twinutero

Twin Sense: A Sanity-Saving Guide to Raising Twins from Pregnancy Through the First Year. By Dagmara Scalise. 2009. Amacom. New York.

I highly recommend this book for expectant or new parents of twins. Twin Sense is 200 pages of thoughtful advice from a mother of twins and an older sibling. I can relate.

The book is divided into 4 sections.

1. Preparing for Twins. Includes financial considerations, buying what you really need, answering probing/insulting questions from strangers, and preparing siblings and fathers.

2. Managing the Basics. Feeding, bathing, diapering, sleeping.

3. Leaving the House. Yes! One quarter of the book dedicated to getting out of the house! Flying included.

4. Life After Babyhood. A bit about discipline, child-proofing and a summary of “best tips” for life with twins.

This book is straight-to-the-point. There are lots of  amusing anecdotes, but don’t expect a scintillating read or cute full-color photos of twins. And what frazzled parent of two or more infants wants that? The sections are short, easy to find, indexed and summarized so you can scan for the information you need in just a few seconds.

I also appreciate that the author is specific. She recommends brands that parents of twins have tried and liked – but I didn’t feel the book was trying to sell me anything. As with Twin Set, Twin Sense is US focused and quite mainstream (no discussion of cloth diapers, for instance).

Still, I would have learned a lot from Twin Sense had I read it 3 years ago. In fact, I learned a lot reading now. Who would have thought of bathing twinfants in a laundry basket?

Thanks to Nettie Hartsock and Amacom for the review copy.

I read this book with a twinge of nostalgia – and nausea.

My twins have now outgrown all-night breast-bottle feedings, infant bouts of inexplicable crying and multiple poops a day. The toddler years are not exactly peaceful, but that sickening sleep deprivation and round-the-clock care of the first year is over. Reading Twin Set brought back both the difficulties of those first few months as well as the sheer amazement of giving birth to, and caring for two tiny twins.

Twin Set is a practical guide to pregnancy, birth and the first years of parenting twins. The book doesn’t aim to be a comprehensive guide to parenting in general. If you want details on prenatal care, breastfeeding or toilet training, you’ll have to supplement with other books. But Twin Set does a good job of highlighting differences between parenting twins and parenting singletons. And as mothers of twins know, almost everything is different: pregnancy, birth, post-natal care (both for you and the babies), feeding, bathing, getting out of the house, discipline, starting school – and everything in between.

The best part of this book is that the advice is not simply the authors’ opinion but was gathered through a survey. According to the introduction, the authors surveyed 300 mothers of twins “from around the country” (presumably the US). The scientist in me wanted to know much more about this survey: how it was conducted; what questions were asked; how the mothers were chosen etc. Still, there is wisdom among 300 mothers, and that shows in the book.

Twin Set would be most useful for parents about to give birth to twins. No one is reading just after the birth, and within a year or so you will have figured it all out anyway. But for the parents-to-be there are many useful insights: just how difficult bathing two slippery, crying infants can be; the importance of recording all feeding and pooping in the first few months because you’ll forget who did what and when; that grocery shopping will never be as quick and easy, partly because most shopping carts have only one kid’s seat.

I do have a couple of gripes with the book.

The information is very (although implicitly) US-centered. Some things, like a “Snap ‘N Go” or leaving your kids in the car while you run back to the house, may not make sense outside America.

I also got tired of the book’s cutesy language and general dumbing-down. Consultant pediatricians, for instance, are called “Mommy Doc” and “Daddy Doc”. Really, we can handle a real name and title! And I’ve yet to meet a mother who would spend precious alone-time getting a manicure or doing word-puzzles.

My biggest gripe was with the book’s slant on the environment. Buying bottled water by the case-load (or at all) is simply irresponsible. Trying filtering. And, sorry, teaching your kids to play with empty toilet rolls does not negate thousands of disposable diapers in the land fill. Yes, there is debate on cloth versus disposable diapers (see The Great Disposable Diaper Debate) but telling parents to just “stop worrying” rather than make a conscious and informed decision seems, again, irresponsible (as is failing to disclose Twin Sets partnership with Pampers!).

