Hi,
]My twins are due in September, but because I have a history of mental illness that has resulted in hospitalisation & being treated by the local mental health unit for several years now we are putting extra supports in place now rather than waiting for the babies to come & for me to start having issues in the hope of preventing any.

I have an appointment with my case manager from Anglicare tomorrow & know that part of the discussion will centre around what supports etc we need in place (other than having some sort of respite which my psychiatrist has already told them we see as being essential). I have no real idea of what to expect from one baby let alone two, so what practical assistance would you have found most beneficial in the early days (my mental health plan will be increasing with needs so it is not so much support on that front). We can always add things on once the babies are here & our individual needs become more obvious, but I would like to have anything that will make those early days easier put in place if it can be. I have just been approved for a DSP due to my mental health issues, so DH is going to be able to reduce his working hours to be around more often than he otherwise would too.

Not knowing what sort of issues you face I would simply suggest that you be allowed to wholly focus on the babies and the babies alone.

You need people to take on board the housework, washing, cooking and shopping wihtout you having to think about them at all.

I also think it would be a good idea to ensure that you get maximum sleep as possible. If this means that you do not do all the feeds but your DH or help does one of the middle of the night feeds so that you at least get one stretch of sleep that lasts for at least 6-7 hrs. This will be important in ensuring your bodies ability to continue to make serotonin.

Pretty much any of the challenges faced in having multiples are able to be handled if sufficient rest is had and superfluous stresses are taken on by others

Hi,

Things that would be useful would be:

Help for night-time feeds, where it is partner, friends or paid help.
Meals cooked for a period of time that are frozen and ready to go.
Someone to come over a few times a week to wash and hang out clothes
Setting up on-line grocery shopping now, so shopping can be done quickly as you need to.
Being prepared early for the birth of the babies by having everything ready and avoiding a panic.
As much as you can afford, set yourself up well - i.e. rockers, swings, baby carriers, dummies etc, anything that you can see that will help the babies to sleep and be settled.
Not being under any financial strain - i.e. getting your finances in order to ensure you are under the least amount of stress possible.
Seeking out mother's groups etc so you can try and get yourself out the house as soon as possible when the babies come to avoid isolation.
Attending local multiple birth ante-natal classes so you can meet some other mums and set up some networks.

Hmmmm. hope that helps....good luck

My suggestion is probably controversial, but I can only go on my own experience.

For me, the biggest and most all-consuming issue I had was breastfeeding. If I had my time over, I wouldn't even try. The anxiety, angst, guilt etc that was associated with it (for me..) was terrible and led me down some very dark and lonely paths.

Do you have family close by? If you do, I would encourage them all to get on board with doing a night a week where they stay in the house with you and your family and do the night feeds. My DH and I did this for a night or two a week where my mum would come over and instead of us having to get up twice during the night, we'd take turns, ie. I'd do the 2am feed with mum and DH would do the 5am feed with mum.

If you've got more than one family member (or very good friend!) who is willing to do that for a few weeks, I think that would be invaluable.

Obvioulsy the fact that you're aware and are being proactive about this situation will go a long way in assisting you long term.

Good luck - I really feel for you.

Kylie

Good on you for getting all your ducks in a row in advance and asking for help when it is needed.

I think re: feeding, to the extent possible decide what you want to do in advance and line up help accordingly. If it's bottle feeding, everyone's idea of overnight helpers so you can get some sleep is a great idea, grab a billion bottles and an enormous steriliser (or two cheap microwave sterilisers). if it's breastfeeding, find a lactation consultant you like NOW, line up breast pump hire NOW, etc - we were scrambling for this stuff at the end of the babies' first week, found an LC we didn't particularly like and who missed a major problem in twin 1, had to use a single pump overnight (taking hours) while waiting for the double pump hire to show up, etc. You might not need any of that backup if you do decide to bf, but better to have it lined up and not need it than need it and not have it!

Respite care would be wonderful and long stretches of sleep would be wonderful. However, do not despair if it isn't possible to get night assistance every night (or if you plan to be breastfeeding, when frankly it is highly unlikely you will be able to get long stretches, because you would need to be pumping if not feeding every 3-4 hours overnight to establish supply for the first few months), a good long stretch once or twice a week would I think do wonders. I say this as someone who has only just (at twins 7 months!) started to get 5-6 hour stretches of sleep!

