Non-Crazy Making Online Resources for Parents of Twins & Multiples

Hello!

Just wanted to say I think you’re great – your column and pregnancy calendar got me through my last pregnancy. A few months ago we decided to try for another baby and hooray it seems to have worked – twice! I am apparently elderly and releasing extra eggs like crazy.

So since the big surprise at my first appointment I’ve been scouring the internet for good resources about how to keep two babies alive at once (plus a toddler who will be 2 when they are born!) My initial searches have turned up things that are….I don’t know…basic, boring, not realistic and assumes the reader is dumb and wants money. Sort of like the baby message board scene I saw before finding this website!

So my question is – can you recommend any good websites, blogs, and/or books even for parents expecting twins? I’m not super concerned about the medical aspects of a twin pregnancy more the logistics and maintaining some kind of sanity once the babies arrive.

Thanks!

Well, congratulations! And surprise!

I’ll be honest and admit I’m hoping the comment section will do a lot of the heavy lifting on this one, since I’ve never had to navigate twins or multiples or wade through any of the current Internet Advice on the topic. (Which, as you’ve already seen, is always kind of a mixed bag. Same as it ever was!) But after getting your question, I did spend some time wading through some of the top results for various twin-related search phrases — basically the phrases I imagine I’d be searching, if I were in your shoes right now, like OMFG TWINS NOW WHAT and WILL I EVER SLEEP AGAIN. Then I made my own snap judgments on the content and whether this was a site I could see myself actually reading or if it made me want to hurl a loaded diaper at and never visit again.

(SHOCKINGLY, no baby message boards of any kind made the cut. How have those things not changed or evolved at ALL since like, 2004?)

First, though, as an old-school blogger who really misses the old-school blogging days, and who is grateful for the small handful of bloggers who — even if they’ve moved on — have left their archives up, let me point you to Rebecca Woolf‘s Girl’s Gone Child. Rebecca decided to go for baby number three…and ended up with baby number three AND four. Surprise again! If you want to follow her twin pregnancy, it starts around here. To follow her life after the twins were born, start here. She’ll show you the real deal (albeit with better photography skills than most of us).

All right! Moving on to the current crop of general parenting websites and other assorted resources for twins and multiples:

What To Expect

At some point, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” went from the first book EVERY first-time pregnant lady bought to something that elicited a lot of eyerolls and dismissals that it was overly alarmist and out-of-touch with modern pregnancy and parenthood. The books all got major revisions and updates and (FINALLY) some new cover art, and while I don’t really know what the current and latest version is like, I will say I really find their website to be very straightforward and fairly comprehensive. Here’s the main link to all their twins/multiple coverage. You might find a lot of it to be on the basic and boring side, but at least you know it’s all been vetted for accuracy and won’t try to shoot rainbows and baby dust up your butt. (I cannot say the same for their community message boards, however. I did not click, I did not look.)

Today’s Parent

I like Today’s Parent, generally. I like that they incorporate a lot of real-world advice and recommendations from parents and pediatricians in most of their articles, without being overly affiliate-link shop-happy, and you can generally read about any topic there without triggering a panic attack. What I don’t like, though, is that they don’t have a one-stop landing page for twins/multiples, either for pregnancy or parenting. That said, maybe start here, and then follow the Read More/Related breadcrumbs from there.

Twinversity

Wow, a completely twin-centric website that I did not run screaming away from! I actually stayed here and read MANY more blog entries and articles than strictly necessary (as I do not have twins, will never have twins, and have absolutely no real use for all this newly-acquired knowledge). If you dig beyond the homepage (or just focus on the top navigation links), you can find a lot of pretty well-written pieces by actual parents who’ve been, done that. Maybe start here, with the “First Year With Twins” category.

New Mom, Who Dis?

Sick of reading dry-ass articles about tandem breastfeeding and stroller recommendations and sleep schedules? Take a break from the Endless Black Hole of Internet Advice and check out this Facebook comedy show by mom-of-twin-boys Jessi Cruickshank. It’s very funny and a good place to wrap this up and leave the rest of the recommendation work to the comment section, because now that I’ve watched a couple of episodes I might as well go ahead and watch all 28, right?

Photo source: Depositphotos/Photo_life