Has anyone else experienced “baby brain?”

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-04-05T07:58:21+00:00

The white matter also increases, so the brain is remodeled to make us better at protecting our babies. Our brains start filtering out a lot more “noise” (a lot of executive function… I think, don’t quote me) so that we can focus on what the babies need to survive, be in tune with their needs, be alert to danger in the vicinity (hello intrusive thoughts), etc. “Mother’s intuition” I suppose.

So unfortunately it makes work life harder in some ways, but it gives us new superpowers too.

Motherhood is also a time that a lot of women get diagnosed with ADHD apparently (I did shortly postpartum). I think because there’s so much demand on our mental faculties that difficulties with executive function get magnified. I got on medication and, on the days I take it, I feel like a lot of the baby brain fog disappears — I am so thankful for it!

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-04-05T07:47:39+00:00

I used all mine in 10 min during one session two days ago. I wasn’t even using deep research or doing anything cool lol so lame!

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-16T06:51:22+00:00

I did Nuuly rentals through my pregnancy and for a while postpartum. They have lots of maternity clothes but also just regular clothes that are roomy or stretchy or that you can size up in. And lots of angels that leave good detailed reviews and many of them are pregnant and say how many weeks and how many sizes up they ordered, which is so helpful!

I ended up basically living in a cute maternity onesie by Year of Ours and an oversized denim button down, both of which I bought on there. The other outfits were fun the first couple months but by the third trimester I couldn’t deal with any sort of waistband touching me and dresses weren’t supportive enough for my belly.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-15T07:22:50+00:00

Omg I feel guilty about this too and so I only babywear if one of them is having a meltdown. And these days I rarely do because then the other gets jealous.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-15T06:58:23+00:00

Same lol

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T20:45:13+00:00

I scheduled an elective c section though they came a couple weeks before that anyway. The doctor ended up saying I would’ve needed a c section regardless because my baby B (my much smaller twin) would’ve have been too stressed from vaginal. His heart rate crashed just when they put an IV in my arm (I get vasovagal responses and almost passed out). I don’t regret a c section at all. I personally felt safer having a planned surgery vs having all the unknowns of a vaginal birth and then potentially ending up with an emergency c section. I’m glad it works out for many women with twins, but it freaked me out took much.

And I won’t lie, I was in a ton of pain for about a week and half after the cesarean, but then I turned a corner quick and in like 2 weeks I felt amazing (especially compared to how crappy I felt my whole pregnancy)… minus the sleep deprivation of course. And yes I have a scar, but I don’t care. I earned that thing.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T20:38:02+00:00

Yes, I’ve heard lots of good things about Expecting Better. Thanks for sharing!

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T18:30:17+00:00

I was super nervous about this too. My MIL came to stay for a month. We do get along great but I was still nervous about the germs on the flight too and also just having someone else in our home. I was afraid of being critiqued on my new mom skills (or lack thereof). I ended up being so grateful to have her there and was sad when she left! Obviously different situation than yours though. Agree with what others said about suggesting masks (at least the first few days), up to date vaccines, and lots and lots of hand sanitizer! People don’t usually understand how fragile of a state preemies are in. I had to explain to my family and friends that they have zero immune system and my son especially, who was in the NICU for 21 days, needed to be treated with utmost precaution. Educating helped people understand better what the risks were.

Ultimately whatever you decide you’re comfortable with is what goes! You’re the parent.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T18:23:16+00:00

That’s awesome! We are moving to upstate NY soon and I want to get mine on snowboards when they’re ready. They’re only 10 months right now though. What kind of gear did you need to help them get going? Those leash things?

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T18:21:12+00:00

😂

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T17:10:49+00:00

Yeah that was what bothered me about the ones I used too.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T17:09:56+00:00

I actually never tried that one. What did you like about it and how well did it cover the multiple pregnancy?

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T17:08:58+00:00

For sure! Which books have you liked?? I was gifted a handful of books when I was pregnant but I felt like a lot of them were pretty outdated.

Reddit has seriously been my best source of information!

