My husband’s college roommate is the proud father of three children including a set of toddler twins. Since both he and his wife are tremendous spreadsheet-making product researchers, I knew I could count on them to give the no-nonsense best product recommendations! Thanks to Caleb and Michelle.
In general, when you’re overwhelmed with all the products there are to buy for multiples, know that you do not need multiples of every product. Yes, you do need two car seats, most people need two cribs, and you’ll eventually need two high chairs but pretty much everything else is optional. Although it can be nice to have, you don’t need 2 swings, 2 papasan chairs, or 2 exersaucers because your babies will take turns (ha! they know how to share until they become toddlers, right?) and if you’ve had children before your multiples, you know that not all children enjoy all products anyway.
I suggest you keep the receipt for certain items because it’s possible neither (or none for higher order multiples) will like to swing, You can always buy a second swing if both babies are in love with it and/or will only fall asleep there.
Our favorite must-have products:
- Bottle sling. If you’re going to bottle feed, we highly recommend the Bebe bottle sling. After experimenting with many ways to prop bottles, these bottle holders were the clear winner in our house.
- Strollers: Yes, you are going to want more than one of them! you can’t get very far or go for very long when you carry more than one baby, so strollers will be your best friend anytime you want to go anywhere. The best thing to do is go to a local store and actually walk around with the strollers to test them out and see your preference.
- When the babies are tiny: you have 2 options here – tandem or side-by-side and this seems to be a personal preference decision. We used Graco’s Double Snap-n-Go because friends lent us one. Pro: you can get through ANY doorway! Con: a little hard to maneuver up and down any sort of a hilly area. The Graco Duorider is the side-by-side option where you can plop those infant carriers in and go. The advantage of this one is that it’s a regular stroller, too, so when your babies outgrow their infant carrier car seats, you can still use the same stroller.
- Umbrella stroller: Maclaren and Combi are the best. We have a hand-me-down Combi and it does fine. We keep it folded up in the car so we’d always have it available whenever we might need it. One of the main differences between them is that the Maclaren has 2 handles and the Combi has one. you may need to hold one baby and steer the stroller with one hand so in this case the Combi could be the better option, though some haven’t had a problem maneuvering the Maclaren with one hand.
- Other favorites: Once the babies outgrow the infant carrier, I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t love their double BOB stroller. I recently heard someone rave about the City Mini Stroller which looks like it combines the awesomeness of the double BOB with the umbrella stroller advantages.
- Diaper changing stations (set up one per house story): not really a product recommendation as much as product advice. If you have a one-level house or apartment, then one changing table should be enough. If you have a 2-story house, you’ll want a changing station upstairs and one downstairs.
It doesn’t have to be an actual changing table; I keep the changing pad on a shelf in the family room and I plop it on the floor when it’s time to change diapers. Next to that I have a munchkin diaper caddy with all the diaper changing essentials inside. There are times when one child wears a larger diaper size than the other, so i have written each child’s name on a side and I put a piece of cardboard in the middle to separate the diapers and make it easy to grab the right size. - Bassinets: I like the ones with wheels and that are narrow enough to fit through doorways. Since we bottle fed our infants, it was super convenient to have the bassinets in the family room (where our babies napped during the day as well as slept at night) conveniently located next to the kitchen where we prepared their bottles.
- Labels: Must label everything. We find it to be a must-have with multiple children to have cup identifiers (also works on bottles, although we had some different techniques).We love the Inchbug labels. For $13 you get 4 personalized dishwasher-safe “orbit” labels to wrap around cups. Cons for the Inchbug product: They are not as stretchy and therefore more difficult to put around the cups or thermoses than the bracelets. Despite that, we don’t have a cup in use that isn’t labeled! [Editor note: we love Mabel's Labels tagmates for labeling cups through clothes!]
Thanks to Caleb and Michelle for participating in Twins Week. I appreciate your extremely thorough product advice.
