Anyone with twins wish they only had 1 child.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. We do belong to a multiples group and are fairly active - but you can't post anonymously and I am too ashamed to post under my name since I am friends with some of the members.

Maybe it will be easier when I am not trying to potty train 2 kids - one who is sitting on the toilet (and I am trying to stop from touching everything in the public bathroom) and the other is trying to army crawl under the stall to visit the lady in the next stall. One day I will laugh at this, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I can say is that it WILL get better.

I have several friends with multiples. One had a girl and then two years later had triplets. She practically went insane. She hired a night nurse. Another had twins after having 4 embryos implanted in her. She and her husband were wrecks for the first two years. They are grateful for their 2 healthy children, but it was (and still is at times) a struggle.

Multiples are very hard early on, but later on they become constant companions (in most cases). So it should only get easier as they get older.

For what it's worth, I have 2 who are years apart, and I am still resentful at times b/c motherhood is thankless. And then there's the damage done to a once tone body!

Hang in there.

I'm the mom who posted tht has twins. many parents of mulitples think an 18 month to 2 year split is actually harder than twins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here - Thanks, PP. That was really helpful. I know things will get easier as they get older. I know my friends with 1 toddler are complaining - we are just getting a double dose of it!

To all of those snarky posters, no, I am not looking to stay at the Ritz and be pampered - never have been there. But a real vacation that doen't involved going to the grandparents - just so they can seen them 1x a year. Maybe a week at the beach a long weekend somewhere. Christ - have some compassion.

Hey, the food sucks at the Ritz anyway! Here are some vacation ideas that you might be interested in: 1) two of my friends who had little money for a honeymoon rented a cabin by a lake in West Virginia for a week--cost very little and they had a blast, making smores, playing in the lake, etc. 2) Off season rates on the Eastern Shore or Rehobeth, etc. can be very very good--and a childhood friend of mine said he often went with his parents and brother to Bethany and that area during the winter and spring months--before the rush. He remembers that it was really fun and there weren't a lot of crowds. 3) When they're a little older, consider a drive to Weaverville, NC--right next to Asheville, about 5-6 hours away, and gorgeous mountains and lakes and plenty of small hotels. You can drive over to Asheville, which has lots to do and is about 15 minutes away, without spending all that money. 4) Look at Travelocity's Last Minute Deals--you can get dirt cheap hotel and airfare packages for travel the week or two weeks before to all kinds of countries and states. That requires a little schedule flexibility, but it's a great way to see the world!

[Anonymous]

OP -- from my friends with multiples, I hear that it really does get significantly easier when they are over 3.

As a parent of a (single) rambunctious boy, I can tell you that at times, even one was too much for me, and yes, I did love him like crazy, but sometimes, I really did wonder if life would have been better without him. (And this is after having a miscarriage and then having difficulty TTC... so I shouldn't have been feeling that way, right? I was *lucky* to have him...especially at my age... and yet... he exhausted me.)

I challenge you to try to take what you consider a decent vacation with your boys next year. I recommend you take the boys to Dutch Wonderland up near Lancaster PA. Just the place for some active boys of that age, and not nearly as expensive as other theme parks. Find a nice motel to stay at that has a pool. Do mini-golf, ice cream, swim in the pool. If money is tight, bring your own cereal and sandwhich fixings in a cooler kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. We do belong to a multiples group and are fairly active - but you can't post anonymously and I am too ashamed to post under my name since I am friends with some of the members.

Maybe it will be easier when I am not trying to potty train 2 kids - one who is sitting on the toilet (and I am trying to stop from touching everything in the public bathroom) and the other is trying to army crawl under the stall to visit the lady in the next stall. One day I will laugh at this, right?

PP mom of twins here. You will laugh one day. I do.

[Anonymous]

I have twins and OP, YES, I have wished many times that I had my twins back-to-back and not at at the same time.
I think we're a bit different because it sounds like you are wishing you only had one period but I relate very well to the frustration that come from having multiples.

We went to hell and back to have ours (through fertility treatment) so they were VERY much wanted children. However, I just don't think you can overestimate the stressors that come from having 2 kids at the exact same developmental age. Having 2 helpless, needy 0-2 year olds was just 2 years of non-stop 24/7 baby/child care. It never ended. If one was asleep the other was awake. If one was happy the other was screaming. There was no down time when I could tell child #1 "sit here and read" while I spend an uninterrupted 30 minutes with child #2 because they both wanted (and needed) all of me at the same moment.

However, mine are almost 3.5 and it's been getting so much easier in the past year. They finally PLAY TOGETHER! (novel!!) and they don't end up in a brawl each and every time I leave them alone. They finally seem to enjoy being together.

