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I think people without kids, when their friends with kids say they're so busy, don't realize is that all the work with kids is sporadic. You never get to get "

I think people without kids, when their friends with kids say they're so busy, don't realize is that all the work with kids is sporadic. You never get to get "in the zone" when child raising. I can't just change diapers for half a Saturday afternoon so I don't have to change diapers all week. When kids are first born they need to eat every 2-3 hours including night-time. And a feeding can take anywhere from 15-45 minutes, with a diaper change per-feeding. If you're in the boat that Jeff or I were in you were very fortunate if your twins were both on the same schedule -- offset schedule twins are exhausting and relentless. Oh, and 50% of twin births are C-sections and my wife was no exception. So her only jobs for the first six weeks were to recover, breastfeed, pump breast milk, eat, and sleep. Daddy took 6 weeks off work (3 unpaid) and pretty much had to do everything else until my wife recovered from her major abdominal surgery. Not asking for pity or sympathy. I'm just saying that I don't know how people handle newborn twins without help from friends and family. It would be impossible.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
We had friends with twins - theirs born about the same time as our first. Around four months when we were just beginning to get our life into some semblance of order I asked them if that was the case for them. The look I got I might as well have asked them if they'd just been to the moon. Four months in and things were still massively hard work 24 x 7. Twins are HARD and anyone who has them has my respect.
- eru 15y ago
  But, does it amount to less work total for the same number of children?
  - Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
    I think it's hard to view that way because of the way the work and pressures come. I have two kids a couple of years apart. The youngest one is still at an age where sleeping at night is an on-off business but the oldest one is now fine. With twins you wouldn't get that as they're both at the bad sleeping stage at the same period and that's something which re-enforces - two non-sleeping children at the same time is way worse than two non-sleeping children sequentially as there will be a period where you'll almost never get a good night. Similarly my older child can now feed herself which means that meal times with the two of them are easier than they would be if both needed feeding. Over all time, it might average out to close to the same amount of work per child (in later life they might entertain each other a bit more being the same age), but there are two or three years at the beginning where you're going to be severely punished. Also financially there's no hand me downs with twins - they both want / need stuff at the same time.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago

We had friends with twins - theirs born about the same time as our first. Around four months when we were just beginning to get our life into some semblance of order I asked them if that was the case for them. The look I got I might as well have asked them if they'd just been to the moon. Four months in and things were still massively hard work 24 x 7. Twins are HARD and anyone who has them has my respect.

eru 15y ago
But, does it amount to less work total for the same number of children?
- Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
  I think it's hard to view that way because of the way the work and pressures come. I have two kids a couple of years apart. The youngest one is still at an age where sleeping at night is an on-off business but the oldest one is now fine. With twins you wouldn't get that as they're both at the bad sleeping stage at the same period and that's something which re-enforces - two non-sleeping children at the same time is way worse than two non-sleeping children sequentially as there will be a period where you'll almost never get a good night. Similarly my older child can now feed herself which means that meal times with the two of them are easier than they would be if both needed feeding. Over all time, it might average out to close to the same amount of work per child (in later life they might entertain each other a bit more being the same age), but there are two or three years at the beginning where you're going to be severely punished. Also financially there's no hand me downs with twins - they both want / need stuff at the same time.