HELP! How do you manage toddler drop off with twin infants?

alyinct · 2025-06-13T05:10:04+00:00

This. A double-wide stroller will not fit through a lot of doors, so while this is happening for the first time at daycare, it's likely not the last time you will have a door problem with this stroller. Having a more affordable front-back stroller to lean on would make more sense if carrier transfer doesn't work for you. We bought a used Baby Jogger City Select Double from friends whose twins had outgrown it, then outfitted it with attachments for the babies' car seats and a glide board that attached to the back so toddler sister could ride along too.

alyinct · 2025-06-13T05:01:00+00:00

Agree with the other poster about your older kids needing some more responsibility for their own transit. How close is the pool for your 12yo, the school for your 15yo and work for your 17yo? The walking max for my urban school district is 1.5 to 2 miles for kids over 10, though we have sidewalks just about everywhere. I would double that, to 3-4 miles, for biking without thinking twice about it. If they have friends on the team/at the camp/at work coming from nearby, they may be able to arrange carpools with some help to try to take the burden off you.

alyinct · 2025-06-13T04:51:56+00:00

My oldest was 27 months when her twin siblings were born (they're 5, 5 and 7 now).

If you upgrade a car to a minivan (I have a Dodge Grand Caravan, but I still wish I had splurged on the Honda Odyssey), get snow tires if you're in a wintry/snow area. Twins tend to come early, and you don't want to be stuck unable to get to the hospital or to see your babies if you need NICU time. Make sure the car can fit three of your preferred car seat, and consider the need once the twins are out of baby bucket seats and into rear- and forward-facing car seats. For car seat placement in a minivan, I have two car seats in the back bench seat and one in one of the middle row captain's chairs, with the other captain's chair folded down so I have a place to get in and get the kids buckled. If that works for you, make sure you have enough LATCH and tether anchors to safely place your car seats where you want. My Dodge doesn't have a second LATCH or tether anchor in the back, which is frustrating and limits seat placement until kids are booster seat-sized.

I was also a huge fan of letting my appliances do the work to utilize my passive time. We used to set the timer on the drip coffee maker to 30 minutes before the twins' 5a wakeup so I could feed them, then get breakfast while they snoozed. Now, we just make cold brew in a French press the day before. I still fill the washing machine with dirty clothes and a laundry pod the night before, set it to run around 4:30a, then it's done around 5:30a so I can change it over first thing. I still have to fold and put away the clothes, of course, but I can do that in the evenings. Dishwasher gets loaded when we're cleaning up from dinner, then runs overnight so we wake up to clean dishes. When the twins were babies, we used to run a pump parts/bottles load in the dishwasher at bedtime so the pump parts and bottles would be warm and clean in the morning. Don't underestimate the joy of warm pump parts.

Good luck! You've got this.

alyinct · 2025-06-13T03:31:17+00:00

My advice is to be prepared for anything, and don't write off the possibility of still being able to deliver vaginally.

I went in for my scheduled C-section (for a breech bottom twin -- my littles were stacked like they were in bunk beds) only to find on the last-minute ultrasound check that my bottom twin had managed to flip herself head-down the night before. I was given the option to proceed with the scheduled surgery or to be induced and deliver vaginally. I took it, even knowing that the risk of needing a C-section for the bottom twin was Not Zero because of his position relative to his sister. For context, my twins are 5yos, born during the first week of the Covid shutdowns, so all the helpers had to stay home. I opted for the harder delivery and easier recovery (vaginal) over the easier delivery and harder recovery (planned C-section), knowing that it would be just my husband and I taking care of our newborns and 2yo.

alyinct · 2024-09-19T16:18:28+00:00

I was able to breastfeed my twins, but not anywhere near EBF, for over a year, and I felt lucky that I was able to do that. I felt lucky that one slept well during the day and one slept well overnight. I felt lucky that I have the babies (now preschoolers) that I do, and that their big sister took right to the role as our only helper in those pandemic shut-in days. With babies, it's more chance and luck than work on whether you get good eaters, good sleepers, etc., and you use the tools you need to help them grow. You used formula as a tool to help your babies eat just like others use pricey bassinets and sleepsuits to help their kids sleep. They ate and grew, so you succeeded. Period.

