FTM question: Things I really need for twins

spoonleg · September 2014

So, these are our first kids. To make things more stressful and complicated, we recently moved to another country, where baby items are 2 or 3 times more expensive than the US and items for twins are virtually non-existent. We are shelling out big bucks for a Baby Jogger stroller, because having a stroller that we like and will work well is important to us. But as for other things, we are wishy-washy about what is very necessary and how much we actually need. We brought a few things with us from home, like a good breast pump and accessories, Baby K'taan wraps, and some swaddlepod and halo wraps (they don't exist here.)

What else do we NEED? What can we get by without? I plan to BF but of course must also prepare for the possibility of that not working... I'm worried about bottles. What type? How many? We do not have a dishwasher and our kitchen is tiny. Brands like Medela are non-existent and they do have Dr. Brown's, but a single bottle would cost about $30 USD. Should I just buy a few of a couple different types and wait to see how often we use bottles and what they prefer?

We cannot find a Graco Twin Pack 'N Play here. Do two singles work just as well?

How many "newborn" outfits/onesies are necessary? Clothes dryers are also unheard of here, so things hang on the line the dry. The climate is warm and beautiful (silver lining!) so they would dry quickly. How many outfits did your twins go through in a day? How quickly did they grow out of NB sizes? We aren't the type of people to want to dress our kids up in elaborate outfits like they are our own personal living dolls- we are all about keeping it simple. But we also don't want to run out of clean clothes for them and be "those people" who leave the house with nekkid babies wearing only diapers.

And diapers! Diapers are sized differently here, and the smallest size is marked for "up to 6kg" which is 13lbs! Will these be absolutely monstrous on potentially preemie twins? How many diapers did you buy to start off with?

What about things like swaddle blankets, burp rags, and bibs? How many of these do we "need" to get by?

Thanks for the help. Being a FTM is overwhelming and scary enough... adding in the fact that we're in a foreign country AND have two to plan for makes me a bit nutty.

rachelkongsore@hotmail.com · September 2014

I EBFd twins and plans to again. I bought only two dr brown bottles on case bf didn't work and that was fine for us. For bf I would rec a twin breastfeeding pillow and either two boppys or two bouncy chairs so that you can get them in position to breastfeed tandem if you choose. I also am making sure to have a nipple shield and some nipple cream as well as about a dozen burp rags. That's all I really needed to breastfeed. We never ended up using bottles. Two pnps work as long as you have room for them. You could start your newborns in one then move them to their own as the situation dictated. 2-3 swaddled per baby should be fine as long as you font mind doing laundry every few days, which is what I did. My twins used the swaddled that velcro until they were about four months. It made swaddling a lot easier. As far as other equipment goes, I don't think it's really a need it is more of a convenience thing. As long as you have feeding essentials, sleeping essentials, two car seats, a stroller and a breast pump I would say you are all set.

minirella · September 2014

I think it depends on how often you do laundry too. Even with my singleton, I didn't use burp cloths, just blankets. She had reflux, so probably changed her onesie about 2-3x per day. Also, clothes sizing depends on the brand - Gerber runs small, Carter's (IMO) are truer in size.

2momsinCA · September 2014

My twins have reflux and are super heavy wetters so we. Change their onesies 2-4 times a day. In newborn size we have about 15, we do laundry every day. We also have a few pairs of pants and sleep and play pajamas for cooler nights. Here are the things we have used the most-
Ergo carriers with infant inserts
Moby wraps (k'tans are also awesome)
Rock and plays
Bouncers with music and vibration
Muslin swaddle blankets (we loaded up in swaddleme's and swaddle pods and the boys hated them, they wanted their arms free)
The baby bath with a newborn sling/hammock
My breast friend double nursing pillow
Two boppies
I EBP and they like both the wide neck Nuk bottles and cheap, basic bottles. We bought Dr. Brown, Born Free, and playtex dropins to see what they would like and the boys were fine with them but we didn't notice any difference with gas or air intake. They both like the plain, basic bottles with orth/nuk nipples. We pace their feeding and burp them every 15-30ml or so.
Edit to add that we love the large prefolds cloth diapers as burp cloths. Much more than regular burp cloths.

hayleydeee · September 2014

Someone once told me that all you really NEED to bring a baby home from the hospital is: a carseat, a diaper and a blanket.

That's always been a comforting thought to me.

But, that being said, my advice is always "less is more". Many of the things you mentioned you won't need right away. Or, you'll need to know the babys' preferences.

As for a pack'n'play, we had a single and it was fine. If you have cribs, you could get by without it entirely. We had two Rock'n'plays and they were by far the best pieces of baby gear we had. Swings, bouncers and all those kind of things aren't necessary. Bottles might depend on the babies, but for now you'd be fine to get 4-6 old fashioned glass Evenflow brand bottles. They're cheap worked great for us. You don't really have to wash the bottles after every single use. We just rinsed them out with hot water every two uses of so.

Yes, those diapers will probably be big, but you can always just fold down the top. As for burp cloths, I'd recommend getting some "pre-folds" (old fashioned cloth diapers). They are great to have around and can be used for all kinds of messy baby things.

I wouldn't stock up too much on clothes. People gave us SO many clothes, as gifts and hand-me-downs. Maybe get a few onsies, but I'd wait on stocking up.

Congratulations!

