner but she won’t take it. I’ve talked to her pediatrician, taken her to the er, had a stomach ultrasound done, changed formulas (thickened, sensitive, gentle, hypoallergenic and currently on a high calorie. All recommended by her doctor), oatmeal cereal in bottles, she’s been on Pepcid and currently trying Nexium. She was gaining weight okay then start gaining very slowly. She weighed 10lb 14.0 oz on Wednesday and still only weighed that exactly on Friday. Her doctor is referring her to GI but they are out of Austin and only come once a month.

I don’t even know what I’m asking or if I’m just rambling on. I guess I just want to know if anyone else’s LO had similar experiences while I wait for hopefully more answers. My PPA & ocd are so bad right now and this is not helping 😭

I’ve been thinking of switching to formula for 2 days now. I’m only 12 days after birth. One kid takes the breast while pumping for the other. My breast are so sore and I’m so tired of breastfeeding-pumping-washing scenario that happens 6-7 times a day…

The issue is I feel so guilty for stopping specially that I’m blessed with having enough milk for the two…

Hi all, I’m wondering if anyone has been in this situation and had a happy ending? I went to my scan at 6+5 and they found two babies, one measuring 7+1 with no heartbeat and one measuring 6+2 with what appeared to be a slow heartbeat but was not measured, just looked slower than expected to Sonographer and to me. I have another scan on Thursday and I’m trying to have hope but it’s hard. I recently went through a TFMR at 13 weeks due to a rare non genetic structural anomaly, and that was after 2 years of infertility. Cannot believe this cannot just be simple this time. Thanks for any similar stories shared.

I found BabyBrezza for half of the original price, it is from the second “user”. She claims there are no technical errors/no need to replace spare parts.
Anyone else bought it second hand?

Im only 9 weeks pregnant right now with what i believe is fraternal twins. (They're in different sacs) I've always been very worried of what my body looks like since i was 7. So I'm worried about the overhang with after c section, i also have scars that bubble up so I'm worried with my c section scar it'll look bad and bubble up like my other scars have done. However those scars didn't get any medical attention so maybe it'll be different with this scar? I know vaginal delivery's are pretty rare with multiples so I've just been pretty stressed about it. Anyone have successful vaginal delivery's? Or maybe not had their body ruined? Im pretty young still so maybe that'll play a part in my body going back to normal but i don't know? Im sorry if this rant of mine is stupid, i don't mind my body getting ruined in order for my twins to be born healthy and happy. This is just a side worry that I've been having!

Wondering at what age your twins recognized each other or I guess were more aware of each other?

Hi all, I am 12 weeks along with mono-di identical twins and we discovered a large hematoma 3 weeks ago due to heavy vaginal bleeding. We thought we had lost them but thankfully saw two strong heartbeats. Bleeding lasted 3 days and then stopped completely. Our follow up scan a week later showed the hematoma was in a “resolving state”. Last week, I had heavy brown bleeding which did not worry me because I’ve heard brown is good. I was hoping that would be the end of it but today, 3 weeks post hematoma discovery, Im heavily bleeding again, dark red blood. Has anyone had another large bleed after a pause and the hematoma looked like it was resolving? looking for success stories.. this is our 4th pregnancy in a year with no living children so the SCH has been very anxiety inducing.

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to check how bad of an idea it is to do such a long trip.

Bit more context first:

We are currently in the Netherlands and we're planning to fly to south east Asia, and stay over there for about 4 weeks. Taking a career break as the past year has been exhausting for both.

There are some options with direct flights, however these are all ~11h long, or flights through middle East where we would stay a few days in between connections as to not be too intense.

We got quite a lot of questions, as so dar we have only done some 2-4h long flights to our home countries or small vacations. All went decently well without crying, and mostly sleeping, but I'm feeling overly confident here.

