If you spend a lot of time around mothers of twins (or multiples) who also have other children to care for, you’ll hear a recurring theme. Many of us feel as if we have ruined our older children by having twins.
I realize that sounds funny. Of course I didn’t choose to have twins and of course my older children aren’t ‘ruined’. But just as each twin is in part defined by being a twin, older siblings are now defined in part by being the older sibling of a twin.
Difficulties for Older Children
My children are spaced relatively close together, each child is about 2 years apart. (Yes, if you do your math that means that at one time I had a 6 year old, a 4 year old, a 2 year old and newborn twins.) For all of my children, welcoming the twins into our family was a big adjustment, but I think it hit Meghan (the now 4 year old) the hardest.
Here she is, at a time in her life when she needs mommy and mommy is unavailable. Mommy is still here but unavailable. I was very fortunate in that I didn’t have to do bed rest. . .but the toll of a twin pregnancy on one’s body shouldn’t be underestimated. It is a difficult pregnancy without complications. . .and many, many mothers experience complications.
Furthermore, when the twins arrived, again I was unavailable. Keeping twins is a physically grueling schedule and to say that we were exhausted is an understatement. Plus everything is thrown off around their needs. Meals, stories, play time. . .all have to wait until the twins are fed, changed and contented. When you’re in public, everyone stops and asks about the twins, frequently to the exclusion of others in your party.
It can really leave those older siblings left out. . .
What We Did & What We Wished We Had Done
My husband made sure to take off extra time from work. We did our best to maintain our older children’s schedules and keep things the same as much as possible. This meant taking older children to classes as well as keeping our regularly scheduled meal times and homeschooling. We also hired a regular baby sitter/mommy’s helper who worked for me. (This by the way, was despite the fact that my husband was home for the first three months after the twins were born.)
The one thing that I would’ve done differently is I would’ve asked people to have my children over on play dates to play with their children. Just one at a time. I had numerous offers for meals, and laundry and cleaning but often its the older siblings that get forgotten.
I will say this though, two and a half years later, the older children have survived. They have bonded with their new siblings (who aren’t so new any more), and we are all more closely knit for it.