Twinning Tuesday, Wearing your Newborn Twins

There is something, for me at least, quite magical, quite wonderful, about the prolonged closeness that wearing your baby, or babies, brings. It is the ultimate win win! As a parent, you keep your babes close, but you can finally (finally!) get up off the couch and do things again, and your babes will love staying close to you; fewer tears, more bonding, better sleep, more comforting.

After wearing my first born, The Little Guy, for three plus years, I knew that I wanted to wear my twins, and as soon as possible. A little research and I found a couple of methods I thought would work best for me.

I started out with a Moby Wrap, which is a single piece of long stretching fabric, which you can wrap around your self and your Little Ones. These are extremely forgiving with beginners to wrapping, nice and comfortable for newborns, and not too expensive. Click here to see Moby Wraps from Amazon. Chances are, if you are wearing both of your twins at the same time, your Moby Wrap will have a relatively short life, maybe only until they are four months old, but it is still a great way to start out.

There are a slew of articles and tutorials out there on wearing twins, but I found this one in particular really helpful; the lady demonstrating took lots of time to show what she was doing, and talk everything through!



This carry technique is great for newborns, up until they are a collective weight of approximately 20 lbs. At that stage you will probably find that they have a little more head control and are ready for some different wrapping or carrying techniques.

I also spent a lot of time looking for a great video on YouTube (and elsewhere) of someone demonstrating how to do a Cross Cradle Carry for newborn twins, and couldn't find one that I just loved ... so I made one myself! Check it out!

p.s. The Little Guy makes a cameo performance; he was very excited at the whole video adventure.




One thing I would add, which I meant to mention in the video; a Moby wrap is infinitely more forgiving than a woven wrap, and is really a great place to start if your wrap technique is still developing.

If you are a little unsure of your wrapping, I really recommend doing your initially wraps while sitting on your bed or on your couch, and to have your spouse or a friend there to help. I still like to wrap in front of a mirror; it just helps me feel a little more secure, allowing me to see what I'm doing.

And, of course, make sure that there is plenty of room for your baby to breathe, and that their head is not slumping forward into their chest.

I spent a fair amount of time looking through photos of my own newborn twins, and I could not find a single photo of me wearing both of them - how did that happen?! But here is one of me with Baby Girl; I think this was the first time I wore her, at about 5 days old.

 

We will be talking more about wearing older twins in a future post, and spending some time talking about what baby wearing methods work better for wearing two.

What is your favorite babywearing method for newborns? If you have twins, do you wear them? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Twinning Tuesday; A Disclaimer, ... and Attachment Parenting?!

Last week I announced the beginning of a new occasional series here on Simply, in the 'Burbs, about raising twins or multiples with an Attachment Parenting approach.

I really want to thank those readers who contacted me with their support and questions; it really means so much to me. Really! This was a big blogging step for me, and to know that there are interested readers makes this all worth while - thank you!!

And with that out of the way, I have to give a disclaimer: I'm not a parenting expert.

I haven't written parenting books, done independent research, spent years studying, or written a thesis on parenting. I haven't read every parenting book at Barnes and Noble, or read every parenting blog.

But! - I am a mama of three, including, 18 month old twins,so I have a couple of years of parenting experience under my belt. And back before I had my own Little Ones, I was a Montessori teacher, and I have a Masters in Early Childhood Development.

Really, though it is the past five years as a mama that give me the most resources to draw on in writing this series. Hands on experience trumps all!

I may not be brushed up on the latest research, but when it comes to an AP approach with young children, I've got 'been there, done that' kudos.

Little Boy (L) and Baby Girl (R), first post partum co-sleeping experience, aged 6 hours

And so, on to Attachment Parenting and Twins!

One thing I will not be doing in these posts is debating the benefits of an AP approach; rather I will be giving hands-on tips, resources and how-to's on bringing Attachment Parenting to twins/multiples.

In case you are not familiar with AP, are still reading and are still interested, let's spend a minute talking about what it is.

Attachment Parenting is a style of raising children, one where you are connected to your child's needs. For me, this always felt like I spent more time listening to my child's needs, and less time trying to inflict my will on the child.

Dr. Bill Sears originally coined the term Attachment Parenting, and remains one of it's biggest champions.

The seven basic principles of AP, as Dr. Sears wrote them, are:

1. Birth Bonding
2. Breastfeeding
3. Babywearing
4. Bedding Close to Baby
5. Beware of Baby Trainers
6. Belief in your Baby's Cry Language
7. Balance
(Taken from Dr. Sear's site; for the full article, and much more information on each of the principles click here)

The Attachment Parenting Book by Dr. Sears

When The Little Guy was born nearly 5 years ago, an AP approach seemed totally natural; I don't think we even realized that what we were doing was AP!
Nursing, listening to his needs, keeping him close through cradling him in my arms and later by wearing him, all of this just seemed obvious for My Good Man and I.

Three years later, when we had our twins, we were still able to implement the same principles, but they took a little more creative thinking, tenacity, determination and yes, more releasing, more letting o of what we could not do. We were not able to be quite the same AP parents with twins as we were with a singleton. We tried really hard, but we just weren't.

But for us at least, we recognized that it was alright. We were still able to implement each of the seven principles outlined by Dr. Sears with our twins, but maybe not as fully as we had with our singleton.