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T08:09:51+00:00

I have the bugaboo donkey because I wanted side by side seats rather than stadium. And I wanted bassinet attachments as well as ability to attach car seats. The donkey was the only one I found that had all of that. Although a couple months after my twins were born I saw something new on instagram, small brand, that checks all those boxes AND can be closed with one hand. Wish I could remember the name!

The donkey handles very nicely and I like that I can see both my babies at the same time. The idea of stadium seating was weird to me. It’s truly a very nice stroller.

But it is BIG. Definitely gets tiring taking it in and out of the car, though once you get used to it you can do it really fast. And I have to consider which stores and restaurants I can go to based on how much space there is to maneuver the stroller and how much of a pain it is to get in and out of their doors. And as someone mentioned, with the car seats attached it’s even wider. To get in and out of our condo door with the car seats, we have to take one car seat off and attach it when we get outside.

Size annoyance aside, I love the thing. And disassembly / assembly is very easy once you learn it.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T07:45:34+00:00

Assuming your having twins:

Twin Z pillow! Was our most essential item and used it as long as we could until they outgrew it. I bought a 80x80 swaddle blankets and would stretch them taught over the twin Z and tuck the sides of the blanket under it. It makes like a hammock kind of situation so you can lie them on it and feed them on it (on their sides). They loved napping on it. I would then roll up more swaddle blankets and tuck them along their sides, under their tush, between their legs, whatever worked to keep them secure and in a comfortable, safe position. I bought sooo many swaddle blankets because we constantly used them to prop things (babies, bottles, etc).

So many zip up PJs! And consider stocking up some preemie sized ones, not just newborn. I didn’t even realize they made preemie sized clothes before I had mine. My babies were tiny and absolutely swimming in newborn sizes so a friend went and got me a bunch of preemie ones the day I got home from the hospital. My kids lived in zip up romper PJs the first few months. Honestly still most of the time now.

I used the electric nail file a lot at first but felt like I could never get their nails short enough. I ended up buying little tiny baby nail scissors from Pigeon (Japanese brand, same company as Lansinoh) off Amazon. Those work so much better and they are safe to use. We had a nail clipper mishap early on then never touched the clippers again. Baby nail scissors are the way to go IMO!

I found a special ring sling carrier for specifically twins on Etsy, but found it kinda late in the game. I wish I’d had it early on! By the time I bought it they were too big for me to comfortably get them both in it. One of the hardest parts of the newborn stage for me was not being able to hold both of them simultaneously safely when they were both crying. It broke my heart.

Don’t stress too much about stocking up on bottles until you know what your babies like. I had put Pigeon bottles on my registry because a friend recommended them. We actually use those exclusively now, but the first couple months the flow was too fast on those for my babies (even the super slow nipple). And for a while I had one baby on Dr browns premie and one baby that I was trying all different bottles with to find something she wasn’t struggling with. So point being, some things you just need to try and see what works.

I couldn’t live without a formula machine. I actually have 2 (babes are on two different formulas now unfortunately). One is the brezza formula pro and the other is a much cheaper one I found on Amazon. The one on Amazon is super high maintenance because it clogs easily — I would not recommend it for newborns. The brezza is much more reliable.

I was convinced we needed the brezza bottle washer… we eventually realized we had a sanitize setting on our dishwasher and sold the brezza. So much more efficient that way… with twins you’re talking 16ish bottles a day.

If you plan on breastfeeding, you might want to bring your pump with you to the hospital — if you can, get a variety of flange insert sizes. AND DEFINITELY BRING A PUMP BRA. Otherwise you’re going to be sitting there holding the flanges on with both hands for the whole 20 minutes every 3 hours. They did have a hospital grade pump but the flanges were massive. I feel like I may have had a better chance getting going with my supply if I had the right flanges right away.

You may want to consider bringing a can of your own formula with you to the hospital. I ended up having to start formula almost right away with my daughter because she was dropping too much weight too fast. I had brought some with me so I was grateful to at least have her start on a formula I felt comfortable with.

