Table Food Ideas

Wonder twin powers activate! Form of messy eaters! (17 months)

I don’t cook (currently anyway) and I’m trying to satisfy two toddler palates, so mealtimes can be tricky to say the least. Here are some foods you might not have thought of to try with your own little one(s). And I’d love to hear your own food suggestions in the comments section.


My Top Ten Food Ideas

Frozen vegetables. Most people figure this one out on their own, but if you’re just starting out let me clue you in. Buy lots of bags of frozen veggies and then just take out tomorrow's portions the night before and let them defrost in the fridge. (Note: Frozen fruit does NOT work. Too much of a mess.) I have a collection of broccoli, green beans, peas, corn, lima beans, asparagus, artichoke hearts, and snap peas, all met with varying levels of success. (And in the case of the lima beans, asparagus, artichoke hearts, and snap peas, no success.)


James is surprised that he was able to fit broccoli up his nose. (17 ½ months)


Julia and her bib of pea carcasses. (13 ½ months)

Freeze-dried fruit. (Not to be confused with frozen or dried fruit.) No matter how many times I tried, the twins rejected every fruit except banana, apple and pear, and the last two they only barely tolerated. Then I introduced them to freeze-dried fruit. They couldn’t get enough of the stuff! Seriously, I have to actually cut them off because they’ll eat more than an entire bag in one meal. These are by far their favorite foods. In fact, I have to make freeze-dried fruit their last course at a meal because after any of that they won't touch any other food. Their clear favorite is the blueberries, followed (in order) by strawberry, mango, pineapple, and banana. They're only lukewarm on corn and they don’t care for the tomatoes (which are pretty odd in freeze-dried form). This is a great snack, too, since mine seem to anticipate crunchy foods at snacktime.

And the number one sign I know they’ve had too many freeze-dried blueberries? Blue poop.


Blueberry Führer (18 months)


James signs for more freeze-dried blueberries after polishing off an entire bag. (18 months)


Julia shows off her blueberry-stained hands while performing her latest trick. (18 months)

Leftover pizza. One of the great things about babies is that they’ll finish the leftovers you don’t want. Our babies love pizza from A Slice of New York. Thankfully they have the good taste to reject one of Mark’s inexplicable favorites, Papa John’s. My friend Karie taught me to use kitchen scissors to cut up the pizza. What a time saver!

Frozen meatballs. (Trader Joe’s brand of turkey meatballs) Meatballs can be high in sodium so beware. The Trader’s Joe’s brand has the lowest sodium that I’ve found.

Chicken dumplings. (Green Chopsticks brand or Annie Chung’s chicken cilantro wontons, both from Whole Foods.) These are crispier and easier to cut up if you microwave them about 2 minutes. Green Chopsticks’ brand has a version that is labeled for kids and one that’s not, and the only difference I can find is that the kids' version is slightly more expensive. Be careful of other dumpling/gyoza/wonton brands because they can be high in sodium.

Chicken or turkey sausage. (Trader Joe’s chicken and sun-dried tomato sausage) Sausage definitely tends to be high in sodium and nitrates. The Trader Joe’s one is by far the lowest in sodium I’ve found. Even though the sausages are pre-cooked you still have to make sure they’re cooked to steaming to prevent listeria. I don’t follow package directions (cooking in an oven) because it takes too long. I just microwave them, being sure to cut them in half first so they don’t explode.

Teriyaki tofu. (Wildwood brand at Whole Foods; there’s also a cheaper Trader Joe’s brand) For the longest time I just couldn’t get Julia to try tofu. Then one day at a playdate, their friend Ronan sat in a high chair and kept chucking his food over the side. My kids sat like dogs on the floor, waiting for scraps, and to my surprise Julia gobbled up the tofu. (I’ve tried some other tofu brands and this is by far their favorite. The consistency of other brands is apparently off-putting.) My friend Kathy C. was over for a playdate one day and lamented that her twins wouldn’t eat tofu. I whipped out some of this stuff and voila! Tofu eaters!


