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Our twin boys, Ryan and Joshua are now around 6 weeks old, born 8 weeks early, so real age being just 2 weeks. After two weeks of being at home with me and sharing the care for our sons, my husband has to return to work. We did not have any hired help organised, my mother was working, father has already passed away (2002) and Olaf's parents were both working and in Germany.

At this time, we were living in our four storey town house in the Docklands, London and my regular cleaner who came in every Friday and cleaned the house from top to bottom, did the laundry and hung it up and ironed Olaf's work shirts. I got her to work on Monday mornings too and do the same as what she was doing on Fridays. This meant, all I did during this time was cook for ourselves and look after the babies. 

I fed one baby after another. The one who had to wait was put in a baby swing and I rocked it with one foot while I fed the other. It was sometimes very distressing as Ryan although always the most cranky took forever to feed while Joshua fed quickly and his screams were louder.;)When I was pregnant, I was not sure of what type of help to plan on and the unexpected early birth of our twin boys meant we just got on with it. Four weeks of having the boys in the NICU meant I had the training to do the basic care for infants and both myself and Olaf were given CPR training before the babies were discharged. I asked a lot of questions from the nurses and followed what they did as that is ALL I knew.

Since we were in London, UK, we were also visited by social services and a midwife who was at hand, whom visited me several times. During these visits, I was able to ask her advice about the feedings, weights, any concerns at all. Because of the boys prematurity, we also had regular scheduled visits to Consultants in Paediatrics who were on hand to advise on developmental concerns and also, our concern was about the boys mental development which no one could advise on at this stage. It was a wait and see scenario at this stage.

Olaf used to make 8 bottles of formula and keep it in the fridge after washing and sterlising from the night before and go to work before 7.30 am. I stuck to four hourly feedings at this stage and even if they cried in between feeds, I did not give in. I maintained a spreadsheet of all the feeds so that we could keep track of how much they had in a day.

The babies slept in one cot bed in our bedroom in the night. Soon after the morning feed, they would be brought to a bright living room and kept either in a moses basket or a play mat on the floor. I only left the house to get the boys the necessary immunisations which was a 3 minute cab ride away. I remember the first time, I had no idea what I was doing and put them both in one moses basket and went for a appointment.

I did not leave the house for anything else. So, most days I did not leave the house as I felt it was too much hassle and apart from that, there was no reason to, I guess.:roll: I ordered groceries online from Tescos and we had a lot of take aways. My days were spent feeding, washing bottles, communicating to my freinds I have made locally through the National Childbirth Association, Twins and Multiple Births Association and Babycenter.co.uk. The internet was a lifeline and enabled me to have so much support from mothers across the United Kingdom, some of whom were older Moms and have done it all before and encouraged me when I felt like I was doing a rubbish job and listened when I had a bad day and just 'understood' .:)

I do remember very clearly I was totally absorbed into the world of being a Mom as all i was thinking about every second of the day were my babies. I remember Olaf coming home from work one day and trying to have a conversation about something and me not hearing. He said 'all you talk about is feeds, nappies, clothes and babies':roll: Guess he was neglected - when one of us was sleeping, the other was awake and the same went for weekends as I rested and re-couperated while Olaf did the night feeds. We were partners in this whole management of two babies and their needs - that is how I saw it .

The NCT also organised local meet ups and I made friends locally although none of them had twins themselves. These Moms organised meet ups every week hosted by one of us which enabled me to have much needed in person contact with grown ups. I rememeber one of them came one day and helped me get the babies packed intot the stroller which I never used to take them for their first walk in Greenwich park, Docklands, London.:roll:

Joshua was on normal formula, but Ryan was on a high calorie, prescription formula. Joshua's was in powder form which had to be mixed in, but Ryan's was instant and they were both given iron and vitamin supplements until they were six months old. The reason for this is they say, babies get vitamins during the last month in pregnancy which my babies never reached as they were born at 32 weeks.

The babies were generally quiet during the day, but from around 6 pm - 9/10 pm, it felt like they were very distressed until they settled by 10 pm and then through the night again, they only got up to feed and go back to sleep. Guess the 4 weeks in NICU taught them the difference between day and night rather quickly. Also, we did all the night feedings with the minimum of interaction too.

Babies were bathed every day at the same time in our ensuite in a baby bath one at a time and usually one was screaming and after a while I guess I got used to it. Olaf used to come home any time between 6.30 - 8 pm unless he was out with colleagues or business functions. As soon as he walked in, I wrent to bed and then he used to wake me up after 10 pm feed or close to the 2 am feed and go to bed and get a few hours of sleep himself. We carried on like this for three months by which time the boys started to sleep through 11 hours in the night.:)

Find out next, how we got the babies to sleep through at 3 months, 6/7 weeks corrected age!!!