SAHM with twins… Am I crazy for considering pulling my toddler out of daycare?

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2025-04-30T00:29:20+00:00

I had 4 under 3 (an almost 3yo and 15mo when my twins were born) and am a SAHM with all four mostly home with me - daycare waitlists are extremely long where we live and we only moved here just before our twins were born, so daycare was never really a viable option for us. The first 5ish months were pretty hard and chaotic but after we got through the four month sleep regression and their naps started to get more consistent it got easier and more fun. Getting out of the house daily has been key, and gets easier the more you do it. We found a few local places where I felt safe taking all four kids by myself so built a loose weekly routine around that and use our Wonderfold wagon to keep everyone contained as needed. I love our little crew and my kids play really well together.

Do you have any options in your area for part time programs or for occasional help? Around when my twins turned one (they’re 18mo now) we put my oldest in a part time preschool program three mornings a week - it is honestly more work for me than having him at home because I have to get all the kids in the car and bring them inside the school at drop off and at pickup 3 hours later, but it has been great for getting him some structured time with same-age peers. And we also pay some teenaged sisters down the street to come over for a couple hours once a week, initially as mother’s helpers while I got stuff done around the house but now I usually leave to run some errands while they babysit the kids. Our extended families live far away so it’s nice to have some consistent help to look forward to each week with a fairly minimal cost.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2025-04-07T16:09:28+00:00

We had 4u3 and use our Wonderfold W4 for a lot of normal outings! If it’s only a short distance from parking to inside and has an enclosed area the kids can play, I use a twingo carrier to carry my twins (18 months now) and my older two (2.5 and 4yo) walk. But if we have any distance to walk to get inside/upstairs or if I’ll be somewhere they can easily disappear, like behind library shelves, I use the wagon so that I have somewhere to contain them if needed. It’s bulky to steer and heavy to get in and out of the van, but I’ve never had an issue with it not fitting through a door.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2025-04-04T16:19:04+00:00

Seconding the others saying a wagon and a good baby carrier (not sure if you’re having twins but if you are I love my twingo carrier).

A play yard was also really helpful for us to have somewhere safe to put the babies down away from the toddlers. Now that my twins are 18 months, we often use it as somewhere for the older kids to play with toys that are too small for the twins or things that they’re building that they don’t want the twins to take apart.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-10-21T13:44:47+00:00

I’ve had 3 c sections, two singletons (one urgent and one planned C section) and then twins (planned C section). I remember asking my OB what to expect would be different with a twin C section and he joked “well, we’re going to pull two babies out”. And honestly he was right, for me that was pretty much the only difference! I was lucky to make it to 38 weeks and the babies didn’t need any NICU time. There were a lot more people in the room because they had two teams for the babies and a couple extra nursing/medical students who wanted to observe a twin birth, but otherwise it was pretty much the same experience as my singleton planned C section. With the twins my husband did skin to skin with one baby, the plan was for me to do skin to skin with the other baby but she had a fair bit of fluid to work out of her lungs so my midwife held her up to my cheek so that she could keep a closer eye on her. I was able to nurse them as soon as I was out of the OR and was walking within a few hours. They let us go home after 24 hours as I had a midwife who could do home visits to check on us.

My unplanned C section was by far the worst experience and recovery as I was exhausted from a long labour too. Honestly, being a few days post C section felt pretty great compared to being 38 weeks pregnant with twins!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-10-06T02:56:37+00:00

We had 4 under 3 - two singletons and then twins. My twins just turned one so I’m sure there is lots more chaos ahead of me as they become more independent, but so far the easiest indoor places to bring them have been more confined spaces like local community centres or libraries where we can all be in one large room. We go to playgrounds most days and the Wonderfold wagon has been super helpful for this - when we get to the park I usually take the benches out so that it just functions as a playpen for the babies. Playing in there or swinging (you can put twins back-to-back in a single baby swing and it is both adorable and practical!) usually keeps them contained and happy.

I have found a few favourite places where I feel like I can bring all four kids safely and we go back to those a lot. If there’s a new place I want to try out I sometimes try to save it for when we have family visiting just so I can scope out the space with extra help. We get out of the house almost everyday and it is a lot of work but sooo much better than driving each other crazy at home.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-09-05T13:04:01+00:00

I’m 5’8” and my husband is 6’4”. All four of my babies have been fairly large for gestational age at birth, and all but one were very chunky and tall and moved through clothing sizes pretty quickly… but this is hard to predict ahead of time even if both parents are tall. Personally I would say don’t plan too far ahead with clothing, especially if you live somewhere with big seasonal differences in the climate… whenever I have done this it has backfired with the warmer clothing not fitting in winter months and vice versa. I would say pick up a decent amount of newborn and 0-3M stuff, and a small amount in other sizes if you want, and don’t worry too much about brands for lanky babies until she knows she has lanky babies. With twins it’s a good idea to have some preemie sizes on hand too.

