25 Pro Tips & Life Hacks. For New and Expectant Parents of Twins, Triplets & More!

Transcription

1 Life With Multiples 25 Pro Tips & Life Hacks For New and Expectant Parents of Twins, Triplets & More!

2 25 Pro Tips & Life Hacks For New & Expectant Parents of Twins, Triplets and More! Here s a grab bag of tips and tricks you can use to help make your life with multiples a little easier. You ll find these tips helpful, especially in the first year when you re lowest on time and energy. They worked for us, anyway! 1. Make a DIY Double or Triple Baby Bouncer If you re using basic wire-frame bouncers, (the ones that you bounce with your foot ), use zip ties to hook them together. Or you can try just overlapping them slightly. This way, when you bounce one baby, you bounce them all! 2. Set up Change Stations on Each Floor If your home has more than one level, consider setting up a diaper change station on each floor. When you need to change a diaper, you won t want to drag a baby up or down a flight of stairs, and leave your others unsupervised. With a change station nearby, you ll be ready when disaster pants strike! 3. Stick to One Type of Bottle If you plan on bottle-feeding, we suggest NOT buying various different bottle brand or types. Baby bottles have several parts, and if you have different types, they re easy to mix up. Sometimes the attachments will look the same from brand to brand, but they re often not and the bottle will leak. It gets confusing fast. So keep it simple. 4. Buy Multiples for Your Multiples Yes, your kids are each unique and individual snowflakes. But their things don t have to be. For instance, we made the mistake of buying three different Sesame Street placemats an Elmo, a Big Bird, and a Grover. How could we have been so stupid?! Everyone wanted the Elmo one. And that caused HUGE conflict and heartbreak on a daily basis. Next time, we ll buy 3 Elmos. Problem solved.

3 5. Take Advantage of a Onesie s Escape Hatch Have you ever noticed those diagonal flaps at the shoulders of onesies? Ever wondered why they re there? Well if your baby has a disaster diaper and the onesie gets soiled, you don t want to drag all the mess over your child s head. Those flaps expand, so you can take the baby s shoulders/arms out and slide it off by the feet. We re living in the future! 6. Hand Your Babies a Cold One More and more parents are not warming bottles before feedings. It s not considered necessary and saves a ton of time! Warming milk and formula, and making sure it s not too hot is super annoying. So try going cold from the start. 7. Forget Folding You won t have the time or patience for folding laundry unless it s something you find calming and want to do in your dwindling spare time, (but we doubt it!). So just keep two baskets near your changing station(s). One for clean sleepers and one for dirty. Just grab and go. No folding necessary. 8. Stop Door-to-Door Sales People in Their Tracks When you ve finally got your babies to sleep, the last thing you need is a solicitor ringing your doorbell (possibly causing your dog to bark trust us ) and waking everyone up. Place a note on your door, telling people you ve got sleeping babies inside and not to bother. Maybe leave your number so people can text instead. You can also take this a step further and temporarily disconnect your doorbell. 9. Photograph Your Kids in Birth Order When taking group photos, especially if your multiples look similar, always place your children in birth order. Trust us. This way, years later, everyone will know who s who. 10. Use Plastic Bibs When you start using bibs, go for plastic-y ones rather than cloth. They ll keep your kids more clean and dry. They also wipe off and dry quickly which reduces laundry. If and when you need to give plastic bibs a good cleaning, don t put them in the dryer! They will melt into little clumps. We speak from experience

4 11. Vacuum EVERYTING! Consider investing in a Shop Vac, heavy-duty vacuum. Use it to clean up after messy meals, especially as the kids start to feed themselves. A Shop Vac will suck up everything from finger foods to spilled milk. 12. Buy a Snot Sucker We talk about these a lot. Because babies can t blow their own noses, they need help. These things will allow you to (literally) suck the snot out of your kids nostrils (with your mouth). Honestly, it s not as disgusting as it sounds. It s a lifesaver when your babies can t breath, and therefore can t sleep. We used the hydrasense Nasal Aspirator, but there are others on the market. This type is way better than the old-fashioned hand-pump aspirators. 13. Use to Update Friends and Family Create an list to keep people informed on how your new family is doing, to avoid several how are you managing calls. This also works during pregnancy. Send out, say, a weekly , share the latest and thank everyone for NOT calling. 14. Ditch the Dining Room Table Space is often an issue when your house becomes kiddie land. Many parents of multiples will remove their dining room table, for a time, and turn their dining area into a play zone. We used foam mats and a SuperYard XT to create a safe place to play and keep toys contained. 15. Buy Convertible Cribs Look for cribs that you can use long-term. Save money by buying cribs that will eventually convert into toddler and kid beds. 16. Be a Zipper-only Household Buy sleepers with zippers and avoid (like the plague) anything with snaps or buttons. It sounds crazy, but when you re in the throes of sleep-deprivation, you will not have the patience, wherewithal, or manual dexterity to bother with anything but a quick zip.

5 17. Color-Code Your Babies Personal Items When it comes to your babies personal items like bottles, we recommend color-coding to keep everything straight. We assigned a different color to each of our kids. It s something we still do, with everything from sippy cups to tooth brushes. 18. Dear Diary Keep a Journal During the pregnancy and early months, our minds were mush. We used a notebook and journal to keep track of EVERYTHING. We jotted down questions to ask at our next medical check-up, To Do lists, etc. Some find journaling their thoughts a good way to deal with fears and anxieties. It also creates a good record of your journey. We ve kept it up, writing down funny things the kids say and do. Eventually we ll put those anecdotes into a memory book for each child. 19. Beware of Supposed Flushable Wipes Avoid flushing wipes down the toilet. They will clog the pipes. Even wipes advertise as flushable aren t to be trusted. 20. Set Up Multiple Sanitization Stations Buy a few hand sanitizer dispensers (we recommend the pump ones) and place them around your home, at your change station(s) and near the front door. When guests and helpers arrive they should be in the habit of cleaning their hands before touching your newborns. 21. Pro Laundry Tip If you re laundering anything with Velcro, like bibs with Velcro straps, stick the Velcro pieces together before throwing them into the washing machine. Otherwise, the Velcro will stick to everything else in the drier. Socks will be stuck to bibs, which will be stuck to shirts. Basically your life will be ruined. 22. Use Fabric Softener to Cut Down on the Smell of Dirty Diapers If you end up using a large garbage pail for dirty diapers, throw a sheet of fabric softener in to help with the smell. Simple.

6 23. Make Early Morning Appointments In the early weeks and months you may have regular pediatric appointments. Try making appointments for first thing in the morning. If you re the doctor s first appointment you can get in and out before their day gets busy. Otherwise their appointments get backlogged, and you re left in the waiting room for longer than you need to be. 24. Use Receiving Blankets as Mattress Protectors Babies spit up A LOT, especially when lying in their beds. And having to constantly change box sheets means more laundry, and most likely waking your sleeping babies. So, take a receiving blanket and fold it in half, lengthwise. Then lay the blanket flat under your baby s head, making sure to tuck it under the mattress on either side. Now, when a baby spits up, you will only need to lift their head and swap out the receiving blanket, and not the entire box sheet. Again, this saves on laundry. And you can do it without waking anybody up! 25. Batch Your Cooking, Now! When cooking meals (especially before the babies arrive) make double the amount. This way you can eat your dinner now and freeze the extra for an easy meal later. Your future self will thank you. Thanks for reading!