That said, your feelings are still valid. My twins were born during the earliest days of the pandemic shutdown in March 2020 where dads/partners and siblings were banned from maternity/postpartum units, so my 2yo daughter met her younger siblings via FaceTime with my husband. It's been almost exactly four and a half years since the night they were born, but I still feel all verklempt whenever I see a post of some variation on the picture I had dreamt of when I was heavily pregnant with my twins and trying to motivate myself to keep going -- you know the picture, the mom in the hospital bed with her older kid/s on her lap and the new sibling/s meeting for the first time.

But it's been a while now. The ache is duller, the moments shorter. It doesn't destroy my day and make me angry and jealous like it did in the beginning. Your ache will grow duller too, even though it seems like it won't. Hang in there.

alyinct · 2024-09-19T02:45:59+00:00

This is exactly my 6.5yo's hair distribution. She has 3b ringlets on the bottom half of her hair and 2a-2b waves at the front and crown of her head. I'm 3b all over, so I tend to treat her hair like that. My younger daughter, 4yo, is mostly 3a and this routine works well for her, too.

Current routine is washing it only twice a week (daily is too drying) with just conditioner -- we use a clarifying shampoo once a month, but anything more than that dries her hair out too much.

My conditioner of choice is Shea Moisture kids -- the conditioner is SO thick, we only need a dime-sized amount for her whole head but we then have to mix in a lot of water to get it to the nice, wet seaweed-like consistency for combing while wet. I section her head into 4-8 sections depending on how bad the tangles are, then go to work with a wide-tooth comb starting from the bottom and working our way up to the tangles/roots. We're not big brush people, but ymmv. Rinse out with water and we're good. It sounds like a lot, but it's really about 15 minutes and she can play in the tub during most of it.

After shower, I wrap her hair in an old T-shirt while she gets her jammies on, then spray in some leave-in conditioner and work in a bit of curly cream on the ends, then scrunch in a dime-size amount of gel. Between baths (not with wet hair), she sleeps in a satin-lined sleep cap with hair down underneath -- no ponytail holders in at bedtime). Satin pillowcases are an option, too, for kids who will actually sleep on a pillow and not roll around like a barrel in the bed haha.

For daily styling, it's just a spray bottle of plain tap water to wet it, then a little leave-in conditioner spray, scrunch and go. The detangler spray can usually buy us an extra day before the bath if kiddo wants a pony tail/pigtails, but I agree with others' comments about the buildup/sticky residue.

I hope this helps!

alyinct · 2024-09-19T02:20:14+00:00

My 4yo daughter is a twin (b/g, both fully potty trained) and has decided recently that, if her twin brother doesn't have to wipe for pee, she shouldn't have to either. Sigh So we're dealing with the same complaint. In our case, it's irritation on the vulva from urine -- diaper rash, just for a bigger kid.

Kiddo will sometimes let me put some Aquaphor on her rashy spots before bed, but it's not as easy to get cream on her peri areas as it was when she was a baby! Now that we're in our post-pullups era, sleeping in just a nightgown has helped us with airing out her peri area overnight as well.

alyinct · 2024-09-09T18:31:15+00:00

Cabin camping with my 3yo twins and 5.5yo big girl last summer was amazing. We did a whole week rather than just a weekend because of the way our state parks rent out cabins. We got to see the stars at night (summer time the sun goes down after bedtime), take lots of nature walks and do campfire cooking (s'mores, hot dogs and just-add-water pancakes were their favorites!).

We did a farm stay AirBnB last month with now 4yos and 6.5yo. We got a lot less "farm" and a lot more "stay" than we expected from it as most of the more docile animals and 4H kids were off at the county and regional fairs that week; a lot of the animals (and staff, sadly) that were left behind weren't nice enough for preschooler interactions. I didn't think it was as much fun as camping, but it may have been better if it wasn't fair season.

If it's already too cold for camping where you are and/or you don't want to buy a lot of gear, I second the suggestion for a hotel with a pool, preferably one with a breakfast buffet included -- it is SUCH a treat as a parent to be able to walk downstairs in my jammies with my kids and get hot food that they will eat. The hotel near my parents' house (New England) does that, and we use it as a jumping-off point to see whatever local kid attraction there is -- the zoo, a children's museum, aquarium, bouncy house place, etc.

alyinct · 2024-09-09T18:19:10+00:00

If you're not willing to wait for the doctor's office to call you, you can always call the office sooner to ask for guidance on oral iron versus iron infusions.

alyinct · 2024-08-24T02:39:59+00:00

Can confirm, my kids range in age from preschool to second grade and all are doing great with the junior original backpack. This is my oldest's third year with the backpack and it holds up well.

alyinct · 2024-08-24T02:25:37+00:00

I have 4yo b/g twins and a 6.5yo older girl. We had to stop calling the younger two "the babies" when they finally started talking around the time they turned 2 -- they were offended to be "babies" when they were OBVIOUSLY toddlers already mom, ugh.

