Double Trouble: Twins and How to Survive Them
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There is a lot to be said for keeping fit in pregnancy. Not running around sort of fit, but keeping moving sort of fit, as a preparation for labour. Walking, swimming and yoga are all thoroughly recommended in both the early and late stages, and can be done right up to the day of delivery.
Swimming is the best exercise for twin mothers towards the end, particularly if you are a member of a clean health club (pregnancy makes you notice the plasters on the bottom of the public pool). I loved the feeling of weightlessness as I took to the water, cupping my stomach and the babies as I slowly made my way up and down the pool. I even managed to escape buying a maternity swimming costume by wearing a black Lycra size 20 until the very end. Swimming is also good because it keeps your temperature stable in the water, increases blood flow and urine output, and reduces swelling. At the same time, it puts less stress on other parts of your body, particularly the uterus.
Yoga is also wonderful if you can find a pre-natal class locally, or a yoga teacher who can show you a few simple exercises to do. Pre-natal classes, as opposed to normal classes, also give you the opportunity to sit around chatting to other pregnant women while the yoga teacher reminds you to do your pelvic floor exercises.
Love your pelvic floor
The pelvic floor muscles are what your expanding babies are sitting on. They sit like a hammock supporting your internal organs, and withstand a lot of pressure during pregnancy. Regardless of whether you have elected for a Caesarean and are hoping to escape ‘honeymoon sweet’ (a myth, I’m afraid), you need to learn to love your pelvic floor muscles. It is pregnancy, not birth, that stretches them, so nobody escapes. If you don’t learn to love them now, you may never set foot on a trampoline again, or survive a coughing fit without a dash to the loo. Take those Bangkok girls with ping-pong balls as your role models and ‘squeeeeze!’ (in the words of the heroine of Allison Pearson’s hilarious novel I Don’t Know How She Does It 7)
Once a yoga teacher has helped you locate your pelvic floor, find a regular place to do your exercises, such as when sitting at the traffic lights. The only place I could remember was in the bath. Lying on my back, I would do the hold for 10 seconds, release for 10 seconds, hold for 9 seconds, release for 9 seconds, until the water went cold. Those without a yoga teacher can practise by sitting on the loo and holding back their pee intermittently.
Working out
As I have never set foot in a gym, I can’t give any sensible advice on what exercises can and can’t be done in later pregnancy. However, the actress Jane Seymour writes quite comprehensively about her workout regime before the birth of her twin boys Kris and Johnny. Without wishing to pour cold water on her efforts, her impressive gym activity is tempered by the fact that she did go into labour at 34 weeks after the onset of pre-eclampsia. (Her disappointment about being wheeled in for an emergency Caesarean, however, was offset by the surgeon’s flattering remarks as she lay under the knife. In her book Two at a Time the surgeon is quoted as saying, ‘Look at those abdominal muscles – good work, Jane. They look like the muscles of a 20-year-old.’8 The following excerpt from her punishing schedule carries a warning that you may well feel tired just reading it:
‘My workout stayed essentially the same between 28 weeks and 34 weeks with some important exceptions because of the irritable uterus episode I’d had at 28 weeks. I no longer warmed up on either the recumbent bike or the Stairmaster. I also used stretchy exercise bands instead of the weight machine, and I did exercises seated or lying down instead of standing. Gently, I kept up with my abdominal exercises, even though I had grown so large, although Dr Ross pointed out that if I had experienced pre-term labour, all abdominal exercises would have been out.’
Phew. Cup of raspberry leaf tea, anyone?
Obviously now is not the time to take up jogging, because there is nothing more uncomfortable than your stomach and boobs swinging up towards your face. But for those of you who were runners before your body was invaded, there is little reason why, with the blessing of your doctor or midwife, you can’t carry on. In the Autumn issue of our twins club newsletter, we reported on a 33-year-old marathon runner who became pregnant with twins. After her first antenatal visit she cut down her running from 96 miles a week to around 66 miles, and eased off her pace. The twins grew at a normal rate and the mother stayed healthy, only giving up running three days before the birth. After a planned Caesarean at 36 weeks, she gave birth to twins weighing 4lb 14oz (2.2kg) and 5lb 1oz (2.3kg). Go girl.
