The Early Years

In the beginning it was just me and my husband, Darryl. Then it became me and Darryl and the twins. When people ask us how hard it was in the early years we tell them it was a blur. If it weren't for photos and videos, we would not remember much. It was all about survival.

We lived at my parents' home for the first month and it was so helpful. We did not have to worry about any cooking, cleaning or laundry even. My parents were just great. I remember going on diaper runs when there was a sale and picking up cases of instant formula at the Babies R Us. All we did was take care of the twins and ate and slept. It was an extremely exhausting time. I recall taking the morning shift when I would wake up at 4AM and start the feeding and changing of the diapers at 2 hour intervals, so Darryl could go to sleep. It REALLY worked out to be 1 hour of rest in between the cycles because when you are doing it alone it takes 1/2 hour to change and feed each baby. Yeah, sometimes they BOTH wanted to be fed at the SAME time and no one wanted a pacifier to buy you time. That called for some creative thinking and arranging. I used to feel nervous about taking care of them on my own for just a few hours even.

When you have twins, organization is key. We made a chart to help us keep track of each baby's "ins" and "outs". We charted the time they were fed and how much they drank. Prior to each feeding, we would change their diaper and we would record each time they stooled. Nobody wants a "backed up baby". Using those tiny sample size 2 ounce bottles was convenient, although probably deemed unsafe now due to BPA and what nots. To avoid a back load of dirty baby bottles, we simply used 8 at most. This way you don't die from bottle washing. We just washed often and thank goodness for those hot water dispensers that boil too. Nothing like hot water on demand to give that clean bottle one last soak. Yes, we not only cleaned every bottle with soap, but soaked each one in 195 F hot water.

As for diapers...Pampers Swaddlers worked well for us, but the garbage man did not come often enough at our house. EACH day we would have 24 diapers to dispose of. My parents only had 1 garbage can outside, so what did we do? When we went to get gas or do some shopping, we had to unload trash here are there around the city. We had to do what we had to do for the short-term. We charted everything until they were over 3 years old. As they got older and ate solid foods we charted the type of stool they had, so we could increase their fruit and vegetable intake if needed. When potty training began we put in the potty training chart for stickers. That is another story and unfortunately we are still working on part of that story for one of them.

Anyway, organization and charting was the key to our success in the early years of this journey of raising twins. At least we had no trouble differentiating them.