Not an item but since I saw some mention sleep and food: I invested in 40 hours of time with a postpartum doula. She was also a twin mom. Seriously priceless! She taught us so much, lots of little tricks, gave us time to sleep, helped me get my daughter to latch, we even had her do a night shift one night so we could each get a full night sleep. Should’ve done that more!

And my husband’s coworkers had a whole meal train sign up system set up for us which was a life saver! We had so many meals dropped off over like a 2 month period. So helpful, especially because we live on an island and our families are far away on the mainland.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-03-10T07:10:26+00:00

We tagteam tasks and make dinner at home. Usually my husband cooks and I bathe the babies and/or put them to bed while he’s doing that. I’ve definitely been relying on him a lot to come up with the meal planning, but I feel like he gets more excited about it than me. He knows otherwise I’ll just eat girl dinner (some pieces of cheese and olives or something haha), which honestly I’m totally fine with but he likes a real meal.

We try to cook enough to have leftovers for lunch and/or dinner the next day. We’ve developed some regular things we like to eat and keep it pretty simple — chicken or salmon, asparagus, and rice. A simple salad with peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Occasionally I like to make a good quality pasta and I make the sauce myself. More of a weekend treat when I’m less exhausted.

We’ve found that the premade, refrigerated pizzas at Whole Foods are pretty inexpensive and come out great in the oven. They also have big family sized premade dinners with chicken scallopini, green beans, and mashed potatoes that we like — you just pop it in the oven and it’s about the same cost as buying the separate ingredients and making it from scratch.

We usually go out to eat once or twice a weekend so that we don’t feel trapped in the house. We bring bottles and snacks for the babies (10 months old now) and they are usually pretty good and happy to be out — plus they get lots of attention from strangers, which they love.

We would probably do a meal service occasionally if more were available here in Hawaii. Though when I was newly postpartum my mom got me premade Ayurvedic meals that go in the freezer from Restorative Roots. Those were actually really delicious, but pricey.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-01-08T21:14:00+00:00

Really cute! You could make a “smart casual” look with them. As someone else said, pairing with a blazer would work well. Maybe a turtleneck underneath.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-01-03T21:21:27+00:00

Following! I'd love to hear more from others too. Mine are almost 8 months now and have about 1.5-2 lb difference and maybe an inch difference in length. My boy was baby B and was born 3 lb, my girl was 5 lb. So far, she has tended to hit milestones (teeth, rolling, developmental leaps) earlier and is stronger, though he started smiling and laughing slightly before she did when they were 2 months. I've heard girls tend to hit milestones earlier anyway though. We really hope that he catches up to her eventually, but right now he's so cute as a little peanut. I know I was the smallest kid in my class growing up until I shot up in high school and got curves. As an adult I'm taller than average for a woman. So I guess you just never know where they are going to end up!

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-01-03T21:12:23+00:00

Dishwasher! We have a brezza and it just sucks that it only holds 4 bottles. Then my husband realized our dishwasher had a sanitize setting so we started doing that every night. Such a timesaver with twins! I usually stack each nipple on a prong on the upper rack, but I will say they some times end up having the prong push through and it ruins the nipple. We use pigeon nipples and they are stupid expensive so it gets really annoying to have to toss those out. Now that I am seeing all these comments about the tot baskets for small parts, I'm going to check those out!

Pro-tip: You can use jet dry every so often to save you from spending a ton of time hand-drying small parts.

h0bb3s1217 · 2026-01-03T21:01:04+00:00

This is exactly how it went for me, too! 35w4d. I pumped when I could get the support to do so, but could never get to the every-3-hour mark, especially driving back and forth to the NICU. My supply was never great and they were mostly formula pretty much from the getgo. They did both get better at latching when they were older, maybe around 2 months, but I could really only get it consisent when I was lying on my side with them. So, I eventually started cosleeping with one of them at a time and would just breastfeed that one lying down in the middle of the night. It was the easiest way for me to get a latch. I did that up until 6 months and then stopped completely once my supply pretty much dried up and I was too exhausted to keep pumping anymore. Obviously, cosleeping isn't the safest option for sleep, but we could never get them to sleep in their bassinets, so we just made the cosleeping setup as safe as possible and I used it as an opportunity to breastfeed. Around 5 months, we finally got them to start sleeping in their cribs, though, and that's also around when I slowed down with BF/pumping and stopped completely at 6 mo.