Dealing with common complaints
Ranking in order of popularity, from the most popular complaint to the least popular, here are the most common symptoms that 50 twin mothers in our local south-west London area experienced in moderation during their pregnancy. The questionnaire did not include ‘exhaustion’ which was cited by everyone. Suggested remedies are in brackets next to the complaints.
FOUR I Shop, Therefore I Am
When I interviewed the triplet (heroine) mother Valerie Cormack, I asked her what was the hardest part of caring for her babies. I expected a long diatribe about visiting special care units or sleeplessness, but instead she answered: ‘Shopping. There is nothing worse than buying three of the same thing, and then realizing that it was a mistake.’ And this comes from the woman who gave birth to all three of her babies naturally in hospital.
So, let’s get serious about shopping for a moment. After all, you have worked hard for your money, and you don’t want to blow it on something you have no hope of returning to the shop after the babies are born. There is a lot of necessary stuff to buy in preparation for twins – pregnancy clothes, cots and nursery furniture, buggies and bathtime accessories – so there is no escape. You might as well enjoy the experience by starting early and acquiring the catalogues and getting the boring but important stuff out of the way now. Then you will have hours to coo over cashmere booties as the pregnancy wears on, knowing that a telephone call to one of your hundreds of catalogue people will solve any last-minute necessities. Sorted.
Maternity wear for big mothers
The best rule is to avoid the twilight world of non-fashion that is maternity wear until you can no longer go a day without those comfy jersey gussets for the stomach. Before that moment you can make do with the latest fantastic invention from Australia, the Bellybelt, an ingenious device that fits over your normal trousers and allows you to keep within the bounds of normal fashion for a few weeks longer. It sells for £12.95 and the box comes with three sizes of elastic and three different materials – white, black or denim (see www.grobag.com).
However, when the Bellybelt and the size 18s and 20s from your favourite shops no longer fit, you have to give up and call in the brochures. Once you have, and you are wearing your first pair of maternity jeans, you will heave a huge sigh of relief. They will feel so comfortable. You can’t believe why you didn’t succumb to big pants or maternity tights earlier. Don’t worry – your partner will thank you for holding out this long. There is nothing in this world less sexy than a drop-down bra.
Sadly for twin mothers, the day of maternity-wear reckoning will be reached far earlier than for those carrying singletons. But you can at least comfort yourself in the knowledge that you will get far more wear out of them. Also, lest you forget, you will be wearing those same maternity trousers for a good few weeks (or months in my case) after you have had the babies. The sight of a twin mother’s stomach after the birth is best kept under wraps. It will be a while before the diamond in your pierced tummy button is back out on display.
When it comes to buying maternity wear, go only for the ‘capsule wardrobe’. You remember that 90s’ fashion phase that urged everyone to go out and buy dark-coloured tailored basics to wear with T-shirts for power breakfasts and board meetings? Well, it may have dropped off the agenda for London Fashion Week, but it is still vital to your pregnant sense of wellbeing. There is nothing worse than waking every morning and having a clothes tantrum because you can’t face your multicoloured ‘fun’ top. You need to invest in some dark-coloured basics, even if the only power breakfast on the horizon is with your pussycat.
The capsule wardrobe
For your capsule wardrobe, the ‘maternity’ basics are:
The joy of mail order
Whether you live in the city or the country, by the time you have become so pregnant that you don’t feel like moving, or later on a housebound mother, you are ready to discover the joy of mail order. It is part necessity and part fantasy (impossibly clean babies, no hint of baby sick anywhere, being pushed along by beautiful blonde teenage model mothers, no sign of bags under the eyes). Once you have rung for your first catalogue, you will become an addict. It is a perfectly normal symptom of shopping deprivation brought about by being too large to undress in tiny cubicles. Fortunately for you, your addiction will be fed forever more by new catalogues from different baby-related manufacturers arriving on your doorstep unasked for. You may tut about the paper wastage, but before long you will be hooked, flicking through the pages to see the latest baby gizmos.
