Baby Helmet Therapy, Twin Feedings, and Useful Twin Gear with Titus Shockley – Podcast 263

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Episode 263 of the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast Show Notes

Today we continue our father of twins interview series with Titus Shockley, father of twin girls. Listen as we explore his twin parenting journey, including:

• One health scare at 34 weeks when Mom had contractions
• Kids in NICU only 5 hours
• Types of feedings that worked for the twins
• Negotiated paid paternity leave
• One girl needed a helmet to improve head shape
• Mom works from home and full time mom until 1 year old
• Getting a nanny for one day a week
• Twins started in parent’s room and then moved to own room
• Favorite gear that is most helpful
• Day in the life schedule 18 month olds

Podcast Transcript

This is auto-generated so please forgive any mistakes.

Joe 0:00
Today we’re chatting with a father of 18 month old twins about his journey and lessons he’s learned along the way. Getting through a premature labor scare during the pregnancy, finding out what type of feedings worked for their twins, some of their essential twin baby gear, and why one of their girls needed a helmet in her infancy. We talked about that much more on the podcast today.

Intro 0:24
Welcome to the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast, the podcast that will help you survive and thrive as a father of twins Now, here’s your host, the author of the book, the Dad’s Guide to Twins Joe Rawlinson.

Joe 0:39
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the 263rd episode of the Dad’s Guide to Twins podcast. This is Joe Rawlinson. You can find me on the web at dadsguidetwins.com where you can listen to all previous podcast episodes. Today we are continuing our father of twins interview series with a fellow father of identical twin girls. But before we jump into the interview, I want to let you know that today’s show is brought to you by my first book for dads. It’s called Dad’s Guide to Twins. You can pick up a copy for yourself at twindadbook.com. This book will help you get through the pregnancy and make the preparations you need to be a twin dad once again that’s twindadbook.com. And let’s jump straight into the interview. Today we’d like to welcome to the show. father of twins Titus Shockley, welcome to the show, Titus.

Titus 1:24
Hey, thanks for having me on Joe.

Joe 1:26
Titus, how old are your twins right now? And what’s something exciting about this age?

Titus 1:31
18 month old twin girls, and I think just you know them really just starting to figure things out. Like, sometimes I can see him looking at me and they can tell they’re figuring it out. They’re kind of like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park in that way. But you know, I’ll start to say something. Are you trying to motion for something I can tell that they’re starting to kind of work out? Do they have an idea of what I’m doing? You know,

Joe 1:55
Velociraptors – That’s an accurate description of toddler twins for sure. What kind of trouble do they like to get into together speaking of velociraptors.

Titus 2:04
mainly climbing, pushing each other off of things, pulling down virtually anything they want. I had no idea how hard they could reach onto beds and couches and whatnot, they they find a way. They do find a way.

Joe 2:19
Now are your girls identical or fraternal?

Titus 2:22
They are identical.

Joe 2:24
So now that you’ve had for 18 months, there’s got to be telltale signs to tell them apart. What are those?

Titus 2:31
I, I always joke with my wife that I can tell, you know, who’s who by which one’s excited to see me when I come in the door. One of them is much more fond of me than the other one. But physically, Ellen, the older of the two had a helmet for about four or five months. And so while it did its job and did a great job, she does still have a little bit of a wonky head. So you know, when in doubt, I can always touch their heads to to kind of piece it together.

Joe 3:00
Let’s let’s talk about that helmet. What was the need for that? And how did you find out that you needed to take those steps for her?

Titus 3:08
Man, to be honest, her heads crooked. She was very low headed down for the majority of the pregnancy. And the head shape was always, you know, obviously a little, you know, kind of tilted to one side. But she had a little bit of about of torticollis I believe I’m pronouncing that correctly. You know, we’ve pushed the pediatrician for helmet for a while. And now she’s, I don’t really like to make that recommendation unless it’s physically necessary for cosmetic purposes. insurances will pay. And then as soon as you know, her neck was a little droopy. And we had to call us the pediatrician wrote the recommendation immediately. And I think we had the helmet with about four or five weeks, six weeks, maybe it worked well. It did wonders.

Joe 3:58
How old was she during the time?

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Titus 4:00
that we got the diagnosis between two, two months or right around three months between two and three. And she wore it for about five months. I believe that I hear that getting it so early is you know, pretty rare, but also very positive. I don’t think it was kids until they were a little bit older. But it just I think it became a necessity sooner rather than later.

Joe 4:24
So talking about the logistics like how did it was it a challenge for her to were that in the beginning or just she’s just take as a matter of course because she was so young?