This may be a more controversial point, but I really do think the birth experience has a huge role to play in the early parenting experience. I am not sure what you have planned for delivery, but courses like calmbirth can help with relaxation and management of pretty much anything, including a planned c-section. Our private midwife cost us hand over fist but she was WONDERFUL and made all the difference to our lovely birth and great start on twin parenting, or maybe you could find a doula, or anyone experienced really to discuss birth/delivery issues (including emotional and other) in a pregnancy-specific way.

I agree re: parent's groups. We only got this lined up at 5 months and it would have been much nicer to have done it earlier.

having your husband around more is a fantastic idea. Mine worked part time until the twins were 5 months and is now staying at home. It is fantastic - I have no idea how I managed before as we still barely get it all done with 2 of us on deck!

I am really glad everyone is coming up with good suggestions for you and I wish you all the very best.

Thank you for all the suggestions. A huge part of my mental health issues is actually major insomnia so I am usually awake for most of night anyway - as much as possible I generally try not to allow myself to sleep more than 90 mins at a time because of nightmares that lead to flashbacks & ruminating on past abuse - something I'm hoping to avoid happening so I think if anything the overnight feeds will be a welcome distraction to me.

I have already decided just in the past week or so that I will be formula feeding so that I can go straight back onto my usual combination of psychiatric medications that we know seem to work best for me.

So far we have agreed on organising some volunteeers to come help for 2 hour periods through the day with whatever needs doing on the day - whether it be cleaning, just holding & being with bubs etc so I can have time to ignore them or washing etc. They will also organise someone to come clean our house & do our garden at about the time they are born so all that is done. Unfortunately my mum is in Canada & DH's family are a few hours away. I do have some friends who have offered to help, but the one who has offered most help has bub # 4 arriving in July & they all have relatively young families themselves.

The respite care to start with will be people coming into our home & doing everything with bubs for a couple of hours every couple of weeks hopefully at times when DH isn't at work.

Loze - thanks for prompting me to actually think about how these babies are coming out. I've been so sick through the pregnancy (with hg) that I really haven't given any thought to it, other than I have no real preference as to how they get here as long as it is safely.

With this you may find that you just don't want them doing everything for the babies. I had respite care one or two ( for some reason I can't remember the number of days ) days a week for the first three months due to a bad neck injury I had the year before they were born.

What sent me insane was that she was there only for the babies. So if I wanted to attend to them myself it was like a competition or she was totally superfluous. I started to resent the fact that she was there to take my place with the babies and I was supposed to either watch her or do housework ( I was breastfeeding in combination with formula so I had to be there)

The other hard thing about "helpers" for the babies like this is that they do things with the babies differently to how you want them to. Irrational I know but I hated them holding the babies and patting them from underneath on the bottom with a resounding thump thump thump. I hated the way it jarred their little premature bodies. Plus we did not want them patted to sleep because we knew it was a recipe for disaster when one person is left alone with them at sleep time.

Truthfully unless the babies are both screaming their lungs out they are not hard to look after at all. What is hard is doing that AND running a house. So at any time I would much rather have appreciated someone cleaning the bathrooms, washing the floors, doing any facet of the washing and even prepping dinner for us.

I wanted to be a Mum not a house cleaner while others got to enjoy my babies

thanks for that feedback DG - I have another appt next Monday with my case manager so I will talk to her about those issues as well as my psychiatrist when I see him. Now that you've put it that way I can understand how respite with them being there for the babies may not be an ideal particularly with newborns.

computer in posting overdrive again

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There is also the issue that if you are getting only a couple of hours here and there of respite how do you time it to when the babies are awake?

If for example they are booked to be there between 2.30pm and 4.30pm and this is the sleep time of your babies on that particular day ?

What are they going to do when the babies are asleep?- and they do sleep a hell of a lot for the first few months really it is just that it is in lots of smaller than 3 hr bursts. ( it just feels like they dont...lol).
Mine used to have naps herself or read her book which would just about send me into a fit of anger and frustration as I knew I had to get the washing out and attempt to clean things or prepare dinner or pump milk.

A funny ( now) story was that I would take the carer out with me to do shopping as she would be the one to pick up the pram and the babies into and out of the car. And also the groceries.
She would take the pram off me at every opportunity so I never got to push my brand new babies myself. One time the pram did not fit in a shop and I asked her to stay with them outside and when I came out she had disappeared. It took me 15 minutes to find her.I was utterly distraught as she also did not answer her mobile as it was in her bag.

That was the last day I had "help".

I am not trying to say "dont get help" but more so get the help that you want and need as opposed to the help they only want to do that suits them for fun and jollies. No one really wants to wash floors when there are gorgeous little cherubs to snuggle and look at but if someone gets to do the snuggling it should be the mother.