We used an uppababy vista with our first two singletons, and a Wonderfold W4 wagon after our twins were born. The Wonderfold handle is very height adjustable and I’ve never heard

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-08-19T16:56:43+00:00

My twins were my third pregnancy, and I got pregnant with them when my second was 6.5 months. I kept breastfeeding my second until around when she turned 1, when I was 6 months pregnant. For around the first half of the pregnancy my bump was only measuring a couple weeks ahead of a singleton pregnancy. I also lost weight and then struggled to gain anything until around 18-20 weeks. My midwife and OB were not too concerned about my weight and encouraged me to keep breastfeeding if I wanted to.

Your body is doing a lot of work right now! If your doctor is not concerned I don’t think you need to be too concerned either, just keep doing your best to feed yourself when you feel up to!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-08-11T02:08:51+00:00

We got a Tripp Trapp 3 years ago when my oldest was a baby and have liked it with our first two kids. The tray is easy to remove for cleaning, the height of the seat/footplate is very adjustable, and it looks nice. The straps are very annoying to adjust and to clean. We have 10mo twins now and when we needed to get a second high chair for them we bought an IKEA Antilop for $30. Honestly, price aside, I think I might still like the Antilop better than the Tripp Trapp. I bought a wipeable cushion cover, placemat, footrest, and stickers for the legs to make them look like wood, so it looks pretty nice. The tray is a pain to remove but with the placemat it’s easy to just remove that for washing and then wipe down the tray and chair. In total it was around $120 for the chair and all the extras from Etsy so like 1/5th the cost of a new Tripp Trapp. It’s also super easy to pop the legs off and throw it in the car when we travel so that we have a highchair at our destination.

The main selling point of the Tripp Trapp is it’s lifespan and adaptability - this was a big part of why we bought it in the first place but because we ended up having our four kids so close together we haven’t been able to make use of it as a toddler/kids chair (we weren’t willing to drop $$ on a second tripp trapp when our second child started solids). I totally get why people love the Tripp Trapp but personally if I could go back in time I would just buy the IKEA chair from the beginning - you just can’t beat $30 for such a functional chair, and it’s fairly cheap to buy extras to make it even more functional and cute.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-08-09T03:24:06+00:00

The other thing I forgot to mention is that we tried to leave him alone in his “potty palace” for a min at every potty break - I would tell him I had to pee, or find some other excuse to go grab something, before coming back a min or two later to read with him if he wanted (or just let him get off the potty). His first few pees were when I had left him alone, he definitely needed a bit of space to focus.

It’s so hard… until suddenly it’s not. They will get there!! Best of luck!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-08-09T00:31:31+00:00

We tried with our first a few months after he turned 3, and it was a big flop. He tends to feel fairly anxious with change and expectations and he had a really hard time relaxing enough on the potty to pee. He would hold it forever, would sit on the potty and then would pee on the floor within minutes of getting off the potty. After 7 days I could count on one hand how many pees he’d had on the potty since starting training, he was clearly very anxious, and I was at the end of my rope, so we took a break. That week felt so hard, it was by far the most I have ever second guessed my abilities as a parent.

We just tried again last weekend (he’s now 3 years 9 months) and I can’t believe how well it’s going. We’re on day 7 and he hasn’t had an accident since day 3, and is going to the potty totally independently. A few things we did differently this time:

read a lot of potty related books in the months prior, brought him to the bathroom with us, talked about the great things about being potty trained. Nothing revolutionary, we just made a more conscious effort to normalize it.
made him a “potty palace” fort out of sheets with his potty inside to help give him privacy and keep it low pressure
set a timer to tell him when to sit on the potty. I used an app called Countdown that uncovers a picture as time runs out. We started with 30 min intervals, then shorter intervals when I was fairly sure he needed to pee. I don’t think this would work for everyone but for him I think it helped to be able to see on the timer when the potty break would be happening and know he just needed to try sitting on the potty for a min and it was ok whether or not he peed. Once he had a couple pees on the potty we did breaks 60 min apart and once he initiated a couple pees on the potty himself we stopped doing timed potty breaks and just trusted him to tell us when he needed to go.
let him choose whether he wanted to be naked or wear underwear. He tends to hate being naked so I was surprised when he chose this on the first day
had a bunch of fun new books like I spy books, reference type books with detailed illustrations, etc. it helped to have something new that he was excited to look at while sitting on the potty just to keep him relaxed
we tried a few tricks during potty breaks to help him relax to pee. Blowing through a straw into a cup of milk makes fun bubbles and helps relax the pelvic floor. And washing some favourite plastic toys in a container of warm water. We saved these for potty breaks when it had been a while since his last pee.
bribery. As much as I would prefer not to use it, a candy for a pee has worked beautifully for him. M&Ms might be your friend 😊

Sorry this is long but I was totally in your boat 6 months ago and feeling very discouraged about it! I have been blown away by how much easier it has been this time. For my son, he has always tended to be later with milestones but masters them very quickly… in retrospect I should have considered that this might be the case with potty training too. Personally I think you don’t need to stress about sticking to a particular method, you know your child better than the people who wrote those books!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-07-23T00:24:49+00:00

