Double Trouble: Twins and How to Survive Them

Real nappies to buy

In the year 2000, there were 10 companies selling cloth nappies; today there are about 22. Some mothers go for buying and using the cloth nappies because it works out cheaper in the long run. Friends of the Earth estimate that cloth nappies cost an average of £400 per baby over a two-year period before a baby is potty-trained, including the cost of washing powder, electricity, water and wear and tear (estimated at £40). Disposables cost £1,200 per baby for a two-year period – no small figure when doubled.

These days ‘real nappy systems’, as they are grandly called, have come a long way from the terry-towelling-and-safety-pin days of our mothers. Lively animal prints make them a little more fun to hang out on the washing line, and the Velcro or popper fastenings are a doddle to do. Catalogues such as PHP (0870 6070545), Cheeky Rascals (01428 682488) and Little Green Earthlets (01825 873301: www.earthlets.co.uk) carry a range, but for background information contact The Real Nappy Association (0208 299 4519).

One of the biggest manufacturers, Kooshies (0870 607 0545), often provides a sample pack for interested mothers. Those wishing to turn their interest into a lifetime of placard-waving on behalf of the environment can also get the low-down on the impact of disposables on the planet from the Women’s Environment Network (0207 481 9004).

The wonderful world of double buggies

If you thought buying a car was difficult (am I a hatchback sort of person or a sports car kind of girl?), then the double buggy showroom will send you rushing to the nearest shrink. Double buggies seem to cost about as much as a car, need at least an O-level in engineering to put up and down, and generate very little interest in the male species. If you do have a man with strong opinions about what you should buy, think twice about doing as you’re told against your better judgment. Exactly how much pushing up and down the pavements and hills will he be doing with it? A Saturday stroll is quite different from a slog back from Sainsbury’s with the weekly shop.

One reason why the world of double buggies is so complicated is because manufacturers are always bringing out new pushchairs with fabrics and features that instantly make last year’s model look like stale buns. We have a video in our twins club library called Coping with Twins (don’t bother, it’s from the 1970s), which shows a mother trying to ram a new double buggy through her front door. Under the helpful banner of ‘make sure your double buggy can fit through an average door’, this poor woman is trying to negotiate a vehicle the size of two shopping trolleys up the front step. Meanwhile, her twins are lying down on their fronts in the buggy, with their heads bobbing up and down like nodding dogs.

In a recent local twins club survey, two mothers groaned about how the Mothercare Urban Detour model was 82 cms wide and didn’t fit through their front doors. The thought of unloading your twins in the rain, and taking the shopping off the back of the buggy while finding the keys in the bottom of your handbag is no small consideration, so don’t rely on manufacturers to build to standard-width doors. At the risk of making the book instantly out of date, because by the time you read this some company will have just brought out a model with a pump-action pellet gun to zap other buggies out of the way, let me offer the results of our own twins club survey a little later on (see pages 56–7). In defence of being yesterday’s news, note that manufacturers’ ‘new ranges’ tend to offer cosmetic changes, such as different fabrics, rather than radical design improvements.

The first three months

The pram you need for the first three months of your babies’ life is quite different from the one you need for the next two years. Some manufacturers do try and get round this by getting their sitting-up versions to lie flat, but it can often look like a compromise. Although you will be focused on the babies as tiny little beans that need protecting, if you are buying new, do look ahead to the moment they can sit up – around six months.

Many twin mothers get round the problem by renting a pram (not particularly cheap) or borrowing for those first three months, and then buying the three-wheeler of their choice when the babies are six months old. For the first three months you will want your babies to be lying together, replicating the experience in the womb, so that they sleep more soundly comforted by each other’s presence. For that reason, old-fashioned prams – or even single prams for a month or two – often do the trick of keeping them tucked up cosily as twins. Once the babies are sitting up, a whole new world of buggies open up to you, and these buggies can then last the next two years.

Buy second-hand

One of the advantages of living on our crowded, small island is that neighbours and friends are always keen to offload equipment to make space in their shed. This is particularly true when your news of expecting twins reaches the outside world. Offers will come from the most unexpected sources – I was offered a front-and-back buggy in shocking purple and green from my sister-in-law’s former au pair’s current employer (see what I mean about ‘unexpected’). Then a friend turned up with a side-by-side Maclaren umbrella double buggy. As it turned out, both were useful. The front and back one lasted no more than six months because it became too heavy to lift up and down pavements. The second side-by-side number is still brought out for emergencies (and I was interested to see in our twins club survey that 45 per cent of mothers had a Maclaren as a second buggy).

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