I’m not going to lie, family´s first year with twins gonna be challenging as newborn twins require constant care, preferably from both parents, but especially from their mother. While it’s one of the most beautiful periods in a woman’s life, it’s also overwhelming. My number one tip and advice is, simply and honestly: YOU WILL NEED HELP. A LOT OF HELP. You won’t be able to do it just by yourself – or you will, but it will take away energy that you could otherwise invest in more pleasant activities and in enjoying motherhood and family life.
First year with twins and Importance of help
The advice is: don’t make yourself a martyr; ask for help! If you’ve never done this, I repeat, ASK FOR HELP and learn this fast. There could be a lot of people you even didn’t realise who would be glad to help you! It could be your sister, mother, mother-in-law, father, best friend etc. If you find someone in your family or friend circle who would like to take care of twins or at least one of the twins for a few hours a week, you win. You will earn some time to do basic stuff, such as catching up on sleep, cleaning, cooking, washing or even have a proper bath and time to relax!
If you’re in a situation where you don’t have any help, or your family doesn’t show as much as interest as you would hope or lives too far away, keep calm: fortunately, everything has a solution and your first year with twins will be easier than you thought!
Consider Hiring a Nanny
Today, it is not a problem to hire professional nanny. And don’t say it’s a big expense! Think of this expense as being temporary, for one or one-and-a-half, two or three years, max.. Go through your family budget and honestly consider what unnecessary items you are spending money on and what you could get rid of. With this saving you may have the finances to hire a professional nanny.
The Costs and Benefits of a Nanny
Nannies in England charge around £15 per hour and it will of course depend how many hours your family budget could afford. Of course, having more days in the week with a nanny means more time for you. However, even just two, three, or four hours per week can work wonders for you, your household, and your bonding with both babies!
Finding the Right Nanny
We personally found a nanny for our twins through the website childcare.co.uk and placed our request. We were contacted by a number of nannies from whom we chose a couple and organised online interviews. We were really lucky because we came across a wonderful young nanny from Australia who has an amazing gift for understanding babies and their needs, and she is gentle and cheerful, all the things that babies love, especially ours! This nanny came to help us two days a week from 9am to 5pm and we hired her when the babies were six months old (I now wonder how my husband and I managed the first six months mostly alone) and she was with us until the babies were 15 months old, before she moved from the UK.
The Importance of Help
We hired this nanny at a time when my husband and I couldn’t handle it any more as just the two of us. We are originally from Prague and our family and close friends live in the Czech Republic and our two-year old wasn’t yet going to nursery as we wanted to wait until he was more bigger and confident. We also follow the central European system where toddlers usually go to nursery from the age of three.
There even came a point when my husband (who has a home-office) had to help me more frequently as the babies and toddler required more care (especially our daughter, who was gluten intolerant and used to have really bad colic). In our case it was inevitable that we had to split our parenting time and we planned a routine also for our toddler. At the beginning we had three under three, and it was a really challenging time.
Choosing the Right Nanny Model
So, we hired a nanny who could work as a mother’s help, which was part of our agreement. Basically, I needed one extra pair of hands! Different to the mother’s help model is an in-charge nanny, who plans everything by herself, and takes care of everything (preparing meals, planning activities, etc.). However, because my priority was to be with my children as much as I could and the attachment parenting resonated with me more, we looked for a mother’s help nanny.
Mother´s help could empower the motherhood
Of course, for the mother’s help model you need to be able to afford to be at home, and I am aware that not every woman has this ability or the financial support from her husband or family. However, I find it empowering that the current trend is slowly picking up for attachment parenting and many women are again preferring to stay at home longer with their babies to fully enjoy the short period of time when babies are babies and support their development. This choice not only fosters a deeper bond between mother and child but also allows mothers to be more present during these crucial early years. It’s a decision that’s as much about financial considerations as it is about nurturing motherhood.
Financial Support
My other advice in terms of hiring a nanny is to look for an Ofsted certificate, so you can get back 25% from the state (look at Tax-Free Childcare for more information) as financial support. So as you can see, a carefully selected and certified nanny is not as expensive as it might seem at first!
The Nanny’s Impact
Our nanny literally saved our household, our children could grow up happily without any unnecessary tears. My husband and I stopped being frustrated by the problem that he needed space for his work and the question of who would be in charge with the kids.
So, I highly recommend hiring a professional nanny even for one afternoon per week. Because when the baby twins were both sleeping, she was still able to help me with our household or play with our by this time three-year-old son (who loved her soo much!). So, these were my few tips and maybe the most important ones for bigger families like us. Find help; any little help matters, and assistance from professional nannies can work wonders, especially if you don’t have family nearby!
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