The twins gather under Ronan to eat his discarded tofu. (Thanks to Stacy for the picture!) (13 ½ months)


“Tofu!”




Julia bats her eyes at Ronan in the hopes that he’ll throw down more tofu.


“Never mind. I’ll just get it fresh from the source.”

Tofu spaghetti. (Refrigerated sections of some stores carry this next to the tofu.) If you’re struggling to find another protein, here’s a good one if they like pasta. Just boil and toss with some pasta sauce.

Filled pasta. Cheese tortellini with pesto is a big hit as is chicken ravioli.

Spinach, zucchini, potato, sweet potato cakes, and veggie burgers. The “cake” family of vegetables. These are good alternatives when your babies reject vegetables. I’ve bought latkes (potato, sweet potato, and zucchini) for them as well as the healthy Dr. Praeger's line of spinach and sweet potato cakes and veggie burgers. The most popular of all have been the veggie burgers and the zucchini cakes, and the least popular so far are the sweet potato cakes.

Grilled chicken with sauce. (I usually use already cooked chicken from Trader Joe’s. El Pollo Loco or any rotisserie chicken will work.) I know this is a no brainer but here’s the key: add sauce, particularly pesto. Julia will actually sometimes refuse chicken if there’s no pesto! Other options: mixing in spaghetti sauce, leftover Thai or Indian curry sauces.


Pre-packaged snack foods

The bread food group: toast with peanut butter, pita, waffles, bagel thins, and English muffins. (I mix it up to expose them to a variety since they're supposed to have a whole grain at every meal.)


I don’t know what exactly is in Julia's mouth. Something bready? (15 ½ months)


So glad James decided to rub the toast in his hair the day I put peanut butter on it. (17 months)

Avocado in wheat germ so it’s easier to pick up.
Quesadillas made with pita and cheese.
Frozen yogurt (This is a snack when we go out. Pinkberry will give us samples and we spoon-feed them to the babies. This is how we treated the twins after James’s most recent traumatizing haircut.)
Raisins, dried cranberries (cut up)
Canned beans
Canned olives (Another mother suggested this and only James has liked olives so far and that was only once. The other times he’s snubbed it.)
Cucumber (I only mention this because it is by far the babies’ favorite vegetable)
Broccoli (I only mention this because Julia absolutely LOVED it for awhile.)
Roasted cauliflower (This is one of the only dishes for them I “cook.” I put some olive oil in a bowl, rotate the cauliflower in it, and then sprinkle the cauliflower generously with curry powder before cooking it at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.)
Spaghetti and sauce (a messy favorite)
Cauliflower fries or oven-baked potato fries (Whole Foods)
Cheese (Laughing Cow soft cheese)
Pierogis (potato and cheese)


Pre-packaged snack foods

I’m trying to create a competition where I have different snack foods face off against each other by putting said snack foods on the babies’ trays at the same time. The winning snack food would be the first snack food each baby picked up. Unfortunately too often each baby will pick up a different snack than the other. The only definitive win so far was the Cheddar Bunnies’ thrashing of Rice Cakes. (But that was predictable. They’re Rice Cakes!)

I can’t keep Mark out of the babies’ snack foods. I like to say that I’m buying food for three babies. I actually have to buy extra because he’ll inhale the Puffins, multi-seed crackers, snap pea crisps, and peanut butter sandwich crackers.

Cheerios (I switched from Puffs to these because they appear to be healthier and have less sugar.)


Julia used to love her Puffs. (9 ½ months)


Papa feeds Julia Cheerios in milk. (18 months)

Rice Krispie-type cereal (I give my babies Erewhon’s brown rice cereal found at Whole Foods which was deemed “healthiest puffed rice cereal” in some recent article. The pieces are small so it takes forever to eat - good when you want more time on your laptop.)