I’m unsubscribing from this blog. The anti-breastfeeding advice is reprehensible. The push to ignore a child’s basic needs is deplorable. However, An article touting the merits of a bottle-propping device just plain disgusts me. I don’t care how many babies one has, they should be fed safely and in a nurturing manner. Propped bottles are for hamsters and lab rats. Humans should hold their babies in an appropriate position to feed them, however that way may be. A bottle should never be propped, especially in a car seat. That is the perfect way to ensure that the child is forced to take in more milk or formula than he or she wants to consume and puts the child at great risk for choking.
Great article. Really Alicia? Do you stop going to a store because they offer different cereals. She isn’t saying you have to bottle feed. She is saying and I quote,”… If you are going to bottle feed…”. Have you never been on the road with a hungry baby? It’s an alternative not a requirement..sheesh
Dang, I wish I had known about the bottle sling sooner! My baby doesn’t need one anymore because she can hold her own bottle now but, man, that would have been helpful when trying to feed the baby AND bathe the toddler AND feed the kindergartner.
Can’t you put breast milk in a bottle? And can’t you maybe just monitor babies whose bottles are propped?
What do I know. It must be hard being The Perfect Parent AND being so angry/opinionated.
Love you, Emily.
WOW. Angry Alicia must NOT have twins and if she does then she must be the second coming of Mother Theresa. I wish they had those bottle slings when my girls (now 4.5) were infants! We live in the middle of nowhere and our pediatrician is a 50 minute car ride away. Those would have come in SO handy during many an long and hell-ish ride.
I’m new to this site but I’ll just throw in that we couldn’t have lived (and I couldn’t have showered) without having two exersaucers! Just put in a DVD, put the nuggets in the saucers and you’ll have enough shower to time to shave your legs AND maybe even blow dry your hair.
Oh – one more thing. I wanted to breastfeed – ALICIA – but I had such severe post partum depression that I opted to take meds and NOT kill myself rather then breastfeed. Breastfeeding is not an option for lots of us. Lighten up.
I live about an hour away from everywhere. I have dealt with hungry kids and an exit ramp that was miles away. That still does not compel me to strap a bottle on my kid’s carseat to risk their child choking/drowning on milk. Babies have died from this, this isn’t a breastmilk/formula question, it is one of safety. That is why I pointed out the rather obvious issues with this device. Bottle propping in any form is a dangerous practice.
Alicia,
I don’t care how many kids you have, multiples is different. You said you were going to unsubscribe from this site because the “anti-breastfeeding advice is reprehensible.” Have YOU ever nursed twins? Good gracious woman, you don’t have the slightest clue what you are talking about, I nursed my twins for six weeks and nearly went mad from the stress as I never made enough milk for both of them, no matter what I tried. The guilt of quitting nursing is still with me but feeding the twins was AT LEAST an hour affair every time we fed and they ate every 1.5 hours for quite awhile. I was also ALONE much of the time. What in the world would you have a mother do when she is alone with two hungry babies?? NOT propping bottles would actually have resulted in the babies getting fed LESS frequently (and therefore not getting their needed nutritian) as I would not have had time to feed both in 1.5 hours if I could not prop a bottle when necessary. Also, many twins are preemie and the most important thing is making sure they get fed frequently, even if they did eat more than they normally would, which I highly doubt because most babies just push the bottle away when they are done, it is far better than the alternatives. I cannot tell you how offensive your comment was, next time keep your comments to yourself if you do not have personal experience.
Alicia doesn’t have multiples and therefore I can understand the initial concern. It’s the judgment which is objectionable. I breastfed my twins for 8 months and propping was an essential part of the process- breast feeding one and bottle feeding the other. It would have been dangerous not to…in fact I started doing it because I almost dropped one of my babies trying to get them both positioned.
So, dear Alicia, if you are still subscribed, there is always going to be something we don’t understand and therefore don’t support. There’s no blame there but it’s in the judgment before asking questions which makes this poster pissed. I had to make so many choices FOR my babies and in the absence of full time help, propping is a no- brainer
And I highly doubt any of these lovely, hardworking mothers propped the bottle and then checked out. I’m sure the babies were being watched closely and were perfectly safe. It looks like those sweet faces in the photo above all made it