Titus 4:34
She I mean it never bothered her. You know, I think it just became her life pretty quickly. It bothered us. You know, I personally didn’t want to have to for her to have to wear a helmet and I don’t want pretty little girl to have the helmet on we we dressed it up your hands Ellen. There was pink and we put your watermelon stickers on it and you said Don’t mind me. I’m just based on my melon thing. put a name on it to help the teachers in school and whatnot. That’s it. The challenge with the cleanings, you know, taking it all, you know, so many times a day to clean it, getting, getting the procedure done with it the clothes on and off. And it was it was more of a challenge for us than it was for her. She was fine with that once she learned how to hold it up.

Joe 5:16
Let’s rewind back to when you found out that you would be having twins. What was your family situation like at that time? And what was your reaction?

Titus 5:23
We my wife and I had just moved out, you know, obviously, right around pandemic time, the only visit I got to go to was her the initial appointment where we found out we were having twins, that person with your sound. And we had just moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Columbia, South Carolina for a job change for me. Where we were in the process rather, we still live in Charlotte, she went and picked the doctor down here to be ahead of the game. And we were not expecting that news anyway. Right at all. And so the lovely, you know, protect girl who was super nice and was doing a great job of explaining what I was seeing on the screen, the black circles and sacks and, and whatnot, what everything represented. She’s doing a great job. And yeah, it’s asking the normal question. Is this your first pregnancy? How long you guys been trying on? You’re married? And then she’s kind of slipped in the normal conversation with the twins, right? And we both said no. And I immediately started trying to work out why it’s called too dark circles on the screens that one. And she said what they do now? And I had choice words, I was flabbergasted out, you know, I was like, you’ve you’ve got to be kidding, right? And she was like, No, sir. They’re right there. And so yep, that was that was exciting. We decided before we left the before we left the appointment that we were we were done having kids after that. So we took those necessary steps pretty quickly. But that was, it was an eventful day, for sure.

Joe 7:01
And that’s always a memorable day, when you find out they’re having twins, particularly, like you and us do that identical twins, or it’s just a complete random shock that even happens. How did the pregnancy progress for for both mom and the girls?

Titus 7:17
Honestly, you know, thankfully, and we were very lucky, but much better than either one of us not dissipated. I think when we found out we were pregnant with twins, we immediately, you know, I was given a copy of your book, she started picking up every book she could get her hands on, we were reading about, you know, really just like kind of the the potential for what could go wrong, not you know, not preparing for it, but kind of preparing ourselves in case it did in case anything kind of went, you know, tough as it tends to do. And we honestly, progress very, very easily. She was working from home that she was able to continue working right through right up until the day she went into labor. We had one mild scare at 34 weeks, and they kind of slowed progress a little bit, send us home and say hey, you know, try your best to make it 37. But if not, when if you come back again in the state, we’re gonna go ahead and do so. And we made it to 36 and five and went in and we were out of the hospital within 48 hours.

Joe 8:23
So tell us a little bit more about that scare at 34 weeks sent you to the hospital. Is that what happened?

Titus 8:28
It did yeah. She was having I mean, they weren’t braxton hicks at that point. They were real, real contractions. And pretty intense. You know, she held on to it longer than she probably should have before we’ve been mentioning it. But she’s was visually was convinced she was in labor. And we went, we went to the hospital and they did everything they needed to do check in everything we checked in. Just said hey, we think we can slow it. And you know, we we would be okay. If they came now everybody would be okay, we would have a much longer looking stay, obviously. But we would like to try to get a little more a little more weight and some more time or a couple of longer. And we were lucky enough for that to be the case and be able to do that.

Joe 9:16
So 48 hours in the hospital after delivery, it’s pretty fast. So the babies come naturally or they need a C section?

Titus 9:23
Both naturally. We most of the time we were in there she was we were just waiting for them to take her back in the labor and delivery. You know they didn’t hold sitting upright in bed for a long time and put her down and told us we know we’re gonna wait a little bit longer and then yeah, it’s very militaristic because we hurry up and wait, we kept thinking we were gonna have kids and you know, everybody went to sleep and they came home because oftentimes if you’re going into labor, so we are both kids came naturally they came within about 30 minutes of each other, probably closer to 20 both both naturally She was a trooper, we started, you know, along the, along the delivery journey, and we weren’t really getting anywhere and the anesthesiologist pulled me aside, he’s like, Hey, I’m gonna stop, you know, Turner epidural off, I just want you to know, when I was like, I’m just don’t tell her that you’d have to do whatever you got to do. Just don’t tell her because she was so long, she just wasn’t really making progress. So they, they did that, and then we had kids very soon.