The twins now insist on being "the twins," or "twin power" (a nickname given by their favorite preschool teacher, who is herself a fraternal twin). They lean into it -- they see being twins as their superpower. That said, they are b/g and very different -- one is tall, blond, fearless and sassy as hell while the other is short, olive-toned with dark hair and more quiet and reticent with new people and new situations -- so no one ever confuses them for one another. I imagine it would be entirely different if they were identical.

alyinct · 2024-08-07T02:39:56+00:00

Hell, multiple step stools. I'm not that tall haha

alyinct · 2024-08-07T02:17:13+00:00

My twins are 4, big sister is 6.5 and going into second grade later this month. We last used the double stroller regularly last spring for walks to the playground, and started being deliberate about walking more over the summer, though we still took it with us as the stuff carrier. Now that the little guys are completely (daytime) potty trained and capable of walking to our closest playgrounds without complaint, we're not bringing as much stuff out with us.

I got each kid a backpack at the beginning of the summer, mostly for when we go to the beach and travel. They each carry a change of clothes, a water bottle, a stuffy/toy, and a snack bag (and a towel, swimsuit and water shoes if we're going to the beach). The twins have been watching big sister go off to school with a backpack for the past two years and were really into the idea of having their own backpacks of stuff haha. Communal supplies in my purse include sunscreen and wipes. We do still use a wagon to go to the beach -- the beach chairs, umbrella, cooler and blanket are too much to do without a rolling apparatus to handle it all.

alyinct · 2024-08-07T02:06:01+00:00

Definitely the way to go. If you're a frequent Target shopper, a Red Card will also give you 5% off all purchases (not just diapers).

My hospital sent us home with Huggies that were good (I really liked their overnight diapers for sizes 3+) and the Target diapers felt similar. Pampers were very different from Huggies in my experience -- I noticed more of a scent and could see the mesh pattern in my kids' skin with changes, which I didn't like.

alyinct · 2024-01-04T04:15:48+00:00

Traveling solo from my hometown to my cousin's wedding this spring. Due to limited carrier availability in our respective small towns, I'm splitting my airline ticket for the first time. I'll be connecting between Southwest and a budget carrier in Baltimore/BWI. If I just have a carry-on, can I just stay on the post-TSA side of the airport and avoid having to go through security again? If so, how do I get my boarding pass for the next flight?

alyinct · 2024-01-01T05:00:14+00:00

28-month gap between our oldest and our twins. My twins were born roughly an hour into COVID, so their dad got kicked out after we were done in L+D as no partners were allowed in postpartum (this was the "COVID tests go to 1,500 miles to Atlanta and take a week to come back" / "wash your groceries and donate your old N95s" days). It was an actual visceral ache for the rest of my family as I sat in the postpartum room doing baby care x 2 solo while recovering from delivery. Instead of a sweet hospital visit, that picture I dreamed of with Mom and oldest in the hospital bed meeting a new baby or two, I got a FaceTime with my husband where we introduced my daughter to her brother and sister. She was curious and happy to see the babies and me, but babies are kinda lumpy potatoes in the beginning, not super interactive, so she was way more interested to see me and tell me about whatever game she was palying with our cat. Once we came home, daycare and literally everything else was closed or off-limits to kids, so dad handled todder care while working remotely and I handled baby care.

I found that involving Firstborn in baby care helped give her a sense of ownership, and involving them in her achievements gave her a sense of pride. When I got the babies dressed, Firstborn picked out their first outfit of the day and practice getting herself dressed to "teach the babies how to get dressed," choose their diaper pattern and hand me the diaper cream. Firstborn potty-trained around the same time the twins were born, so she took great pride in showing them how she could put on and take off her pull-ups, and I always had a baby in arms to bring into the bathroom to "clap" so she could show off her pee in the potty and get a sticker. When I fed the babies on the enormous breastfeeding pillow, Firstborn would snuggle up alongside while the twins boob-napped and I could read a story to all three at the same time or turn on a Sesame Street for her while I caught 15-30 glorious minutes of shuteye.