Julia and her Rice Krispie beard. (16 ½ months)


James thinks Rice Krispies make a good leave-in conditioner. (17 months)

Puffins cereal (though I'm a bit concerned about the sugar content)
Multi-Seed Crackers (Crunchmaster brand; original flavor; a bit high in sodium)
Apple chips (Apple Harvest brand)
Cheddar Bunnies (Annie’s brand; like Goldfish crackers)
Peanut butter sandwich crackers (Trader Joe’s organic brand)
Cheese sandwich crackers (Trader Joe’s organic brand)
Graham crackers


Banana and graham cracker snack day was a combination immediately regretted by Mommy. (14 months)

Snap pea crisps
Seaweed (Trader Joe’s brand. My parents enjoyed making fun of my giving the babies seaweed since apparently it’s more evidence of my multi-cultural elitism.)
Yogurt melts
Rice cake (Mr. Wheat brand) This brand's rice cakes are much thinner than normal rice cakes so I don’t have to worry about them being chokeable. I like giving the babies these when they’ve had a huge snack but are still telling me they’re hungry, since these don’t have a lot of calories and won’t fill them up before dinner.
Baby Mum-Mums (these are rice rusks, whatever those are)


Julia’s duckie pant twin Maya (eventually) gave her a Baby Num Num to try for the first time. (10 ½ months)

I shied away from the teething biscuits which they are only supposed to gnaw on. Julia used them correctly while James got busy putting those new teeth to work, leaving lots of big chokeable pieces we had to dig out of his mouth.

Kathy's Unsolicited Advice for Parents-to-Be, Part IV

16. Don't wash your hands.

I developed a terrible case of eczema that the dermatologist says won't go away for about 3 years ("until they're out of diapers") because of all the bottle and hand washing. I'll spare you the details (#14 on this page), but I recommend washing your hands as little as possible, not using hot water, wearing vinyl gloves to wash bottles (or making someone else do it), using Dove Sensitive Skin soap, and putting vaseline on your hands before bed (and then putting cotton gloves on your hands) to de-stress them.


17. Buy tubes - not tubs - of Desitin for diaper rash.

It's only an "e" but it makes all the difference. Yes tubs are more economical, but with tubs you end up with Desitin everywhere - it's especially hard to avoid as you probe deeper into the Desitin tub. It's like that maple syrup container at your local diner that's always covered with maple syrup.

Your hand and wrist will look like this...

...But you'll feel like this.

(for the record these are not our children)

18. Sing.

I was amazed at how my singing was enough to silence crying babies, especially when they were little. (Related tip: Whistling works ever BETTER than singing. I try to reserve it for "special" occasions - like complete meltdowns - so they don't get desensitized to it. I have a certain song when we go out ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight") and just my singing it excites them because they know a trip outside is in store. Plus I have certain songs reserved for taking naps (such as "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing" from The Tiki Room at Disneyland), a song I made up for diapering ("Here We Go a Diaperin'"), and more songs I made up for meal times ("Yogurt Starts with a Y" and "Apricots: They're Small and They're Orange".)


Worst Advice (a.k.a. Non-Advice)


1) Get your sleep now!

Thanks. I think I'll go hibernate for three months.


2) Your body will never be the same!

Thanks, Mom, for telling me this repeatedly. You're not bitter about something I did, are you?

Kathy's Unsolicited Advice for Parents-to-Be, Part III

11. Toys are good bribes.

As your babies get to be 4-6 months, it's good to bribe them with toys on the changing table and in the car. Changing table toys keep little hands away from the task at hand and keep them happy. Also, be sure to give them plastic, easily cleanable toys. The last thing you want is a fabric toy to land in that dirty diaper.


12. Stock up on those hospital blue pad things that your doctor and hospital uses for changing and weighing babies.

They're disposable and great for putting on who-knows-what's-been-there travel changing tables.


