What about raising twins is easier than you think it will be?

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What about raising twins is actually easier than you thought it was going to be?

Looking back at my own experience and talking with dozens of other twin parents, I share what was a pleasant surprise about raising twins.

Depending on who you talk to, raising twins is a nigh impossible task. Extremely difficult.

Now, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, those first months with newborns and even that first year with twins is crazy intense, but it’s not impossible. And some things may turn out actually easier than you think they’re going to be.

Built-In Friends

Let’s get a common one out of the way to begin with and that is: the twins will have a built in friend a built in playmate to keep themselves entertained.

This is true, but not in the very beginning. When they’re newborns, they’re just little lumps of baby and they don’t really interact with each other.

But as they start to sit up, and they start to interact and become aware of their surroundings, and definitely by the time that they’re toddlers, your friend your twins may very well be good friends and enjoy spending time together and playing with each other.

That doesn’t mean they’re not going to ever fight or argue – that’s always going to be a challenge.

The fact that they’re always together does help encourage them to have good friendship and relationship with each other.

Your Perspective is Everything

What else is easier than you thought it may be when raising twins? This of course depends on your perspective.

It depends on who you talk to when you’re expecting the twins.

If you talk to friends who have twins and they just had a miserable time of it, that’s what you’re going to expect.

On the other hand, if you talk to some friends or family that had twins and things went okay, that’s what you’re going to expect as well. So some things are going to be as hard as you thought they were going to be. Some things are going to be harder. And some things will be easier.

Telling Twins Apart

Many parents worry about telling their twins apart and then that’s going to be difficult. Particularly if you have identical twins or if you have same same gender twins, that can be a challenge.

Of course the parents of fraternal twins or boy/girls twins are like “haha, yeah, we got this figured out.” But even when they’re newborns, fraternal twins can look a lot alike.

So telling twins apart is not as hard as you think it’s going to be. There are always subtle differences that you as the parent because you’re with them all the time.

You’ll notice even from birth, which twin is which twin, so you always know at a glance, twin A from twin B.

Syncing Schedules

Getting twins on the same sleep schedule and on the same eating schedule can make your life a lot easier.

A lot of parents worry about the challenges of getting their twins on the same schedule.

We found that this was little easier than we thought it would be by forcing the matter. When one twin woke up in the middle of the night to feed, we’d wake up her sister to feed her as well. And by continually doing that, it helped sync them both up on the same schedule.

If you’re feeding them at the same time and putting them down to sleep at the same time, their schedules usually align pretty well and that makes your life a little bit easier.

Same Classes at School

Once your twins are school age, having your twins in the same class at school means they have the same teacher or teachers, they have the same homework and assignments they have to have seen friends.

All of that becomes a lot easier to manage than if you had two kids in the same grade but in different classes or two kids in two different grades at the same school.

Infant Twins Are Easier?

Once you are past the infant twins stage, and enter toddlerhood, everything changes again.

Your twins will start to talk back to you and they start to have thoughts and opinions of their own. That’s when things get a little more challenging.

I found looking back at the newborn phase and the infant phase that life was pretty simple. All you had to do was take care of changing diapers, getting them to sleep, and feeding them.

You just repeated that cycle over and over again. It is pretty simple and basic.

Once they start to get a little older and start to be little people with their own attitudes and stuff, that is more of a parenting challenge.

At that point, it’s not just the basics of survival, but rather you have to engage them and to do some positive parenting to encourage correct behavior.

By the time you get to the toddlers and beyond, you may think well that infant phase was a lot easier than I thought because I don’t have to put up with the terrible twos or the terrible threes, for example.

How about you? What did you find was easier with twins than you thought it would be? Surely if you look on the positive side, you’ll find at least one thing that was easier than what you expected.

If you’re expecting your twins or are in the middle of infant months with twins, I recommend you check out my book “Dad’s Guide to Raising Twins: How to Thrive as a Father of Twins“. It’ll help you survive those first couple years and help you know what to expect in the months to come.