Gripes aside, this is a useful and realistic book for parents embarking on the head-spinning adventure of raising multiples.

(Thanks to Random House for the review copy.)

Our children may be among the last to consume bisphenol A (BPA) with their milk and formula. Or so we hope.

Since I wrote on using Medela baby bottles, public pressure to ban BPA has heightened and the availability of BPA-free baby products has soared.

And then… one of the biggest producers of polycarbonate bottles and the strongest defender of BPA safety, Nalgene, launched a line of BPA-free drinking bottles. Read more commentary on Z Recommends.

And now… Health Canada has announced that it is “taking action” on BPA. The department has completed its risk assessment, which focused on infants and newborns, and is proposing a ban on polycarbonate baby bottles.

Here is the story according to the Globe and Mail.

Here is Health Canada’s offical news release of April 18. Make of it what you will.

Also see information on BPA from the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment.

In my earlier post on nursing and bottle feeding, I wrote that we use only Medela bottles, largely because they are made from polypropylene rather than polycarbonate. The latter contains bisphenol-A, a chemical that mimics estrogen and has links to developmental and neurological abnormalities as well as cancer.

Since that post, the Globe and Mail has published several articles on bisphenol-A and sales of glass baby bottles in Canada has soared. It’s still a fringe market – you won’t find glass bottles at Babies ‘R’ Us. Yet the growing popularity of non-polycarbonate bottles is a clear sign that many parents are concerned about bisphenol-A.

Feeling somewhat vindicated (I have been called neurotic about such issues), I scanned the kitchen for more polycarbonate. The Brita pitcher. We filter all of our drinking water through the Brita. In part, it’s habit. Brita’s advertising has been so effective that it now seems reckless to fill a water glass straight from the tap. We also use Brita because our house was built in 1909. We replaced lead water pipes inside the house when we renovated, but the pipes from the city mains into our house are still lead. There may be controversy over the health effects of bisphenol-A but there’s no controversy over lead. Its neurological effects, especially on children, are well documented. Brita claims that their filters remove 90% of lead.

So, with my vast amount of spare time, I tried to determine (1) if Brita pitchers are made from polycarbonate and (2) if we really need to filter our drinking water.

Answering the first question was not straightforward. Brita should get the most-annoying-website award. I emailed them, explaining my concerns about bisphenol-A and asking what tests had been done on Brita pitchers. They responded (within 48 hours as they promise) that “the reservoirs and pitchers are made either from NAS (a Styrene based plastic) or SAN (Styrene Acrylonitrile).” I am not a chemist; I assumed they were trying to tell me that the pitchers do not contain bisphenol-A but wasn’t sure. I asked for clarification. The second response came by regular mail about ten days later. The cover letter stated that the information I requested was enclosed. It wasn’t. Other than the cover letter, the envelope was empty. I emailed once again and got a quick response: “Brita pitchers do not contain bisphenol-A”. Seemed like a lot of work for an answer that Brita should have been happy to provide.

READ APRIL 2008 UPDATE ON BISPHENOL A

The second question, whether or not we should filter our drinking water, was easier. Our city tests household water as a free service. We provided samples of flowing tap water, as well as water that had been sitting in the pipes for half an hour. The results took about a week. Turns out that the lead level in our water is 1.2 parts per billion. The maximum acceptable concentration set by Health Canada is 10 ppb, and water leaves our city treatment plant at 0.5 ppb. So, while our water is considered safe, the old lead pipes are adding to the amount of lead that we are consuming.

Is it still worth running our water through (rather expensive) Brita filters? According to the city employee who tested our water, yes. While there are guidelines for “safe” levels of lead in our bloodstream, toxic effects of lead have been reported in children at well below these levels. For infants and children there is essentially no safe dose. Drinking water is only one source. For families living in older homes like ours, lead paint is no doubt a more significant source. I could write a long and repetitious book about my efforts to rid our house of lead paint. Ask my husband. The bottom line is that any reduction in lead exposure is worth the effort if you have young children. According to our helpful city employee, under normal circumstances, Brita removes about 60%, not 90%, of lead, and only if the filter is changed regularly. If the filter is old, the lead content of the water in the pitcher could actually be higher than that in the tap.

