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Happy Twin Tuesday to you! Today, I’m offering my tips on how to include older siblings when you have infant twins!
Bringing home twins is an adjustment for everyone, especially younger kiddos who really had no idea of what to expect or knew what bringing home a new baby (or two!) really means. We dealt with some growing pains for sure when we brought our babies home, especially when one of our twins was able to come home from the NICU a full week before the other and we were running back and forth all the time. Our 2 1/2 year old dealt with his changing position in the family by running around the house screaming at all hours, refusing to nap and forgetting what a toliet was used for. It was a pleasant time that I look back on fondly.
It was a crazy few weeks while we worked out our kinks but we eventually figured out ways to include our older children and encourage them to embrace the new changes in our family . I hope some of these tips will help you from the beginning so your growing pains will be smaller and shorter than they were for our family!
- Before the twin arrive, buy your older child a special gift that you give them when the babies get home from the hospital. We made a really big deal about this ‘big brother’ gift and about how the gift was just for big kids not for babies. We put together big brother shirts, a few books, and some toys we knew they had been wanting that would keep them busy. When I was nursing the babies or we were getting them ready for a nap or bed and needed them to play quietly, we would encourage Caleb and Eli to get out their ‘big brother presents’.
- Involve older siblings as much as you can and encourage them to be ‘big helpers’!. Right away when the babies come home, this can be more challenging because they aren’t old enough to really interact yet. We encouraged our older boys to help by bringing us things like diapers or wipes during diaper changes, reading them books or showing them toys when they were in a bouncer and even singing to them or rocking them gently in their rock n’ plays when they were fussy. As they got older and were able to interact more, Caleb and Eli loved to play with the babies without any prompting and worked for their smiles every chance they got.
- While you work on your new normal, don’t be afraid to do what works for you. We were very lucky that Josh was able to take two weeks off work when the babies came. By the time Reid came home from the hospital, we only had a few days left with him before he had to go back and I was alone with four kids all day and recovering from a c-section. It didn’t take me long before I realized that the only way I was going to survive was to relax our screen time and snack time parameters for awhile until I got into a routine on my own. We were absolutely in survival mode and it was okay if watching a show and having a snack would allow me a moment to tandem nurse our twins and breathe for a moment. Once we got in a better routine, we scaled back to normal again.
- Our pediatrician gave me some invaluable advice right after our twins were born. She said that if more than one child needs you at the same time (assuming no one is hurt or in dire need for some other reason) it is better to attend to the needs of your toddler/child first and let the babies fuss for a moment while everyone is getting adjusted. She said that in this state of change, your child needs to know that the babies do not threaten or change the relationship between the two of you and their needs are not pushed aside. The babies will never know or remember that they waited an extra moment to have your attention but your child will. I tried to remember this when I felt overwhelmed when everyone was crying at the same time!
- I think this tip is one of the most important that we didn’t realize. Try your best to keep life and routines as normal as possible for your older children. After our twins were born, in our minds we were just trying to survive the first few weeks and start to learn life with 4 kids. We looked forward to a time where it felt like things were settled down and we could be normal again. We were dealing with tantrums and attitudes we had never dealt with before from our 4 and 2 year olds and I was so overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. One day when our 4 year-old had a massive meltdown because I picked him up after pre-k, he said ‘Daddy used to pick me up and we don’t do anything we used to do anymore!’ and I realized how true that actually was. I didn’t realize how many little things we had changed because we were trying to survive and what an impact those small things had on our kids. From that moment on we did our best to do the old normal as best we could. Josh went back to picking Caleb up from school, we started going on evening walks as a family again, had Friday night movie nights and I read bedtime stories like we used to (instead of Josh). The change in attitude and joy in our kids was immediate and amazing.
- Take your older kids for one-on-one time whenever you can. After the tip about keeping routines up, this is the other one that we weren’t doing from the beginning that made the most difference for us. Eli had some struggles adjusting to not being the baby anymore, but taking him to run errands and get groceries with me so I could have some one-on-one time with my big boy was a game changer. We still do it now and it’s a special time we can talk and share a secret Starbucks treat for just him and I.
- Be patient with them past the point that you would normally be in all areas. Their whole world has flipped upside down and while you know there will be a time very soon that things will settle down, they don’t have enough perspective to know that. Cut them some slack while everyone is getting adjusted.
- Encourage them to bond with their siblings and talk to them about how special having a sibling is. We found that reading books about being an older sibling really helped them understand and love the idea of being big brothers. Some of our favorites were:
God Gave Us Two – by Lisa Tawn Bergren
Big Brother Daniel – Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
I’m a Big Brother – by Joanna Cole
(For more books about twins, see last week’s Twin Tuesday post here.)
I hope these tips help you adjust to your new family dynamic! And remember. This craziness will get back to ‘normal’ soon. It doesn’t feel easy because it’s not easy! You were chosen to be a twin mom for a reason.
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