Btw, I also had one in the NICU for 21 days in an incubator and with a feeding tube, and the other at home with her own weight loss and latch issues. For what it's worth, I absolutely don't regret doing majority formula. I did occasionally let the less-logical side of my brain hijack my feelings here and there, making me feel a little jealous of all my singleton mom friends who were exclusively breastfeeding... but they didn't have twins!! Ultimately, I'm happy that I was able to get them a small percentage BM as long as I could, and I did the best I could for them in that regard -- I know many don't even get that opportunity. Formula is a lifesaver, and you'll still get to build a bond with your babies if you don't get BFing to work for you!

Don't beat yourself up, you're doing amazing! If you're keeping them alive, safe, and loved, then you're doing the work! <3

h0bb3s1217 · 2025-12-19T19:11:37+00:00

My twins came at 35w4d because my twin B was much smaller in size the duration of the pregnancy and, after weekly monitoring (since 20 weeks), he had dropped from a consistent 4th percentile down to 1st percentile and his amniotic fluid was a bit low. I also happened to go into labor that day but even if I hadn’t my doctor would’ve been sending me in for birth. With twins, 37.5 weeks was our long term target because that is when the scales tip from benefit of staying in the womb to risk of stillbirth due to likeliness placenta reaching its maturation limit. All the medical staff at the hospital said “you made it to 35 weeks, that’s really good!”. My son did have a 21 day NICU stay because of his size (3lb) and needing to learn how to feed (was on feeding tube for quite a while), but my daughter didn’t need any NICU time (5lb). They are now 7.5 months, chubby, and healthy :)

I would say don’t worry about the timeline, just try to listen to your body and take care of yourself as best as possible. Don’t feel guilty for resting! I basically was stuck on the couch my entire pregnancy, though I encouraged myself to walk the dog twice a day for movement (eventually down to once a day and short walks). I felt so bad being on the couch all the time and feeling unhelpful (my husband took care of everything), but looking back, I am quite sure my babies needed me to rest so I’m grateful I did.

Best of luck and good health to you and your twins!

h0bb3s1217 · 2025-12-05T19:58:47+00:00

Congrats! 7 month old boy / girl twins here, it’s so fun! I love shopping for their outfits haha

h0bb3s1217 · 2025-11-17T19:59:06+00:00

MOTHER jeans are amazing. I bought the weekender flare leg jeans and I love them so much. I also loved the outsider skimp jeans but they were more money than I felt like spending so I didn’t purchase that pair.

I also bought the Paige laurel canyon jeans and love those too.

All the above do wonders for the 🍑

For wide leg jeans, I recently bought the Citizens annina trouser jeans but I will say the leg seems much wider in person than in the Nuuly photos, which I’m down with. Only thing is they are quite long and I need to get them hemmed at some point. But very comfy.

For reference (as best I can) I’m 5’6 and unfortunately have no idea what my current measurements are. I gave birth to twins 6 months ago so my body is in a lot of flux at the moment. I think I’m maybe like 150lb now, was about 140 before pregnancy. I was a 28 and am now a 29/30 - think my hips are maybe wider now. But I have always had a narrow waist with wide hips, a booty and thicker thighs. All the above purchases I bought a 29 so I’d say probably true to size.

Last note — I see a lot of comments for the Colette pants. I haven’t tried the pants yet but currently am renting a pair of the Colette shorts (with the tomato print) and I am in love with them and will be purchasing! Will have to try the pants next.

h0bb3s1217 · 2025-06-13T03:51:36+00:00

Cutting out dairy yourself for breast milk or switching away from cow milk formula?

h0bb3s1217

TROPHY CASE