If you have a clear definition of what the help does this can avoid a build up of frustration and therefore stress.

Other hint is that if there are qualified people to look after the babies there- make appointments at this time be it hairdresser, beauty therapist, coffee with a girlfriend or whatever but fill that time up out of the house so that you dont become the cleaner while they are the babysitter.

Hey Peppa

Sounds like some sound advice has been passed on already. And seeming I'm only just in front of you with my pregnancy, I'm not really qualified to give you much advice!!

The only thing I was going to suggest, which has already been suggested by Loze, was a calm birth course of some kind (if your up to it with your HG). Ive not done one of these myself, but Ive read a lot about them and know a few people who have done them, and I thought that if anxiety was an issue then this may help?

Other than that pre-frozen meals was my only other suggestion. But as you are in hospital so much at the moment you aren't exactly going to be able to do any cooking!!! Ive just had my MIL and her SIL (Aunt) here for a few weeks, and they have filled our vertical freezer (bless them!) in preparation for the babies coming. Its important to take care of the parents (ie eat and sleep) so they can take care of the babies.

Good on you for getting yourself organise now - Im sure this can only be beneficial for when the babies arrive.

Take care

not a twin mum, but a depression sufferer. I think you need someone to help out with the housework. And someone who can look after the babies so you and DH can have some time together - even if at the beginning you don't want to actually leave the babies, you can sit in another room and talk, watch a movie whatever, knowing that the babies are safe. Depending on how much your DH is around, and how you cope being at home, you may want to organise to have someone just pop in everyday - just for you to talk to, to save your sanity and make sure you're doing ok. Best of luck!

Peppanikel, so sorry about the HG. a rough ride! If you can't make an actual calmbirth class, a calmbirth or hypnobirthing book or CD might still be worth a shot. It's still relaxation which no doubt you are on top of, but it's a bit more pregnancy and birth specific IYKWIM and might help. I found it particularly useful for the twins because a twin pregnancy is already quite a stressful experience, and I got obstetric cholestasis at week 33 which did not help matters one bit, so it was nice to have tools to manage that and focus on the babies.

I know what Daisy Goat means about people just hanging out or hogging babies. OTOH, my anxiety in early parenting (well, have only done it with my singleton and twins, but it seems to be a trend) is about being left alone with the babies. I didn't really mind if my mum or MIL came down to help and just sort of hung about or took some cuddles - I LOVED the idea of there being backup present if I couldn't cope, even though the actual number of times i couldn't cope weren't many. Plus it does mean you can nap for an hour or so without worrying about being woken up the minute you fall asleep, which is kind of an insomniac's worst nightmare as I understand it from my night owl husband (he would rather not go to sleep than be woken! mad!). If there was anyone around to help in the early weeks and the babies were fed and I had pumped, I went STRAIGHT TO BED.

so I agree with sunshinedays' point. I really liked that sort of pop-in thing. Helped a lot with feelings of isolation, as will getting out of the house with the babies once you're able.

Re: formula feeding, it is hard to settle on a formula in advance, but once you do, if it's a Karicare kind, there's a huge multiple birth discount from Nutricia. It is totally worth calling them to set this up. You have to buy in bulk though (12 tins up) so you would need to have the babies settled on a formula before you started buying from them directly. They have a really helpful advice line and will also send you sample tins to try (via local chemist) which takes a lot of the cost out of fine tuning the formula choice.

All the best
Loze

Hi there,

The mental health service i work for has a safe start perinatal mental health service - maybe you could ask if you have access to the same? This would be specialist care before and after.

when my twins were born I really appreciated food. Meals cooked by others and heated up by me were a godsend for the first four weeks. I also needed other people around because some days juts felt unbearably lonely!! For me feeling nourished and cared for by others in this way was a huge psychological boost!! also it helped me ready and well for the onslaught of breast feeding!

i second a lot of the advice you have already been given and wish you very well.

I would definately join your local AMBA club. You will get so much support from surrounding yourself with other mothers of multiples who understand the unique challenge of parenting twins, triplets, etd.

Even if you just click with a few people, those girls will become such a support to you and you to them.

Surroung yourself with positive people as well. You don't wantt to have negativity and people telling you how hard it is. Of course, it is challenging, but with the right attitude and support for YOU, parenting twins is an absolute joy.

I had some great friends that arranged to bring dinner for us each night. Each evening for 2 weeks I had one friend bring our dinner to us all ready to eat. I honestly don't know what DH, DD1 and myself would have eaten those early days if it wasn't for them.