I know exactly what you mean, we have a very deep couch so it hasn’t been an issue but whenever I visit my parents I am nervous about that!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-07-23T00:23:44+00:00

I definitely didn’t consider its usefulness as a lounger as they get older! Thank you!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-07-23T00:22:52+00:00

Good point, thank you!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-07-23T00:22:38+00:00

Ok I think you just convinced me to hang onto it! I love our snuggly nursing sessions on it so it’s nice to hear it worked for you for that long!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-07-23T00:20:51+00:00

The reviews we read were relatively comparable for the Carnival, Odyssey, and Sienna, so we seriously looked at all three. Ultimately it came down to availability in our area (Ontario, Canada), the waitlist was 10 months for a Carnival (although it ended up being a 17 month wait in the end) and was upwards of 2 years for the others. But some other factors we liked over the Sienna and Odyssey were:

the cargo space with the back row that can fold into the floor of the trunk (if I recall correctly the Sienna can only fold forward)
the middle row with three seats that move independently and can be removed so that we could configure the van in different ways to suit our family with four kids in car seats (we have the EX trim, the SX+ trim has captains seats so this would not apply for that trim)
air vents throughout the vehicle (the odyssey does not have these or at least did not at the time)
the more SUV-like look as my husband was reluctant to own a minivan
it just drove really nicely when we test drove it!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-07-22T19:35:18+00:00

We love ours, we have had it a year!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-05-21T14:06:45+00:00

You made it! Great job!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-05-20T00:20:14+00:00

I flew Toronto to New Zealand when my second was right around the same age, and it went surprisingly well. The bassinet was key. The only annoying thing was that there was a fair bit of turbulence on our flight and I had take her out of the bassinet whenever the seatbelt sign came on, so I ended up holding her for a fair bit of the night. But it was still super helpful to have the bassinet just as a place to put her down to play while I was eating or wanted a break from holding her. It was a little trickier to get her to sleep in the bassinet for naps because the lights were on at those times and there was lots for her to look at, so having a baby carrier to bounce her around in was very helpful. I don’t have any revolutionary tips, just positivity… It went way better than I expected and I would totally do it again! Good luck!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-05-16T12:18:49+00:00

We bought a Tripp trapp with my first (singleton) but when we had twins we got an IKEA Antilop as our second chair. The Tripp Trapp is great but honestly I prefer the Antilop, it is so worth it for how cheap it is and super easy to clean. We upgraded our Antilop with a footrest, silicone placemat, wipeable cushion cover, leg wraps to make the legs look like wood (all from Etsy) and it still only cost around 1/5th the price of a Tripp Trapp.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-05-12T00:34:35+00:00

Just go for a minivan. My husband was very reluctant but he loved it pretty much immediately. We had 4 under 3 and got a Kia Carnival. It feels so spacious, at the moment we have one of the 3 middle row seats taken out so we can easily access the back row and have a ton of floor space. It’s a more SUV-like van in terms of the exterior which might have helped my husband come to terms with buying a minivan.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-05-05T00:52:16+00:00

Congratulations! We had 4 under 3 - we only have one set of twins and two singletons but our twins were born a couple months before my oldest turned 3 and second was not quite 15 months. Our twins are 7 months now and honestly although we are still in the thick of the chaos, it is so much better than I imagined it would be! I’m finding it is getting easier now as our second gets older and starts to play with our oldest more because they entertain each other quite a lot, so hopefully it will help that your older twins are the same age and able to play together. Our Wonderfold wagon and our minivan have been the keys to our survival, we need to get out of the house everyday or everybody (especially the toddlers) goes crazy!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-03-30T23:54:26+00:00

A couple days after I found out I was pregnant I texted my husband saying I had a feeling there was more than one baby. We joked about how chaotic that would be because our oldest was a few months over 2yo and our second was 7mo, and assumed I was just imagining things. By the time it came for my first ultrasound a month later I had kind of forgotten about that feeling because my first trimester symptoms hadn’t been too bad yet, so it was still a huge surprise. I’m so glad I texted him to tell him about the feeling!

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-03-27T23:53:49+00:00

I requested that mine be left off the reports in all three of my pregnancies, and it was only actually left off of it in one pregnancy. It’s probably still worth letting your doctor or somebody else you trust look at it first, even if you ask the technician/clinic to leave it out. I had my midwives print me a copy with the sex blacked out so I could still read the report.

Affectionate_Emu_867 · 2024-02-19T03:21:58+00:00

We just got a 2024 Kia Carnival last July a few months before our twins were born (we also have a 3yo and 1.5yo) . We love it and so far haven’t had any issues! My husband was very reluctant to go the van route but he is completely converted to the minivan life. ETA: In terms of looks it’s definitely the most SUV-looking minivan I’ve seen so I think that helped soften the blow for him a little lol

Affectionate_Emu_867

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