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Essential Things to Know About Being a Parent of Multiples

By Rachel Franklin, M.D., M.O.M.*

Your Family Doc

• Be Organized: life is much easier when everyone is on the same schedule of eating, sleeping, diaper changing and so on
• Ask for Help: especially in the first few months of life, you will need a break; enlist your parents, friends, or a babysitter for a few hours a week to help you get rest, do the housework or shop for the groceries
• Prioritize: decide what is essential and what is important and let everything else slide; you will be too busy and too tired to worry about the laundry or the house being “just so.”  Be glad you and the kids have clean clothes to wear.
• Encourage Individuality: many people around you may group your multiples (“the twins,” and so on), but they are distinct children with their own personalities.  Encourage their individuality and educate those around you to do so as well.
• Respect their Union: your multiples have a special bond with each other that they will never have with anyone else on Earth.  If they should choose to dress alike, prefer to play with each other, or share a special language, allow it when it doesn’t interfere with their social development.
• Advocate for Them: schools may want to separate them before they are ready or to keep them together after they have tired of so much closeness; advocate for what you believe to be best for them at school, at home and in the society around them.
• Guard their Privacy: multiples are frequently the subject of random comments from complete strangers and may become embarrassed or shy as a result; you may feel your privacy has been invaded by intrusive questions about how the twins, triplets or more were conceived; speak out in your own defense and by so doing, show the children that their privacy is also valued
• Take Some Time Out: multiples require a lot of energy, especially in the first few years, and you and your partner need time to reconnect; ask for help and take time out for adult relationship-building
• Enjoy Them: multiples are a special blessing; take a deep breath in one of those rare quiet moments and reflect on how far you have come with them, how hard you worked to get them here safely, and how much you love them

*Mother of Multiples

Dr. Rachel Franklin is the author of “Expecting Twins, Triplets and More: A Doctor’s Guide to a Healthy and Happy Multiple Pregnancy” (St. Martin’s Griffin).