And what about the safety of NAS and/or SAN plastic? And PVC water pipes? And bisphenol-A in the lining of baby formula cans? No wonder I am – not – neurotic.

Some useful reading:
Having Faith. An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. 2001. Sandra Steingraber.

In Harm’s Way. 2000. Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility

August 9, 2007 article on bisphenol-A and phthalates in baby bottles from ENN.

I was asked many questions during the waddling stage of my twin pregnancy. Among the most frequent was “Are you planning to nurse them?” The question was posed with some combination of curiosity, admiration and incredulity, usually depending on the speaker’s own experience with breastfeeding.

I did plan to nurse my twins. In fact, I took a prenatal class on the topic. From this class I learned that it was possible, either in succession or in tandem, and that many mothers have nursed multiples for months or even years. I was also encouraged by my experience with our first son: Nursing came easily to both of us. I was confident that I could and would nurse the twins as well.

And I did, exclusively, for their first four days. Both Jon and Alex were voracious and gained weight before leaving the hospital, something the nurses said was unusual for twins. Except for the fact that I rarely slept, things were going pretty well.

Enter the unexpected. After one day at home, I was rushed back to the hospital with indescribable pain. My parents rushed to the store for bottles and formula. I was in and out of the hospital for the next ten days but was determined not to give up breastfeeding. I pumped… and pumped… every few hours when I was alone in the hospital and when I was in too much pain to hold my sons. We had two beautiful babies, but it was otherwise a pretty rough time.

I can’t remember making a deliberate decision, but we soon developed a routine of breastfeeding one twin while formula-feeding the other. We’d switch their places at each feeding. It was a good compromise – easier physically for me, and the babies were still breastfed about four times a day.

When I was stronger (a month or so after delivery), I again tried exclusive breastfeeding. As with everything in parenting, there’s the ideal and the reality. Ideally, twins would eat and sleep at the same time, thereby making life easier for their parents. In reality, twins are individuals who likely have different eating and sleeping patterns. Alex likes to do everything quickly, except eat. He would nurse and drink his bottle at leisure, sometimes taking a break to digest. Jon likes to do everything slowly – except eat. He would gulp milk so fast that he would choke, and cry, and get even more hungry, and even drink faster, and choke again. Try tandem nursing that!

Successive nursing might have worked, had I been healthier mentally and physically, and had we full-time help. But I wasn’t and we didn’t. My husband was back to a demanding job, my parents were coping with another family emergency a thousand miles away, and we had a 15-month-old son who was no doubt wondering what all the fuss was about. We therefore settled into a schedule of nursing and supplementing at each feeding, and continued this way for six months.

I stopped when Alex stopped. Alex has a rather fiery temperament. When he’s good, he’s very very good. When he’s bad, well, suffice to say he was unequivocal in his preference for the bottle. Jon would probably have continued but I was, frankly, in need of a rest. I had been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for two and a half years, I was well below my pre-pregnancy weight, and I was exhausted, thoroughly exhausted.

Am I rationalizing? Probably. Do I feel guilty about not nursing more and for longer? Yes – and no. We all know “breast is best”. How could it be otherwise? I would advise all mothers to try breastfeeding. If it’s your first time, be persistent. If you have multiples, be even more persistent. It is something that must be taught to, and learned by both mother and baby. And it’s beautiful when it happens.

It is easy, however, to underestimate the tremendous energy needed to breastfeed, especially if you’re feeding two (or more!) babies. You have to eat often and well, and you have to be rested. You have to have help. You have to find what works for your babies and for you.

A few asides:

1. We use Medela bottles, nothing else. They are made from polypropylene, whereas most baby bottles are made from polycarbonate. There is evidence that bisphenol-A, a chemical used in making polycarbonate, mimics estrogen and causes developmental disorders. Why take a chance?Some useful sites:
   Wikipedia entry on Bisphenol-A
   Environment California’s Guide to Bisphenol-A in Baby Bottles
2. On a different note, chances of conceiving twins are apparently nine times higher while breastfeeding. Just so you know….