13. Brush your teeth in front of them.

Early on, I was so busy I didn't have a chance to brush my teeth. Or so I thought. If you brush your teeth in front of them (at least with an electric tooth brush), they're fascinated and stop everything just to watch you.


14. Don't buy a thermometer.

Yep, that's right. When I was leaving the ER for the SECOND time with James, the nurse gave me a regular electronic thermometer and said to put it in his armpit to take his temperature. I was originally told that when you take it this way (referred to as "axially") you need to add a degree, and when you take it rectally you need to subtract a degree, but according to this chart it's more accurate to add .5 to 1.0 degrees. It takes awhile to get an axial reading but it's a lot easier than taking a rectal temperature in the middle of the night.


15. Join a playgroup, go for strolls, and get out!

Kaiser's Newborn Club used to try to encourage me to go to Mom and Me classes when the babies were first born, and all I could think was, "Are you kidding me? I don't have time!" But now I realize it was more about getting the mom out of the house and around other moms. I wish I'd connected with other moms earlier. Although we have playdates with individual babies or sets of twins, I'm envious of people who see the same group of people every week for a playdate.

My babies at a playdate where they waited like vultures under their friend Ronan's high chair waiting for him to fling down chunks of tofu. (Thanks Stacy for the picture!) (14 months)

I also thought going for strolls was too big an ordeal - especially with twins - so I avoided that for the first two months. And then I went out with my mom one day and it was like a revelation - the babies were quiet during the stroll and JUST looked around or slept. Walks are a nice mental break.


Time to whip out our legs in different directions at the same time!

And lastly, when it's safe to take your baby out in public, definitely go out to restaurants. I thought it would be a disaster to go during the first six months, but who knew that they fall asleep in their strollers and give you a nice peaceful meal? This stage doesn't last long so take advantage of it. Because the doctor recommended my twins not be in public places for three months, my mom and I used to go to The Old Spaghetti Factory and sit in a spare room all to ourselves, and it was delightful.


Brendan and Lila join us in the Chevys bar even though it means they have to be in the presence of babies. (2 1/2 months)

James and Julia at Armadillo Willy's. For some reason this is Julia's favorite place to poop. She's gone three out of four visits (and that fourth visit we discovered she'd pooped when we got home so she probably was attempting some sort of fecal grand slam). (10 1/2 months)

Kathy's Unsolicited Advice for Parents-to-Be, Part II

6. Take monthly photos of the babies next to a stuffed animal.

It's fun to see the babies grow and change, especially the first year, and especially the first couple months. I wish I'd started earlier than 11 days since they were so tiny.

James at 11 days and James at 1 year.

Julia at 12 days and Julia at 1 year.

7. Get a white noise machine but not for who you think.

The white noise machine isn't for the baby - in fact, there are some studies that cite their connection to delayed language development - but for you. When it's not your shift and you want to sleep, you want to cover up the sounds of the baby crying.


8. Don't wash new clothing too early.

Don't wash or take tags off of new clothing the first year until your baby is big enough to wear them. (At size 12 months and above it takes longer to outgrow sizes.) Your baby might never wear those clothes if they're unseasonable. Also, babies (50th percentile and larger) always seem to be wearing the next size up from their chronological age (so if they're 6 months they're wearing 9 months, etc.). Gerbers runs particularly small. Right now the twins are nearly 15 months and Julia, who is perfectly average in size for her age, has best fit in 18 month sizes for a few months now, while James who is 60-75th percentile in weight and height best fits into 18-24 month sizes. So be careful buying clothes the first year and predicting what season they'll be worn in.


9. Get a Mother's Helper.

I don't want to be a broken record (see #10 on this page) but do it!