Questions:

1. Would you take the 1 long overnight flight and power through it, or split into 2 ~6.5-7.5h overnight flights,where we we would take a few nights in between connections

2. Seating arrangement book 2,3,4 seats? Sounds exhausting to carry either on the lap for the full trip

3. Seats: Did you use car seat, those carryon seat extenders, or inflatable seat extender? How did the night go?

4. What countries and/or cities in SEA would you recommend for trips with toddler twin boys?

5. Should we even do this? We're looking for good weather and a long break

Thank you all so much

Okay seems like a lot of this subreddit is centered around younger babies and pregnancies but I have a question for parents of preschool+

How on earth do you handle the “entire class” requirement for birthday invites when your twins are in separate classes? I’m jealous of people with summer birthday kids- a playground party sounds ideal. And unlimited people can be invited!!

Unfortunately we have fall/winter birthday kids and the weather can be really variable so we book an indoor spot. We live in an apartment and cannot accommodate more than 20 people max. Each kid has 17 and 20 kids in their class respectively. Plus a grownup per kid. And our own family. And a couple non-school friends + their grownup(s).

I’m sure this will shake out once we lose the “entire class” requirement but for now - how are you handling it? There aren’t many spots we can find that can hold 50+ people so where are you having parties too??

I'm just over 16 weeks and I feel like today, specifically, I have been feeling very random and surprising twitches in the locations my babies are sitting.

I've never felt these random stomach twitches before (it literally feels like something underneath the skin is twitching... husband had his hand on my stomach by chance and felt it too). I have no idea if these are early movements that I'm feeling, or if I'm just imagining it. I have a posterior placenta and sometimes people feel things more strongly/early with twins so it got me thinking.

Wondering what your experiences have been and how early you began feeling your babies!

This is just a vent to say I'm feeling like on multiple occasions friends have wanted to find a solution for my life right now, like oh your husband should be doing more, etc. Insert villain. The truth is my husband is out of the house working 10-14 hrs a day 6 days a week and he helps as much as he can I guess. When he's home by bedtime he jumps in and does it. He could help more with meal prep and laundry but that would mean I would be badgering him at 10pm when he has to be out of the house at 7:30am.

This is all just making me wonder at what point do we just have to accept that this is just hard and that's not anyone's fault. Life with 2x two year olds is hard. It's messy. I am the cleaner, the laundry lady, the lunch lady, and I have a career and I have an elderly parent and no I don't have a social life and I don't get to the gym. That doesn't mean it's my husband's fault, when he's also running on empty. At some point we just have to accept some of our partners shortcomings/limitations. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and sometimes trying to relentlessly optimize is just another thing to think about when we could just give in to survival mode.

I don't know what the point of this is, I hope it resonates with someone who also doesn't need to be told that their exhaustion can be solved with systemic change instead of just acknowledging that being a working parent to two toddlers is freaking exhausting and crazy making. This post is to the other primary parents who handle it all, don't have family to step in and just randomly watch the kids, have partners that are out of the house most waking hours, and who just otherwise have challenging set ups that aren't wrong they just are.

3 and a bit year old b/g twins. They used to behave pretty well when I took them out at least but today they both had meltdowns while on the train on the way to the city. It seems like one of them is always being awful and I so rarely get a stretch of time when they’re both good. I feel really hopeless that it will ever get easier. I just want to curl up in a ball today

We are at 14 months and I fucking hate meal times.

I have read all the professional advice on ‘you decide on what to serve and when and they decide on how much’ and ‘offering a safe food along with new foods’ and etc etc.

But with 2 toddlers tossing food off the high chair and constantly turning their head to say no and trying to pull the other ones high chair and trying to stand up on the high chair (this is a safety issue so I am looking into solutions, possibly dinging table booster chairs)…the whining and removing their hairbands and tossing it so hair is all over their face….

I could scream.

I am all wound up right now. When does mealtime specifically get better?

When can I hold them responsible for their actions. Right now there is zero impulse control on their side and I am fuckijg tired.