by Life before twins has lots of activities and responsibilities.
Hobbies. Free time. Social time with friends.
With newborn twins, those don’t really matter any more.
What’s the secret to keeping your sanity with twins?
Don’t be afraid to let things go. Your top priorities are your twins. Period.
This means that work, hobbies, household chores, and entertainment will all suffer.
(RELATED: Still looking for the right twin gear? See my Twin Baby Gear Essentials.)
You’ll need to prioritize what gets done with your non-twin time. For me, that was going to work (even though I was sleep deprived and less effective during the newborn months).
Remember the words of poet Robert Burns as you are caring for your newborn twins:
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
often go awry”
Make your best plans and do what you can. However, keep in mind that newborn twins disrupt schedules and expectations.
We had great intentions of doing many things a certain way with our twins. However, when we got into the middle of caring for them, those great intentions had to change.
We wanted to breastfeed our twins and couldn’t get that to work. So we switched to bottle feeding.
(NOTE: Still expecting? 
Get weekly updates on your twin pregnancy here.)
We thought we would bathe our girls every night like clockwork, but that didn’t happen.
Be flexible in your parenting.
Be ready to abandon even your best plans if they just don’t seem to work with your twins or family.
Keeping your sanity with twins is possible. You can do this!
(RELATED: Love podcasts? Check out the entire Dad's Guide to Twins Podcast archive for additional twin tips and interviews with twin dads.)
What have you had to let go that perhaps you weren’t expecting? Let us know in the comments.
Original photo by mcguirk
I think one point that goes hand in hand with what Joe already wrote is to lower your expectations. This means to lower your expectations of keeping the house spotless, your meals on time and perfectly balanced, your sleep uninterrupted, your “free” time free, and so on. I’ve found that when you expect things to go a certain way, and then they are changed, it is hard to handle unless you are a flexible person (I am. My husband is not.) Therefore, if you can lower your expectations, then you will more often meet those lower standards and be satisfied instead of never meeting your high standards and be disappointed in yourself. It’s not that you are willing to live in squalor or anything like that… it’s something as little as letting the toys stay on the floor at night if you are too tired to put them away. Or letting the dishes sit in the sink until you have the energy to wash them. Getting drive-thru dollar menu food rather than cooking dinner. Those things are so nonessential to the big picture of your life. Enjoy your twins and relax about the messiness they will most certainly bring.
@Emily – great perspective! Thanks for sharing. Life with twins is all about setting proper expectations and setting the priorities of what is truly important.
I agree that letting go of what you had planned helps a lot. The more you try to fight that, the more stressed you get. We also try to soak up all the good moments and appreciate them for what they are rather than doing too much complaining when things aren’t going great – there’s no way things will go great all the time, so the sooner you focus on appreciating the smooth days, the better.
@Andy – great point on looking for what is going well and focusing on the positive!