10. You may cut a finger while cutting fingernails.

My friend April warned me that cutting fingernails is tricky and to expect to see blood a few times. I mentioned this to some other friends and they said she was crazy. And then I mentioned that to some OTHER other friends and they said my other friends were crazy. Anyway, in my experience, until you get the hang of it, you may lop off a tiny piece of the baby's skin while trimming fingernails. The first time this happened Mark said, "No maiming, Julia!" I offered him the chance to cut her fingernails instead and of course he declined so I kept my position as finger cutter, er... fingernail cutter.

I only cut their skin twice and then I got the hang of it, and it's never happened again. If you're right handed always make sure when you get to the left edge of the nail that the left edge of the nail cutter is in the air and not touching skin.

Julia's first manicure. (2 weeks)

I was afraid to cut their nails for awhile so I used a nail file (which is pretty ineffective) for as long as I could.

Kathy's Unsolicited Advice for Parents-to-Be, Part I

First of all here's my quote about being a parent. Feel free to frame it or cross stitch it on a pillow.

"As a parent you live for the baby smiles and laughs that give your life meaning. The rest of the time you can't wait for them to fall asleep so you can get back to the Internet." - Kathleen Mikulis, 2011

Yep, it's another advice post. I can't help thinking about advice lately since I have two friends who are expecting, two who gave birth yesterday or today, and another who's trying (fingers crossed), and I have lots of unsolicited advice to give. (Psst! These four older posts might also be of interest.)


1. Get a good camera and take good pictures.

Definitely have a good camera that you can use indoors with low light and take lots of newborn photos because they don't look newborn-y for long.

Our camera (no lens) - a bit pricey but worth it (good in low light and can take rapid fire pictures):
http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-D90-12-3MP-Digital-Body/dp/B001ET5U92/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1298514729&sr=1-2

Our lens:
http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-35mm-AF-S-Digital-Cameras/dp/B001S2PPT0/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1298514783&sr=1-1

And some advice I read helped me to take photos that turned out so much better compared to what I was taking before! The advice is this: don't use a flash which startles the baby and provides light that's too harsh. Use natural, diffused light from a window. And incorporate your baby's favorite blankets in the photo, too, to serve as visual props and modeling tools to help position your baby. I didn't try this next trick but it also mentions placing the baby in a car seat but using a blanket under the baby so the car seat doesn't appear in the shot.

Using natural light made ALL the difference for me. In fact after reading the advice one of my favorite activities was to photograph them, and they enjoyed Mommy smiling at them trying to get them to smile. Here are some photos from my old (non-DSLR) camera - I wish we'd had the Nikon from the beginning.

James and his Japanese animation-size eyes. (1 1/2 months)

I think this photo of James was my first attempt at a window-side photoshoot. Not an amazing shot but much better than the ones I'd gotten before.

These two pictures were taken my second time putting them in front of the window. (2 months)

Mark suggests mentioning his advice - which he likes to point out that I ignored - not to take pictures too close and get disproportionate fisheye shots. Ah yes. Mark hates my photos. Granted, he has a point that full body shots when taken too close are disproportionate. If it was up to Mark, whenever I took pictures of the babies laying down I would have stood directly over them with my camera as high above them as possible to get a proportionate shot. Two problems with this: 1) Whenever I'd crop these shots to only the head, the resolution wasn't nearly as good as I'd like, and most importantly, 2) I had MUCH, MUCH better results getting the babies to smile when I took pictures close to them. (Note: the photography advice I found here recommends getting on the babies' level, up close to them.)

Here are some pictures I took that I like and Mark hates because they're too close or disproportional, or both. (Or maybe Mark's just underestimating the size of James's giant head.) (6 months and 3 1/2 months)

2. Have a snack food (for yourself!) on a table near where you hold babies.

The first three months you will be stuck holding a baby for an hour or two in a row. You will get hungry. Always have a snack food within reaching distance.

3. Put your babies to bed before they show signs of being tired.

The first 6-8 months we didn't know any better and we'd wait to see our babies rub their eyes before putting them down. A few times they stayed up as late as 8:30 p.m. despite their chosen morning wake up time only 8 1/2 hours later at 5:00 a.m.! Get into a good bedtime routine: feeding, diapering and changing, light play, gradual light dimming, and singing (or a CD of lullabies) at the end.