Baby Girl (left) and Little Boy (right), aged 16 months

If I could go back in time and give the post-twin-partum me one piece of advice, it would be to remember the 7th AP principle; BALANCE! That these are wonderful principles, but that they need to work for your family, for YOU! For example, if co-sleeping with twins is so difficult that neither parent is getting enough sleep, then it might not be working. Being rested, and able to properly care for your babies, AND yourselves is just as important. Keep things in balance.

Do what you can, and remember - no one will you be testing you on being the perfect Attachment Parenting Parent! Love your Little Ones, keep them close, and loved. Listen to them. Slow down. Love them some more! And know that you are doing a great job; this is hard work, but you are doing fine!


Where are you on your parenting journey? Are you using Attachment Parenting? Are there aspects that feel hard for you? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Twinning Tuesday, An Introduction

Two years ago, when I first found out that I was expecting twins, I did what a lot of expectant parents do; I started reading and researching!

My learning curve was a steep one; my older child was two and half, so I felt that pregnancy and caring for a newborn was still fairly recent in my memory, but twins? I knew next to nothing.

Not only did I find that my basic knowledge of twins was minimal (fraternal? half identical? what?!) but that I struggled to find the information that fit our soon to be twin family. Although there were books, blogs, groups and web sites about twins, not many of them talked about baby wearing, co-sleeping, cloth diapering and breast feeding (let alone tandem nursing!)

The Two Little Ones, about 6 hours old, Baby Girl on the left and Little Boy on the right

 ... and again at 18 months old, Baby Girl on the left, Little Boy on the right.

Now I am eighteen months into my journey as mama to my twins, Baby Girl and Little Boy. Over the past year and a half, we figured out a lot. The best way to parent our babes, while maintaining an Attachment Parenting approach. We have successfully navigated breast feeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, gentle parenting and cloth diapering.

 I'll be starting an occasional series on twins: Twinning Tuesday. In it I'll be covering all sorts of topics, the sorts of things I wish that I had been able to read about both when I was expecting and when my two Littles were growing.


I hope you'll be joining me in the coming weeks; please feel free to email me here, or leave a comment, if there is a particular topic you are interested in my covering. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

The Most Expensive Birthday Cake in the World

Okay, so the title of this post may be a wee bit of an exaggeration, but only a wee bit!

We live a pretty frugal life here in the SimplyBurbs home, not a whole lot of stuff being bought, and we definitely watch our budget, including our grocery budget. I aim for no more than $75 a week for all five of us, including household and personal items. Some weeks are good, some not so much.

But all that rather went out the window a couple of weeks ago.

The eczema that My Little Boy has had little patches of for the past six months, suddenly got A LOT worse. Worse to the point that we came close to taking him to Urgent Care in the middle of the night because he, and My Good Man and I, were miserable with the scratching and the lack of sleep. It had been a long week.

So, we decided to try putting him on an elimination diet, and we saw instant improvements. Four days later, you would not have recognized our Little Boy for the same miserable baby four nights earlier.

The downside?

No more
   wheat
   gluten
   eggs
   soy
   corn
   dairy
   or nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers etc)

Yikes!

Our plan is to try reintroducing things gradually, and try to narrow down what is causing him issues. But all that is another post.

With their birthday last week, the prospect of baking him and Baby Girl a cake for their first birthday celebration filled me with dread ... no wheat, eggs, dairy etc etc? But friends better versed gave me a couple of recipes that would fit our needs, and the path looked a little clearer.

I decided on this Honey Yogurt Cake from the Nourishing Meals blog, which didn't look too tricky.  Of course what I hadn't factored on was that my baking supplies are geared towards a wheat- , dairy-, egg-eating household.

So I had to buy everything from scratch.  Which was a lot more expensive than I could have possibly imagined.

All in, the ingredients for the cake cost $45.10 (which includes the price of a bag of Peanut M&Ms ... bought to assuage the stress of the whole expensive ingredient buying process - ahem!)

And then I got home and realized that I didn't have vanilla extract, and sent My Good Man back out to the store; another $4.99! (Bringing the total for our homemade, supposed to be inexpensive, cake, to $50.09!!)

But the end result? The cake was good! Good enough that My Good Man went back for seconds and thirds, and the two Little Ones enjoyed it. Success!

And it was easy to make! Double yay!

Will we be making it again? For sure! (and especially now that I have all the ingredients!) Would we make it by choice, if we didn't have any food restrictions to cook for? Hmmm, maybe! It really was pretty good!

Do you have diet restrictions in your house, or foods you just prefer to avoid? Any favorite 'go to' recipes? Feel free to share in the comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

A Birthday Ring

Over the weekend we had a little celebration for the two Little Ones' first birthday! A couple of gifts, a cake (more on that later in the week!) and a Birthday Ring.

This is a newer tradition for us, but already a firm favorite. A simply wooden ring, beeswax candles (ahh! - they smell so good!), and small wooden figures. I picked out the little cat to represent baby Girl, and the seal pup for My Little Boy. The 4 year old Little Guy decorated the rest of the ring, and there it was! Beautiful.


We let the candles burn while we sang happy birthday, and ate cake, and then re-lit them for dinner; then we packed it back up again, and tucked it away ready for the next celebration.


What do you do in your home to mark special occasions? Do you have particular songs or ornaments for particular times of the year?  Please feel free to share in the comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

A Simple Moment

 

Sometimes it really is about the simple moments!

What have been the simple moments in your day to day life recently? I'd love to hear from you; I invite you to either post a link or just leave a comment, sharing your Simple Moment.