BeesKnees181 · September 2014

Our girls (born 4 lb. 9 oz & 4 lb. 11 oz) were in NB size for at least the first 2 months...give or take a week or 2. One of the girls is much smaller, so she was in NB size a while longer than her sister. One twin went through clothes a lot more during the day - sloppy eater, spit up more, etc. Two outfits/sleepers/onesies per day (weather dependent) is safe. When I pack, I pack one outfit for during the day, an extra in case of blow outs (this happens often when they are really little), and a fresh onesie and sleeper for night time. Sleepers with zippers are clutch when you are working with little to no sleep, by the way. Walmart's Faded Glory brand seems to run a bit smaller, but we like those a lot...they are also cheap.

Bottles - we started by using what we were given at the hospital. But quickly developed all sorts of issues with spitting up. We were gifted two different types of bottles. The girls hated all of them. We settled on Dr. Brown's. We have just recently graduated into the 8 ounce bottles. I oredr my Dr. Brow's online from Walmart - cheapest price I have found. We also just graduated to 3 month nipples, but used the 0 month+ nipples up until 4 months.

Diapers - we have just recently started using Kirkland brand (Costco), which are sized like you mention...Size 1-2 is for up to 15 lbs. These would have been way too big for the girls when we first brought them home. We blew through premie size and spent a lot of time in Huggies/Pampers newborn size. The girls got red bottoms from the perfume in Pampers. So we switched to Huggies. The Kirkland brand are made by the same folks who make Huggies, work just as well, and are cheaper. Girls are 4 months and still in Size 1-2. My one twin that is bigger is about ready to graduate into the next size and my smaller girl still has some time in the smaller size. I am not sure how we will handle that. Maybe just fold down the top so the larger diaper fits my smaller baby...

My must-haves for twins:

-two boppies (a lifesaver when trying to feed two babies at once)

-snap 'n go ( a jogger stroller will not give babies the head/neck support they need in the beginning, so with this you can still have the head and neck support from their car seats)

-(super cheap from amazon) mosquito netting

-we use rock n play's for sleeping (now we are beginning to transition to cribs)

-lots of burp clothes (at least a pack of 6); we like the cloth diaper pre-folds for this purpose

-thermometer (we like the temporal one)

-Children's Tylenol (I only say this now...as we are witnessing the first virus move through our house)

-Aden and Anais (sp?) swaddle blankets (one pack worked fine for our girls; 4 blankets total in pack)

-a backpack type diaper bag / hands free

-6+ 4 ounce bottles

-lots of nursing pads

The extra's:

-swing and bouncer

For us, we really like having two swings. We also have a bouncer. A swing and a bouncer also works. It helps when you need some time to get things done.

-I keep a pack 'n play at work, both share it (now 4 months old)

We have a jogger stroller and the girls are not ready for it yet. I can't wait to put them in it. But for this reason the snap 'n go is my lifesaver.

chickaboo1974 · September 2014

I have been thinking about this.

the must haves I would say are two cribs - I was very concerned over SIDS so- no sharing.

two car seats, a double stroller (one that is appropriate for newborns- you might have to get two), 14 outfits- I figured two a day for a week (my boys were not huge spitters/pukers or had a lot of leaky diapers), some place for babies to "hang out" that is safe- could be a PNP - stay away from the "twin" one it is not worth the money- or a play yard with a blanket on the floor, bottles ( i know you plan on nursing- but life happens I pumped - so I had two types of bottles- they preferred the Playtex drop-ins over the more expensive ones- I had 3 bottles per kiddo).

As for burp cloths - you can use bath towels or blankets if need be. You also can swaddle in regular baby blankets- plus who knows your kiddos could be like mine and hated everything about that- so it would have been a HUGE waste of money.

Basically they NEED a safe place to sleep, a way to eat, something to wear, a clean bum, and safe transportation. Lots of other things are nice to have- boppies, bouncey seats, RNPs, swings, etc.

oughtonk · September 2014

How hard is it for you to order online and have shipped? Or have someone you know in the US pick up items and ship them to you? Just a thought so you don't have to pay quite as much for things.

Items that I can't live without would by our TwinZPillow (saves my life both for nursing and bottle feeding plus they love to lay in it and it works for tummy time too) and our Rock N Plays (they've been amazing for getting them to sleep with reflux). In terms of bottles I swear by Dr Browns, my oldest used them and our twins do great with them, we have about 6 small ones and 6 large ones. Our twins were preemie and still hardly drink more than 4 oz of milk when they bottle feed. I also recommend having one bouncy seat and one swing, we rotate the two between them, they also love their play mat.

Depending on how big your place is two single Pack N Plays would work but if you can get your hands on a double one (I ordered ours online from Target). You may not even need the Pack N Play to be honest, we use ours but could very easily just sleep them in a crib across the hall and not even mess with it.

In terms of clothes if it's warm lots and lots of onesies, our twins go through probably 3 outfits each a day and one set of PJs. Ours were in preemie clothes for 5 weeks and in newborn clothes for about 5 weeks as well, our little girl still can do newborn at 12 weeks but baby boy was done at 10 weeks. Burp clothes we use probably 3 per baby a day, 1-2 blankets a day each (but it's not warm and nice all of the time) and probably 2 bibs each

The smallest size diapers are probably size 1 which we just started using, prior to that we went through probably 5 large packages of preemie diapers (up to 6lbs) and maybe 5 large packages of newborns (up to 8 lbs...I think).