4. Put your baby to bed with multiple pacifiers.

There's nothing worse than going into your darkened baby's room (Mark: Do we have a darkened baby?) in the middle of the night with them crying and you not able to find their pacifier. (This is especially true if you have a certain boy who is always letting them fall out of his crib.) So put several in their crib. Added bonus: as they get older, having multiple pacifiers in the crib means it's easier for your baby to find a pacifier himself and not wake you up.


Under James's crib is the Bermuda Triangle of pacifiers.

5. Know the difference between middle-of-the-night fussing and crying.

I'm guessing this is obvious for most people but I definitely didn't know there was a difference between middle-of-the-night fussing and crying. I would jump up from my bed and run in when I heard fussing or crying, pop a pacifier in the baby's mouth, and hopefully head back to sleep. However, doing this when the baby is only fussing is likely to disturb the baby's sleep and possibly wake him. Plus it keeps them from learning how to self soothe and put themselves back to sleep. Before I knew the difference, I was waking up 4-5 times a night to attend to the babies, particularly James. Then my friend Kashi clued me in, and after only going in when I heard crying, James became a champion at putting himself back to sleep. Julia could still use some work.

Advice for Parents-to-Be of Multiples

I've been thinking a lot lately about what advice specific to twins I would give to parents-to-be of multiples since my friend, Helene, is pregnant with twins. Here goes. (These posts might also be of interest.)


1) Be ready early.

Whenever anyone tells me they're expecting twins the first thing I say is "Not to scare you but..." And what follows is this: "be ready early." Twins tend to come about a month early, and among twin moms I know, easily over half had pre-term labor scares that led to about two months of bed rest. Just like me! Once you're on bed rest, it's hard to get the nursery ready or do all the other nesting projects you had planned (and once you give birth it's impossible), so in the sage words of Larry the Cable Guy, "git-R-done."

"Work on that nursery! I mean, git-R-done!"

And bed rest actually isn't actually that bad. I had a laptop so I didn't have a problem with boredom. What bothered me the most was the isolation.


2) Join a twins group.

I joined Gemini Crickets, the twins organization for Silicon Valley. (There is also Mid-Peninsula Parents of Multiples.) Their dues are $40 a year but I made up for the membership fee even before I gave birth by getting free or greatly reduced gear from other members. Plus, they have several garage sales a year for twin parents. (At one of their garage sales I scored a $5 music table and cute outfits for $1 each). The best thing though about being in a twins group is their online forum. I've gone there to ask all sorts of baby-related questions. And it's a good place to get playdates with other twin moms.


3) Notebooks are your friend.

Keep a notebook to write down feedings, diaperings, etc. Trust me, with two babies you will lose track. This is really only necessary until they eat on a schedule, but until then it's hard enough to remember on your own, let alone not know what happened during the shift before yours when you were asleep. It also helps in answering doctor questions the first few months about how much the babies are drinking and how many wet and poopy diapers they're producing.


4) Masking tape is also your friend.

Put masking tape on bottles so you can write on it to keep track of whose is whose and how much is inside.


What the inside of our refrigerator used to look like. Bottles go in the middle, formula on the left, milk goes on the right. Chinese takeout and pickles apparently went on the far left.


5) Do the best you can with nursing but don't kill yourself.

I was lucky my mom lived with us for several months and my mother-in-law came to visit often because I wouldn't otherwise have been able to give my babies breastmilk. For something that's so natural, nursing is surprisingly hard! Babies that are premature aren't as good as sucking and that was the case with my brood. Working with a lactation consultant (a lot!) who weighed my babies at 10 minute intervals during an hour of nursing, she determined that each one needed to be nursed for 20-30 minutes (after that they were pretty much just hanging out on my boobs), followed by a bottle. After that I would pump. Let me tell you, in the early days babies often need to be fed every 2 hours. That meant by the time I finished the first cycle of feeding each baby and pumping it was pretty much time to start all over again. Thankfully I had a lot of help. I bought a twin nursing pillow but was rarely able to get them latched and keep them latched. It was definitely a two person effort, but with babies that latch well it's definitely doable.

