Lessons Learned

We were prepared but also naive. Here are the things you need to keep in mind, we've made a lot of friends with twins and most tell similar stories.

Remember, the first rule of Twin Club is that you don't listen to advice from parents who haven't had twins. Their experiences are entertaining but what works for one doesn't normally scale.

Feeding
We went in planning to do 100% breastfeeding. We didn't own bottles or have formula at home, it just wasn't part of the plan, we thought it would just happen. The reality was that this wasn't going to happen. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here but we ended up with a 5 baby system - breastfeed each, pump and then bottle feed each one. This got to happen every 2-3 hours so as you can imagine there wasn't much else going on.

My advice, have bottles and formula ready before you go home. I have thoughts on what you want over on my gear you need page but make sure you have enough of everything.

Swaddling/Receiving Blankets
Have a lot, you need about 4 times more than you think you do unless you want to be doing laundry twice a day. Get big ones, I recommend 30x40 and get cotton, not muslin if you're going to want to keep them warm. Believe it or not, very relevant for winter in the CA Bay Area.

Advice
This goes back to my first rule of twins but it bears repeating again and again. Nearly all the advice you're going to get is from people with experience with one child. Doctors, nurses, lactation experts and friends. Seek out people with twins and multiples, I'm not sure what it's like elsewhere in the world but here in the Bay Area we have groups like MPPOM so that's probably a good starting point. The group has been extremely helpful for us.

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