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An organiser by nature and profession, Rachel Rosenthal Strisik’s impulse towards order hit full throttle when she learnt she was pregnant with twins.
Right away, she sought out a local support group and started networking with mothers who had twins or triplets.
At her suburban home in Bethesda, Maryland, the United States, she created folders for medical bills and parenting articles.
She set up areas upstairs and down to diaper and dress the babies.
Mixed reactions
She baked and froze lasagnas and chicken casseroles for those days when she was sure to be too harried for cooking.
Her theory: You need to bring order to the chaos before it happens.
For most parents, hearing that they are having multiples is “joy mixed with terror mixed with moments of calm”, says Patricia Malmstrom, co-author of The Art of Parenting Twins and director of Twin Services Consulting, a support website for parents with multiples.
After absorbing the news, many parents-to-be find themselves “scrambling to find balance in the midst of an unstable feeling”, she says.
Much of that scrambling centres on how to keep a household running smoothly — or just running — with two, three or more babies crying at once.
Multiple births are increasingly common in the US. Between 1980 and 2005, the rate of twin births almost doubled, according to the National Centre for Health Statistics.
Triplets and higher-order multiple births more than quadrupled. Experts say the jump can be attributed to more women delaying childbirth: Women have an increased chance of conceiving multiples after age 35, especially if they are undergoing fertility therapies.
This trend complicates matters on the home front: Women expecting multiples are often confined to bed before delivery and may have a longer recovery afterwards, which can add to a general unravelling of housekeeping.
Rosenthal Strisik, 30, runs Rosey’s Urban Style, a personal organising and shopping service, so she was already skilled at planning.
And since the arrival of identical twins Ellie and Marin in January — the first children for Rosenthal Strisik and her husband, Marshall Strisik Schattner — she says she has also learnt to be flexible.
Skilled at planning
Because her girls are of different weights and require different amounts of food, she started labelling bottles with their initials.
She keeps Ellie on the left and Marin on the right during feedings, naps and playtime so friends and relatives can tell who’s who. “Get your systems in place as early as possible,” she says.
“But know that the babies will change your system. Things are constantly changing.”
Annie Elliott, 37, is a Washington DC-based designer and first-time mother of 3-year-old twin girls.
When she learnt she was expecting, she put up plenty of shelves in the nursery and hung a clear plastic shoe holder on the wall next to the changing table so onesies and wipes were nearby and visible.
“Wrestling a baby in and out of clothing is more stressful when you have another baby crying,” she says.
She devoted an entire shelf — not just a charming little basket — to diapers. (“Really stock up. You won’t believe how fast you go through things.”) And she colour-coded the girls’ clothing to help others tell them apart: red for Ruthie, green for Georgie.
Becky DeStefanis, 34, and John Spirtas, 33, parents of 2-year-old triplets, have some counter-intuitive advice for couples expecting multiples: Resist the impulse to move to a bigger house right away.
Making a chart
DeStefanis and Spirtas, who live in a small suburban Cape Cod, say it’s easier to monitor children in a smaller space, where there are fewer places they might hurt themselves.
“And when things get lost, there are only a few rooms where they can be,” DeStefanis says.
When the triplets were newborns, the couple put a minifridge and crockpot filled with water in the upstairs nursery so they could easily warm bottles in the middle of the night.
They created a chart to track when each baby’s clothes were being changed and when and how much each ate.
“It’s easy to forget who’s doing what when,” DeStefanis says.
To contain daytime activities to the first floor, the couple turned the den into a nap room when Ben, Ella and Marie were infants.
A little-used end of the kitchen became a changing and dressing area, and the dining room became a playroom, complete with brightly coloured rubber floor mats to cushion unsteady toddlers.
They also put a clear plastic shoe holder to clever use: They hung one on a kitchen door to store bottles and, eventually, sippy cups.
Rearranging the home
“Everything is about ease of use, seeing what you need and getting to things quickly,” Spirtas says. “Especially in the beginning, because you’re asleep all the time.”
Parker Rea, 33, and her husband, James, 37, are expecting twin boys in June. They plan to stay in their Washington townhouse for the time being.
Though space will be tighter, they’ve decided to rearrange things rather than move.
“Right now we’re looking at our space and thinking about how to use it more efficiently,” Parker says.
Bulky antiques will be put in storage rooms and replaced with smaller, less precious storage pieces, and the boys will share a room with two small-scale cribs.
“I think it’s about getting creative about how you’re going to make it work,” she adds.
Another good piece of advice: Avoid buying too much baby gear. Kate Hood, 35, a suburban mother of 1-year-old twins and a 3-year-old, says it’s a mistake to think that a home with multiples needs multiple swings and multiple bouncy seats.