In case you're wondering, Julia (my better sucker) rejected the breast at 2 1/2 months and James at 4. After that I pumped in all my spare moments. I can remember not eating lunch until 3:30 on more than one occasion because when I did have a spare moment earlier in the day, I pumped. And I pumped and I pumped and I pumped - even during my Jeopardy taping (well, not during MY episode) - for nine months. I had an undiagnosed infection that made pumping very painful so I had to keep lessening the suction accordingly, and then eventually I was only making 1/6 of one baby's total milk for the day, and decided it was no longer worth it.


Sometimes I felt like I birthed a litter.

6) Buy your maternity pants at Motherhood with the comfy full belly panel.

I bought some maternity jeans at Old Navy early on and had to abandon them after a few months because they did not get big enough for a big ol' twin belly.

It's not good when you have to use office supplies to keep your pants together, though to be fair the pair on the left weren't maternity pants. On the right are my Old Navy pants - which were good at the time - but I outgrew them two months after I bought them.

It may look like I'm wearing granny panties but i'm oh so comfortable.

7) Your babies will be dirty but it's not a bad thing.


Julia may look cute but she stinks to high heaven.


You can crawl but you can't hide from the stench, James!

Don't feel bad if you only bathe your babies once a week. Early on, even with another person to help you, it's hard to fit in baths and have the energy to bathe your babies between the constant feedings and the crying and the holding. When you're on your own it's very difficult to bathe two. In theory you could use two bath seats, but that only works if you have a shower curtain instead of shower doors (no dice in our house). And if you bathe them one at a time you can't keep an eye on the other baby. So I've decided to just wait until the weekends when Mark can help. They're babies - despite my captions on the pictures above, they don't smell. It's not like they do triathlons between poopings. You really just have to worry about keeping their creases clean (and you can clean the neck fat rolls with a washcloth outside the bath if you need to.) An informal poll among twin moms I know shows that a majority opts to bathe their munchkins once a week. It'll be nice when my twins are a little older and they can both sit in the tub safely, because I feel bad now keeping them from something they enjoy.


8) Schedule!

After the on-demand feedings of the first several months are over, definitely put your twins on a schedule. This is why: if they don't nap at the same time you never get a break. (This is one reason singleton parents are really lucky - if their little one doesn't want to nap at a certain time, they can just try again later. With twin parents, if you put both babies down and only one sleeps, it's the "Oh crap!" heard round the world.)


9) Feed them at the same time.

The other reason to put your twins on a schedule: you want them to have their feedings at the same time. For a long while, I resisted feeding them at the same time, thinking that when I'd take the bottles away to burp my little ones (a process that could take several minutes with my babies since they were prone to spitting up) there would be a lot of crying. But actually, once they had 1/3 to 1/2 a bottle, they were fairly content to wait for their turn to burp.

How to bottle feed them at the same time? Two Boppies. I know you'll be tempted to get the giant twin nursing pillow, and by all means, get that. But Boppies are wonderful for so many purposes, one of which is to prop up two babies and then hold a bottle in each one's mouth. The first half of the feeding, I'd turn on the TV and it was beautifully silent in the apartment (except for the TV of course) for about six minutes. (For Mark's advice for making large batches of formula, see the comment at the end of this post.)

This is how it's done! (Thanks, Stacy, for the photo!)

I returned home and had to piece together what happened with Mark and the babies. (Something like: they fell asleep on the sofa in the Boppies but Mark needed to leave the room and didn't want them to fall off the sofa.)