The upside to mail-order shopping is that you can do it when you are pinned to the bed breastfeeding two babies, and you can shop online when the children are asleep. The downside is that once the babies are born, you are unlikely ever to find an envelope and Sellotape to return anything that didn’t fit. My twins are still waiting to grow into their cute Breton tops, bought by mistake at size six years instead of six months.
The best maternity-wear and baby shops
Blooming Marvellous
(0870 751 8944: www.bloomingmarvellous.co.uk)
Blooming awful name but it boasts the ‘UK’s largest range of maternity wear’ and has some good classic items for late pregnancy, such as large linen shirts that can also be worn afterwards. It is a one-stop shop for your pregnancy capsule wardrobe with a growing newborn section. Just steer away from Womb Song Kit (£49.99). Your babies will never thank you, and that money would be better spent at the Gucci of pregnancy wear – Formes.
Formes
(0208 689 1133: www.formes.com)
Formes is the French maternity-wear company where all pregnant mothers would shop if they were rich celebrities. That doesn’t mean you cannot treat yourself to one item there. And if you do buy only one thing, make it a pair of jeans. A pair bought by a friend for £75 is on its fourth pregnant mother, and they still look great. Women who work in the City should only buy maternity wear from Formes, because they can.
Jojo Maman Bébé
(0870 241 0560: www.Jojomamanbebe.co.uk)
Also French, and a little more classy than bloomingterrible-name. Its website is well-organized and easy to buy from. Its denim jeans are cheaper than its French rival at around £32.99.
Brora
(0207 736 9944: www.brora.co.uk)
This company makes exquisite cashmere baby clothes: cardigans (£45), trousers (£45) as well as hand-knitted baby bonnets (£23), baby booties (£19) and baby mittens (£15). One friend who was given a gift box of trousers and cardy loved the feel of her cashmere baby so much that every night for three months she would wash out the top and bottoms and hang them on a radiator for the next day. Some may be horrified at the thought of spending so much on baby clothes, so this is one to be given as a gift, if anybody’s asking. Yasmin Le Bon, who discovered Brora for her children, never hands on the clothes but recycles them into cushions. If it’s good enough for Yasmin…
Beaming baby
(0800 034 5672: www.beamingbaby.com)
This is a totally organic website offering mainly toiletries for babies – natural bathcare, talcum powder and kits for mothers. It also sells some unusual hand-finished clothes for babies made from organic cotton – its long-sleeved ‘bodies’, sleepsuits and babygros are an environmentally-friendly alternative to the bigger stores.
Mothercare
(0845 330 4030: www.mothercare.com)
Unless you are reading this after a major relaunch, Mothercare seems to me to have gone off the boil in recent years with some frumpy maternity offerings and often poorly-stocked shops. Shame when you consider that it’s the name everyone gropes for when they need anything baby-wise. One pregnant friend became so exasperated with not being able to find a shop assistant recently that she stood in the middle of the store and announced ‘I am here to spend hundreds of pounds with you, please can anyone help me?’ She spent £800 at the store and had to return to the shop when the goods were delivered because they still had their security tags on.
When I contacted Mothercare about these general issues of stock and customer service, they replied:
‘We acknowledge that our performance in these areas has not lived up to the expectations of our customers. We have a new and revitalized senior management team in place that is concentrating its efforts on returning Mothercare to its position of pre-eminence as the number one retailer for parents.’
Watch this space.
Not Mail-order but Worth the Schlep
H&M Hennes – Mama Range
(www.hm.co.uk)
The Hennes maternity line knocks spots off the catalogue stuff price-wise. Pick up basic long-sleeved T-shirts and stretchy trousers for a few quid. It is also much trendier. Think Natalie from All Saints rather than Cherie from Number 10. However, as we go to press, the website only offers a store locator rather than online ordering, so you will need to plan a trip.
Little stuff for tiny babies
You’ll be amazed at how little stuff you need to begin with, particularly if you are breastfeeding. Don’t be seduced by the magazines. Buy as you go along and second-hand from twins club newsletters, if you can. There are some things that only the catalogues sell, however. I’ve listed below the best buys that do the rounds through our local club’s quarterly journal.
