When does Managing Kids (especially Twins) get Easy?
TWINS? How do you even manage?
Do you have help?
Oh, you must hire a full day maid!
Doesn’t your mother or your in-laws come and stay with you? That’s not right, you must ask them to come help you!
If you are a mom of twins, you have not just faced, not just answered, but also must have been done with these questions. I’m sure you have finally learned to respond with a simple smile and let it go.
No matter how much help you have (or the entire lack of it too) eventually, the answer to your miseries is –
YES, IT DOES GET EASIER!
The stage of Pregnancy:
Funnily, when I was expecting twins and going through an absolutely miserable pregnancy, my doctors consoled me saying that just the initial two years are difficult, and then it gets easier.
For when I was pregnant, I couldn’t understand how anything could get difficult than this. It was pregnancy + 2 years away from being easy (or so I was told!)
When my Twins were born:
But then I gave birth to twins and the first 6 months were like living an actual nightmare! (There is no better way of saying that!)
For inches, yards, and blood relatives, no one had ever had twins, so obviously, there was no ‘strategy’ in place. Yet, everyone showered me with their 300 bits (2 bits is too underrated) of haywire parenting advice.
The only thing that worked back then was the advice of my paediatrician, and that’s how the first 6 months just dragged themselves through.
So the countdown to it “getting easy” was still far away – it was another 18 months before they turned two and it would supposedly all get easier!
6 months and beyond with Twins!
After the first 6 months, my tornadoes learned to communicate! The world did seem a bit easy but before I could soak into it, they learned to crawl. Now two super active, super energetic twins who are crawling all over the world? Wow! That was a different set of challenge.
From there, the difficulty level kept on rising, as they gained good strength, mobility and great intelligence – so needless to say they were one cute pair of ruckus makers!
By now I was maintaining tally marks for every day, counting my way down to two years but it just kept getting complicated and exhausting!
Ta-da! 2 YEARS!
The next level of easy came when the tornadoes started playschool, at about 2 years of age. They learned some manners and learned to settle a bit but they could still not be left unattended. So the initial levels of fatigue stayed and they’d sleep more than they played. However, soon enough they adjusted to that routine as well.
Potty training miseries, messing up the house, and being the tornadoes that they were were still the challenges that were nowhere close to easy! By now I wanted those people who said that “by TWO years things will get easy” to come and talk to me now!
D’oh! 3 Years already!
At 3 years and some months when they started formal school, I was rather overwhelmed at how soon my little ones grew. It was just yesterday that they were painting flour strewn on the floor with my nail polish and now they’ll be actually painting with colours on paper – time sure does fly away too fast!
School time happened and the homework notebooks were a terror I had to live with. The tornadoes wouldn’t cooperate and the entire day would vanish behind them. They still believed in ‘take the most of Mumma’s time’ kind of children-ing (being a child) style.
4 Years!! That’s 2 +2
Just when they got the 4-year mark – some magic happened!!
They cooperated with homework, they learned to play by themselves and keep themselves occupied, they were better behaved and we were able to take them out of home conveniently, without drawing a lot of attention towards us – it was a miracle life. It almost felt like it happened overnight, but of course, it did not!! A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into getting to this stage.
But the intention of sharing all of these incidences here is simple – I want to convey it to all those struggling moms, those moms who do not know when life will get better or if it will get better at all – my dear, there is hope!!
I’m sure moms would have realized by now, that while one phase and the struggles with it gets easier – the next phase has its own trials and tribulations! But at least you’ve waded through the diapering, and the laundry and the pooping – and you’re still alive and kicking!
As a veteran mom of multiples, I am sharing these tips with you! Hope you find them useful!
9 Tips For Moms Of Multiples:
1. Get your twins on the same feeding and sleeping schedule as far as possible. Even if in the hospital they are on different schedules, slowly try to adjust their times until they become similar.
2. Brace yourself to become a public curiosity. Always prepare your answers to hand out for inevitable questions that people will ask like “Are they twins/triplets?” and “Are they natural?” And even funnier questions inspired by Judwaa like “Can they read each other’s minds?” “Are they identical?” and the most common “ do they eat/sleep/POOP at the same time”?
3. Realize that they are two of them – and you are only one – so basically you are outnumbered. Don’t shy of accepting any offer of help, no matter how big or small.
4. Make friends with other moms of multiples because as much as singleton parents can try, but nobody really ‘gets it’ like fellow multiple moms. Join a Facebook group of moms of multiples if there are none in your vicinity ( or be friends with me ;-))
5. When one of the twins gets sick, just skip the whole ‘Let’s try to keep them separate so that the other ones do not catch it!” because you also know it in your heart that it’s inevitable. IN all probability, you are going to get it too!
6. Be sure to have a diaper bag always packed. Also, have a backup diaper bag packed – because just in case. Have an emergency diaper bag pack in the car also! And then just go ahead and pop 2 extra diapers in your purse, with a small travel pack of wipes – because we’ve all been there!
7. Since you’re a mom of twins, now begin buying multiples of everything! Because if one baby has a toy, then the other kid will decide exactly 2.5 seconds later that he would rather play with THAT exact toy! Even if there are 106 other toys right there – so save yourself a quarrel and just get two of everything!
8. Find time for yourself to go to the gym and find time to lose weight. If you can hire some help then do that and get some free time for yourself. Go for a dinner with friends without your twins, spend an hour pampering yourself while your partner picks up the slack!
9. Different people reach the “easy” stage at different times – so don’t compare! When they say it gets easy, all they want to say is that you eventually get used to being a Mom. Each stage of their life has a challenge for you and for them, but yes, it does get better, it does get easier.
When they say it gets easy, all they want to say is that you eventually get used to being a Mom. Each stage of their life has a challenge for you and for them, but yes, it does get better, it does get easier. Different people reach the “easy” stage at different times, but yes, they do get to it!!
You will go out to the Gym and find time to lose weight, you will go for a dinner with friends without your kids, you will finally spend an entire day pampering yourself while the kids take care of themselves – all of that will happen, just in due time, not as yet!
Till then, get through the difficult days with hugs, love and maybe tears because when you will need these the most, they would have passed on for years!
Prisha Lalwani is a familiar name in parenting, with her blogs published on multiple leading parenting websites. She is a qualified counselling psychologist and a mother to 4-year-old twin-tornadoes Chirag & Chitransh. Her world revolves around the 3 men of her life, her husband, and her tornadoes, and she kinda loves the roller coaster ride she is constantly on! She is a blogger at www.mummasaurus.com and along with her parenting journey with twins, loves to document hilarious things that happen in her life (and those are quite a lot!)
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