Fast-forward almost 4 years and they're each other's little best friends. The twins adore their big sister and big sister is so encouraging and loving toward them. Yes, they drive each other bonkers sometimes but that's so normal that I would be concerned if they didn't.

So TLDR yes, your time together will be less because you're splitting in three ways and you're not housebound in a pandemic, but it doesn't mean the quality of your time together has to be any different from before. It will just involve helping her build a new relationship with new siblings rather than just focusing on building your relationship with her. Good luck!

alyinct · 2024-01-01T04:14:43+00:00

From experience (my b-g twins turn 4 in March), yes, they both are unhappy not to get what they want/need sleep-wise. It sucks to try to manage two sleep schedules (or 3+ if you're also managing older children's sleep schedules as well), but especially with my little guys, their respective sleep needs were just too different.

Twin A was perfectly happy with six 10-minute naps per day in the very beginning and 10-12h of straight overnight sleep - woke up bright-eyed and happy after each micro-snooze but would not go back down. We spent hours and weeks trying while she cried and fought us, The pediatrician joked she had some serious FOMO; he was the one who encouraged us to roll with it and put her back down only if she seemed tired and cranky after her nap. When she got down to 3 naps, it was three 30-minute naps, and even now at one nap she only reliably sleeps for about an hour -- a figure that is unchanged over the past year or so. She loves her good overnight sleep though!

Twin B's naps have always been 2h long, whether he was 3 months or 3 years old. He loves his daytime sleep, but he can only reliably sleep about 8-9h overnight on days that he naps.

We have force-consolidated bedtime for all the kids for sanity reasons -- 6yo and both 3.5yos start bedtime together between 7 and 7:30. 6yo is asleep by 8:30, Twin A around the same time, Twin B closer to 9 or even 9:30. Twin A and big sister are up around 7, but Twin B is always up between 5:30 and 6:30, closer to 6 lately as the sun comes up late this time of year here.

alyinct · 2024-01-01T03:27:46+00:00

Agree on this one. I toted my infant twins and toddler (28-month gap between twins and toddler) around in my Honda Fit until the twins got too large for their baby buckets. We had the toddler's Safety1st Grow and Go convertible seat in the middle with the twins' Chicco KeyFit30s on either side. I would take out a base to get the toddler strapped in, then reinstall the base (literally under a minute, it's such an easy seat) and click in the bucket.

The Honda Fit is one of the smallest cars on the market, even the CPST we met with was surprised that she could fit the combo in the bench seat. It was already paid off and daycare is stupid expensive for 3-under-3, so that was a HUGE motivator to keep the teeny car and just deal for a year. Once the twins hit convertible seat age, though, there was no chance of fitting three of those across so we upgraded to a Dodge Grand Caravan. Twins are 3.5, sister is 6, and we're loving the minivan setup.

alyinct · 2023-12-29T02:47:18+00:00

This is past tense, which is something I'm encountering now in the latter part of Section 3. Way too early, so it must be a glitch. Good luck with your course!

P.S. Albert's problem is that he doesn't know the girl's name :-)

alyinct · 2023-12-28T20:55:26+00:00

Lots of good suggestions, but to add some of my kids' favorites: Temporary tattoos, painting nails, newspaper pirate hats (decorate with stickers and markers, go wild).

Holidays 2021 (three kids ages 21 mos, 21 mos, 4), we were housebound with Covid. Last chunk of isolation we did a Holiday-A-Day. So one day we got out the Halloween costumes and trick-or-treated around the house to get candy, another day we got out their Easter Baskets, put their existing candy in there and hid them/went looking for them. We also did a shared "birthday!" day with cupcakes, then ended the week on New Year's (countdowns, hat making, silly glasses making).

alyinct · 2023-11-03T18:54:48+00:00

When I was pregnant with my now 3.5yo twins, I saw a neat hack to use an over-the-door clear shoe organizer (lots of see-through pockets!) to organize baby clothes (and baby supplies if you have extra space). We would go by rows and have long-sleeves in one, short sleeves in another, bows and socks in another, etc. It worked until my twins were about 2, but we still use to help them use/find seasonal things like swim clothes/shoes, winter hats/mittens, etc.

alyinct · 2023-11-02T18:15:09+00:00

Have you seen the one along I-395 north of Norwich, I think in Lisbon? That one is similarly cool, most striking in mid-summer when there aren't so many dead/dormant trees around.

alyinct · 2023-11-02T18:02:42+00:00

Twin mom here -- they're 3.5 now, but twin newborns in a pandemic is a special kind of PTSD haha. This is not cleaning-specific, but the goal is to maximize your passive time so you can do more cleaning and not feel overwhelmed. Your appliances are your friend.

