I have fraternal boys who will be 4 in a couple weeks, they were born 8 weeks premature and spent 17 days in the NICU and had a really rough first year. They are perfectly healthy now, though! My biggest piece of advice is to invest in a good baby wrap and learn how to use it. They are wonderful and can be used to carry them both or you can wrap up one and have your hands free for the other.
Bumping this thread because I just found out on Tuesday that I'm having twins (fraternal).
I'm trying to absorb all the advice I can -- most specifically the ways that 2 are different than 1 (DD will be 3 the end of next month).
Anyone nurse their twins? I'd love to hear BF'ing stories/experiences because it's something I'm committed to but is very daunting thinking about.
Congrats! Twins are a lot of fun and a lot of worry too. My twins were babies 3 and 4 for me, and I was really expecting it to be super hard. It was, but for much different reasons than I was expecting. Taking care of two is EXACTLY like taking care of one. Everything just takes a little longer (not twice as long as I was expecting), going from two to four was much, much easier than I thought it would be.
I got stuck in the hospital with preterm labor and they ended up coming at exactly 32 weeks. I was planning to breastfeed so I was really worried about how that was going to effect things, especially since they ended up in the NICU for nearly 3 weeks as feeders and growers. They had to learn how to suck, swallow, and breathe at the same time, but were actually born at a good size for their gestational age at 4 lb 12 oz and 5 lb 1 oz.
I started pumping right away and, except for the first day or two, they had breast milk exclusively. Because I had two older boys I wasn't able to spend all day with them, which was really difficult for me, but I did attempt to latch them on every day during my visits. When they finally came home I had a pretty good milk stash so I started out trying to latch them on, let them nurse for a bit until they started to get lazy then I would top them off with pumped milk and pump again. It was very long and time consuming, but worth it to teach them to nurse. Cole caught on more quickly than Hunter and I ended up using a nipple shield for about a week with Hunter before he really got latching figured out. All in all, it took about three weeks to get them nursing exclusively after bringing them home. I was SO happy to put the pump away, it was such a relief. From then on I nursed them simultaneously which was a huge time saver.
I also put them on the same schedule. When one woke up to eat, I woke up the other one, changed their diaper, and nursed them together. Doing everything at the same time saved time and my sanity. They breastfed until they were 16 mos old. I never supplemented with formula and I was damn proud of it. I, too, was told that a woman just can't make enough milk to feed more than one baby. I guess I was a dairy cow in a previous life, LOL.
*bump again*
I started cramping & bleeding today. I'm so, so, so terrified. Called the doctor and they said to lay down & stay down and if it gets heavier to go to the ER. So I've been in bed & laying on the couch all day.
It hasn't gotten worse, but it hasn't gotten better either. There's no clumps/clots but it's red & tinges the toilet water & stains the TP when I wipe. Doesn't fill a pad or anything though.
Has anyone experienced this? Any words of encouragement?? I'm going on Monday morning to my OB to have an ultrasound to check on them.
Monday can't come soon enough...
I was very lucky to never experience this with any of my pregnancies, but one of my friends had this kind of bleeding early on with all three of her pregnancies. I've heard it is very common with twins as well. I'm thinking of you, mama!
I'm guessing that since you are so early in your pg, you have Di/Di twins. Just FYI, there is still a small chance you can end up w/ identicals. IF idents split early enough they can be di/di too, approx 20-30% of all idents are di/di -- so it's much more likely that you have frats, but unless they are b/g, there is no way to be certain until after birth.
I wish I would have at least attempted it. 