The swing chair
This is a battery-powered rocking chair, suitable from birthish up until 25lb in weight. The benefit for a twin mother is that you can put one baby in it, rocking happily away on one of two speeds, with annoying jangly music, while changing the other. The downside is that they take up about as much room as a small helicopter in your living room. Brand new, they cost around £89 from catalogues such as Perfectly Happy People (0870 607 0545: wwwthebabycatalogue.com). Second-hand, they sell for around £50.
The V-shaped cushion
This is used for breastfeeding and propping up one little baby while you feed the other. One twin mother even uses hers to stop her two-year-old falling out of bed (one arm is a pillow, the other a buffer). She also found a rare V-shaped cushion with Velcro straps, allowing her to walk around the house with it strapped on like an ocean-going liner. Poor husband. The V-shaped cushion always comes out as a best buy for twin mothers because it allows you to breastfeed both babies at the same time (the double football hold), no-handed. Even if you bottle-feed, you can prop up both babies facing each other while you hold the bottles. Oh, what versatility! As well as being on sale at WI meetings for oldies who like to read in bed, it is also found at John Lewis stores and catalogues such as Perfectly Happy People (see above).
The baby change station
If you only had one baby, you might get away with not having to invest in a baby change station (the cheapest being a canvas and metal foldaway number costing around £30 in IKEA). However, if you don’t invest in one with twins, you would spend triple the cost at the osteopath after 100 nappy changes in the first week alone. If you can possibly afford it, buying one for upstairs and one for downstairs will also see you through the blizzard of nappies in the first few months.
Bath safety seats
Bathing twins in the early days is a two-person job unless you invest in bath seats. I bought two from Cheeky Rascals (£12.95 mail-order: 01428 682488) and I credit the purchase with helping my twins love water. The seat, which has recently won Parenting magazine Best Buy, is made of moulded plastic and props the baby in a semi-upright position. The baby is supported under the arms and legs, which are free to flail about, but cannot slip downwards. Once the twins get used to the water (my little girl used to scream when first immersed for about a week), they can splash around to their hearts’ content. In the early days, this means you could down a whole cup of tea. Well worth every penny.
The real nappy issue
You may be wondering at this stage what on earth makes one nappy brand better than another (the answer is whichever has a freebie of some wipes attached to them). Or you may be thinking that you’d like to do your bit for the environment and use real nappies. Whatever your view, you are entering a fiercely competitive world where the big brands like Pampers will be vying for your loyalty along with the little local nappy laundering services. Whatever you decide, remember that you will only have time to research the options before the babies are born. After that, it will be whatever the local store has in stock.
Biodegradable disposables
There is only one brand of disposable nappy that is biodegradable, and it is called Nature’s Boy and Girl. They are unisex (useful for boy/girl twins) and sold in all the big supermarkets, but sadly not in smaller chemists. Invented by a Swedish woman called Marlien Sandberg, the nappy is 70 per cent biodegradable, and a new prototype – 100 per cent biodegradable – may even be in production at the time of reading. For those too overstretched to want to wash or fold nappies, these are a good compromise. You are doing your bit for the environment, and can sleep at night knowing that of the 800,000 tonnes of nappy waste collected every year in UK landfill sites, at least your babies’ contributions will be rotting down. The shocking alternative is the knowledge that the very first disposable nappy ever made has yet to biodegrade.
Real nappy laundering agencies
For the first nine months of the twins’ lives, I opted for a nappy laundering service, which delivered 100 nappies for the babies every week and took away the soiled ones. As well as the laundering service, I also rented 12 plastic pants to put the nappies in, and they worked well with no problem of rashes or leakages. I even quite liked the chore of folding these white cotton nappy liners; it gave me a whiff of what it would be like to be a real earth mother. However, my main problem was the smell. The buckets that had to wait for a week for collection began to pong so badly that they eventually had to be put at the end of the garden near the compost. And if I forgot to put the nappy bucket out for collection, then the garden became a horsebox. The total cost was around £8 per week per baby, around the same cost as disposables. For your nearest nappy collection and delivery scheme, call The National Association of Nappy Services (0121 693 4949).