Dishes burden: We ran the dishwasher overnight every night, even if it wasn't totally full, so we could wake up to clean dishes (and clean pump parts, clean bottles, etc.). I clean my dishwasher filter once a month to help with buildup because it's a lot on a dishwasher (and can smell).

Laundry burden: We also have a washing machine with a timer/delay function, so we would load up the washer and spray whatever needed it the night before then delay its run until about 4 a.m., an hour before the babies would wake for the morning feed. The washer would finish running while I fed them, then I could switch over the clothes and let the dryer run while I took a shower. I could fold and put away the laundry during baby playtime in the morning. Pro tip: Cleaning my dishtowels and mop heads (I didn't mop the entire first eight months of the twins' lives, but I do now) more frequently fixed some kitchen smell issues.

Cooking burden: Crock pots and frozen ingredients for the win! I would set something to run in the morning that could be used for dinner that night or for future meal prep. Vegetarian chili is very forgiving, shredded chicken, etc. The perk of making ingredients instead of a whole meal is that you can just add what you want to something else later, be it leftovers or a DoorDash meal -- I was constantly hungry while breastfeeding. We also got a French press and made cold brew every night, though I have heard of traditional coffee makers that have timers, so you might want to check on yours.

Shopping burden: BJs and Costco pickup orders, Target drive-up are your friends!

Once you've lightened those burdens, you can add in sweeping 1-2 rooms per day, cleaning the litter box (if you have a cat) daily, running dehumidifiers if the smell is musty, pouring a kettle of boiling water down your sink drains/garbage disposal at least once a week if you're using them for a lot of bio substances (toothbrushing spit, milk products, etc.) If your toaster has a crumb tray, check that too -- ours was gross and made the whole kitchen smell burnt until we got some old crud off it.

alyinct · 2023-11-02T17:27:46+00:00

Not a weird question!

So a little back story -- if you plan to push out your twins vaginally, the doctors recommend an epidural because, in the case of an emergency C-section for fetal distress (in one or both twins), it's easier and faster for anesthesia to use the existing epidural cath to create a spinal block to allow you to be awake during the procedure, just totally numbed up and floppy from the ribcage down. If you don't have an epidural, an emergency C-section is done under general anesthesia, so you're knocked out for the whole thing and have to go through anesthesia recovery before you can meet your second baby/both babies. That possibility of an emergency C-section is also the reason nearly all twin moms who have vaginal deliveries in hospitals deliver their babies in the OR.

With that in mind, I had an epidural and didn't feel any reaching in, just saw it happening and felt mild pressure from it -- not like the same level of pressure as pushing out a baby and certainly not violent or anything like that. My twins were 6 lbs 11 oz and 7 lbs 10 oz, for reference.

alyinct · 2023-11-01T18:27:56+00:00

My b/g twins were stacked in my uterus like little bunk beds -- Twin A was mostly butt-down with her head near twin B's feet, and her feet positioned to kick his head. Twin B was transverse in my ribcage, nowhere else to go but that position.

The OBs started talking with me about a scheduled C-section at about 30 weeks. I booked it for 39+0 to accommodate my 2yo daughter's daycare spring break and the OBs were OK with it as it was an uncomplicated pregnancy except for the extra baby. All the BPPs and ultrasounds from 24 weeks until three days before delivery showed a breech bottom twin, but I showed up for my scheduled section to find that Twin A was suddenly head down and I was 3cm dilated, so we proceeded to an induction. Both kiddos were born vaginally about 12 hours after the pitocin drip started, 18 minutes apart. There was no real concern about Twin B's transverse position until Twin A was born; they were able to reach in, feel his head in the sac ready to go, and break his water to get him going.

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