“Having two babies does not mean two of everything,” she says.
“And the gear will take over your house regardless, so try to keep it as minimal as possible.” Try borrowing baby gear before purchasing it, several parents advised.
Some babies are lulled by motorised swings and some aren’t; some delight in doorway jumpers and some don’t. If possible, try before buying one, two or three of anything.
Help from an expert
Though part of the fun of having a baby is designing the new nursery, getting caught up in the decor may not prove to be the most productive distraction.
Take it from a design expert. “If you worry about every small detail, you’ll go crazy,” Elliott says. “Take that time and energy and go buy diapers.”
IN THE UAE
Join the non-profit Dubai-based support group Twins, Triplets Or More (TTOM)
What is it?
A group of families with twins, triplets and anything above to share stories and advice
Who is it for?
For families with multiples from pregnancy to childhood stages
When do they meet?
Every second Sunday at 10am
Membership fee?
Pay Dh30 each year and receive discounts at various outlets as well
Contact: Write to Jacqui Ebrahim on ttom@du-fam.com or visit www.du-fam.com
INFORMATION
Websites that can help
FIGURES
Numbers that multiply
Number of wipes used annually:
- Twins: 6,670
- Triplets: 10,000
- Quadruplets: 13,333
- Quintuplets: 16,666
Number of diapers changed annually:
- Twins: 4,533
- Triplets: 6,800
- Quadruplets: 9,067
- Quintuplets: 11,333
Number of bottles used annually:
- Twins: 4,420
- Triplets: 6,630
- Quadruplets: 8,840
- Quintuplets: 11,050
Number of goodnight kisses annually:
- Twins: 730
- Triplets: 1,095
- Quadruplets: 1,460
- Quintuplets: 1,825
ADVICE
Prepare much in advance
- Contact your health insurance company. Let them know you’re expecting multiples to avoid confusion after the births.
- Get a second freezer. Stock it with premade frozen meals.
- Stock up on burp cloths. Many multiples have acid reflux. Cloth diapers work well.
- If breastfeeding, invest in a hospital-grade, hands-free pump. It will enable you to multitask.
- If using formula, have a good blender at hand. That will make it much faster and easier when preparing several batches at once.
- Use zipper plastic storage bags. They can be handy for keeping each child’s items (pacifiers, medicine, a change of clothes) separate inside a diaper bag. Colour-coded bags make things even easier.
- Set up sleeping and changing stations in rooms where you’ll be spending a lot of time. At least set up one on each floor. Keep all necessary supplies within arm’s reach.
- Visit a family that has multiple infants. It will give you some idea of what to expect.
- Make friends with parents of multiples. Talking to someone who is or has been in the same situation can be comforting.
- Find a local multiples club and see what resources it offers. Some may offer advice on area doctors, group meetings and consignment sales or even a stock of newborn clothing for borrowing.
- Line up help. You’re going to need it. If people offer help, “get them signed up on a schedule before the babies are born”, says Jane Herschelman, mother of triplets. “Don’t say you’ll call them when the babies are born, because you don’t have time to think, to call or the memory of what they said they’d do.”
- Get a larger-than-normal laundry basket.
Celebrity Parents
American actress and singer Jennifer Lopez and husband, singer Marc Anthony, arrive with their children Marc and Emme in Zaventem, Belgium,
last month for a concert. Lopez gave birth to
twins on February 22
American actress Julia Roberts gave birth to her double bundle of joy Hazel Patricia Moder
and Phinnaeus Walter Moder on November 28, 2004. Roberts, married to cinematographer Daniel Moder, has a third child, Henry Daniel Moder
American actress Marcia Cross and her twins, Eden and Savannah, have a family day at a public park in Brentwood, US, recently. Cross, famous for her role in the teleserial Desperate Housewives gave birth to her set of double-trouble in February last year
Famous Twins
Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen are the most famous of Hollywood twins. They started their acting careers together at the age of nine months on the television series Full House in 1987.
They established a company called Dualstar in 1993, an year after Full House came to an end, and their brand has been sold in more than 3,000 stores in America and over 5,300 stores worldwide.
Because of this, they have been on the Forbes’s “The Celebrity 100 list” since 2002, and in 2007, Forbes ranked them, collectively, as the eleventh-richest women in entertainment, with an estimated net worth of $100 million (Dh367 million).
Mary-Kate and Ashley have an older brother, Trent, and younger sister, Elizabeth, as well as two half-siblings, Taylor and Jake. The twins’ parents divorced in 1995.
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