I now have baby #3 (a singleton) and infancy with a singleton and twins is NIGHT and DAY. Seriously, I could have 5 kids back-to-back. You actually get a break some times!

[Anonymous]

Hang in there op I am going through fertility treatment and after the fear of not having a healthy baby that is my second biggest fear - multiples. It is not taking care of them per si (although that is exausting), but more the financial ramifications since we are very much middle class (not talking here about people that makes 400k and think they are middle class ).

[Anonymous]

To the OP:

I have two non-twins. We planned one. I do have those days where I wish we had stopped at one. I think there is another thread going about this now, in fact. A lot of good stuff has been said, but I just wanted to offer you more support. Been there, done that, had those fleeting thoughts.

Don't beat yourself up about them. There were probably good reasons why you thought one was the right fit for your family, as we did. We just ended up with two by a different route than you did. And just like you, I totally love and adore #2. It strikes me that some of the nasty posters on this board must not be capable of complex thought - it IS possible to having fleeting moments of wistfulness about having only one while AT THE SAME TIME totally loving your child. I get it (and do it!).

Good luck to you OP, and I hope you get a break soon. We all need them from time to time in whatever form they take.

[Anonymous]

I have 4 mo old twins. Short answer: love them dearly but sometimes also am rueful that they will not get the childhood I dreamed of for one child. Nor will I get the chance to eat lunches out for the next few years ($$).

[Anonymous]

Hi, I don't have twins so maybe shouldn't be posting, but will anyway. Here's the thing -- it sounds like you are mourning the loss of the life you thought you would have more than disliking the one that you do. Can you find ways to make changes to reduce the delta between the two? What about daycare instead of a nanny (may be cheaper), vacations that may not be ideal, but can give you some down time (like maybe with the nanny, before you switch to daycare ), a different job, moving to a neighborhood with better schools, etc. In other words, sometimes the choices we make actually make our lives harder than they have to be. You may have to make choices that are not your ideal, but they actually make the life you are really living (as opposed to the one you thought you would) better.

[Anonymous]

OP-- don't listen to the jerks. You're not required to like or want a major change of life plans just because someone else thinks that it was god's plan for you. Nope.

I have one child, by design, and although I'm sure that I would love both children if I had twins, it would be completely different from what I'd planned, very financially stressful, and tough to cope with. That doesn't mean loving the kids less. The simple, obvious reality is that having a child, or an additional child, is a BIG DEAL.

I don't have practical ideas about how to lighten your load, particularly the private school tuition, but just so you know-- the people who slammed you are jerks. You have a right to be disappointed that life took such a dramatic turn.

[Anonymous]

Awful people on this forum.
I read your post and got the impression that if it was cheaper to keep twins, it would be a whole different story.

It is unfair that what should be the best time of your life is being overtaken with financial worries. How is anyone supposed to enjoy baby bliss in those circumstances.
In some other parts of the world the women have paid maternity leave, access to affordable health care and the men get paternity leave. I am jealous of them

[Anonymous]

Be happy for what you have--this is a short period of your life. They will grow up.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for all the mean posts.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side -- After a couple of years of infertility treatments I finally was pregnant and with twins, but at about 11 weeks I lost one of them (vanishing twin syndrome). Everytime I see twins or double strollers it makes me a little sad and I wonder sometimes if the twin would have been a boy or girl. At the time I was devastated, but there was a small part of me that was also relieved because I wasn't sure how we would handle it all. We would have done whatever we needed to do I suppose. Anyway, the point I am getting at is that this is what God (if you are a believer) had in mind for you and you will be fine, even without all the things you had previously envisioned. In the grand scheme of life, do they really matter? This is what was meant to be for you. Everyone (whether with one or five kids) feels overwhelmed at times and that doesn't make you a bad mother. Take a deep breath when you feel this way and know that brief feeling of resentment will pass and think about how much you love the little guys!

[Anonymous]

OP you have some wonderfully supportive responses here but I also wanted to point out that with multiples PPD can occur for 1 year per child after birth. SO in your case you could have PPD since it could occur up to 2 years after the birth of the twins. Maybe it's not a severe case but maybe it's a mild case. I think that mourning the loss of how things were as you imagined is part of PPD. So you may want to seek some help if you feel this way constantly or for significant periods of time.
Otherwise I think most moms can admit feeling resentful of their children sometimes. I don't mean a persistent feeling that results in neglecting/hurting the children in any capacity I just mean those fleeting moments where you wish things were different. I know I feel resentful when I am over-tired and I am still needed and I haven't any time to myself. Perhaps what you need is a day out on your own while your husband hangs out with the boys.