At a park playdate you can also feed your twins at the same time by putting them in their car seats. For this visit I employed some cheap child labor.

What to do if their feeding times are significantly off? Go on a walk! Miraculously, babies forget they're hungry while they're on a walk, so the baby who woke up early won't fuss that they're eating later. (What to do if their feeding times are off by an hour and a half and they have feedings every three hours? Give up. Your day is officially ruined.)


10) Keep your sanity by getting a Mother's Helper.

Get a mother's helper during the first six months, maybe even nine months. There were times the first six months - especially the first three - when my mom and I would be in tears at the end of the day, and there were two of us! A mother's helper takes care of babies as well as household tasks. It meant my mom and I could take a break, one of us could go run errands, we could eat a leisurely lunch at home, etc. I found our mother's helpers through the Alpha Phi sorority at Santa Clara University, and I cracked the whip over them for three hours stretches a couple times a week at a rate of $10-12 / hour. A bargain for my sanity.

11) Get an Exersaucer and a Jumperoo. I would put the babies in these for only 15 minutes at a time (since there were studies that these contraptions might impede their physical development), and it would give me peace to scarf down my lunch.


Both babies occupied means Mommy gets to eat.


Gear (obviously borrow and buy stuff used as much as you can):

I used the book Twin Sense to help figure out how many items I might need of certain vital items. (It also has useful advice on how to set up two babies to nurse at the same time while on your own.)


Julia's finished pop-up books and has moved on to reading about how to raise herself.

I'm not going to go through the entire baby gear list (obviously you know you need diapers and such), but for some you're not sure of, here's my input:

-Boppy pillows (2)
-Washcloths (20). Besides being useful for baths, when the little ones started eating solid foods (3 times a day) and snacks (2 times a day), I found I needed to wash their faces afterwards nearly every time.
-Crib sheets (4) and waterproof pads (4).
-Lightweight Blankets (12). They're good for propping up the middle of Boppy pillows for feedings, rolling up to form around baby heads in car seats, and rolling up and putting next to sleeping babies when they're first born (I later discovered SwaddleMe and preferred them for swaddling.).
-A really big lightweight blanket to cover the whole stroller (1). This is good for meals out or during walks to help them sleep the first several months. It's also good as a photo backdrop on a bed.
-Thermometer (1)


Blankets for going around the car head rest.

Big ticket items:

-Pack N Play (1) They can both sleep in here at first. Later you can move one/both to cribs. We didn't use the bassinets long but it was only because we preferred the Pack N Play. (Note: I bought one with a diaper change station and a Newborn Napper but since both twins slept here and I couldn't access those items, those options were wasted.) My little ones both slept in the Pack N Play for several months until James started rotating in the middle of the night to rest his head against Julia's feet. I was worried she might kick him so at that point I separated them.
-Crib (2) You don't need this right away and of course you'll eventually want two. Some babies sleep in the same crib for a long time. Then there are mine who keep each other awake and now have to sleep in separate rooms.
-Double Snap N Go stroller frame (1) and SnugRide car seats (2) since they'll snap into the frame
-Bob Duallie Jogging Stroller (1) for when they're older (if you're inclined to jog)


My newborns sharing the Pack N Play. And keeping the blanket industry alive.

You want to make as many "stations" as you can, where they will entertain themselves (usually for about 10 minutes if you're lucky). You only need one of each of these stations because the other twin can be using another station. The only exception is an activity mat. Two activity mats are preferable since they spend the most time here of any station the first several months. Your stations could include: activity mat, bouncy chair, swing, the floor with toys, car seat with arch of toys; and later, Exersaucer, Jumperoo, and Bumbo seat with tray.


James playing on his quilt.


The babies in their Bumbo seats. (I wish I'd gotten the Bumbos with trays so they could play with toys instead of dropping them and instead grabbing their sister's foot for amusement. Then again I got them free through Gemini Crickets so I can't really complain.)