Joe 10:28
It’s good to hear many, many parents wondering, can they have twins – naturally, vaginally? Or is it required to have a C section? And so it’s always good to have stories like yourself? Or? Yeah, the twins can come the good old fashioned way without a C section if the circumstances are in order. So how was mom’s recovery after birth?

Titus 10:49
solid man, she, you know, very strong woman obviously happened. The kids were in NICU for I believe a little less than five hours, maybe right at five just said, you know, just make sure they were eating where they needed to and a little bit about starvation. And then we asked to have them in the nursery that first night so we can get some sleep and kind of restart. And then the next day, she was up and out of the bed, sitting on the little bench couch to deal in the room posing for pictures and, and whatnot. I do think kind of one of the unintended benefits of you know, we were terrified by having kids during COVID really sad that no family wouldn’t get to be there and do the big celebratory thing. But that was honestly a blessing. I think that allowed her to recover much more peacefully and much faster. And I think it helps me keep my sanity as well not having to play host as well as new dad and everything. So I think that was honestly a benefit and helped her kind of progress faster than she would have.

Joe 11:51
And that’s a good silver lining, where you can just kind of hunker down as a family and get used to life with two newborns. During those first couple weeks, were due to due to the pandemic. Were there any other restrictions you ran into? As a dad during the pregnancy visits or during delivery?

Titus 12:09
Yeah, so I was I was only allowed him in one visit. Just our initial ultrasound where we found out about the girls. And while we were in the hospital, we were told, you know, I if I left I couldn’t really I was not supposed to leave and come back. Because what we were told that if I left I most likely would not be allowed back in. We were lucky enough to have a really cool security guard that would, you know, look the other way is the wife or I wanted pizza. So that first night we we did get some pizza. That was really, you know, I had to, you know, have my temperature checked and wear another sticker than most dads would normally have to wear with my temperature and whatnot on it, but just know coming and going. No visitors. You know, so pretty much had to be extra sure with the hospital bags, because there was no, you know, I’m gonna run back to the house or run back to the car and get the thing because I just wasn’t really an option.

Joe 13:06
What’s What surprised you the most once you brought the girls home and we’re facing the reality of having twins?

Titus 13:13
Honestly, I mean, how much they slept. I knew that’s probably you know, even more so with a with a singleton. But it’s the amount of sleeping, how they just kind of fell asleep anywhere. And it was not quite the warzone that I anticipated it to be. But my wife tells me I miss remember that. And you know, it was like basic training and obviously walk that out of my psyche. So I think I remember it more often than it was.

Joe 13:46
Did y’all have success with bottle feeding formula or breastfeeding? What worked for the girls?

Titus 13:53
So we tried, we tried breastfeeding, my wife was pretty adamant. And unfortunately it just didn’t take we she pumped for a while and we did a mix of formula and bottle. And honestly just for you know, it made us really time for her specifically trying to pump you know, we’d wake up for 3am feeding, we would eat feed a girl with a bottle, and then she would pump for an hour. And then by the time she got back to sleep, it was time to wake up again. And just you know for her sanity and then everybody’s sake, we decided to just go formula. And honestly, I mean, I think the kids are, you know, as healthy as can be used. I don’t know that there were any adverse effects of that. But it just it was the right move for us and for her sanity to go. Formula. We definitely tried to breastfeed as much as we could. But that was that was the closest to postpartum I think that we got was breastfeeding. So we decided to take the path of least resistance.

Joe 14:51
That’s smart. Yeah, taking the path of least resistance is often the path we have to take it to be flexible, especially when we’re raising, twins and the demands are pretty high. Did you and your wife both have extended time off? What was your leave situation like after birth?

Titus 15:09
I was lucky to have a great employer and I accepted the job a couple of weeks prior to us finding out we were pregnant with twins. And in the negotiating process, I negotiated paternity leave, that was something that the company offered, you know, as universally at the time, but they didn’t agree. If we did get pregnant, maybe we were trying, they would agree to two weeks of paid paternity leave for me is as you know, a condition of employment on my end, and they did they honored that completely. So I had two weeks at home with her. And she obviously had her full maternity leave. And by the end of the two weeks, I was I was pretty ready to get back to work. Honestly, it’s just not taking away from the wife and kids. But to do what I was best at. Right. I was best in earning and, and being out and in the private sector and in business and not at home feeding children. So it worked out best for us. You know, we were all happy. I think she was a little sick. I mean, by that point. My my offers to help weren’t met. As as adorable as they had been a week prior. So it worked out great.

Joe 16:14
So once you did go back to work, how did you balance let’s say family responsibilities, helping with the twins, and making sure you got enough rest to go to work the next day?

Titus 16:26
We were pretty, you know, pretty blessed in terms of in terms of sleeping. By the time I went back to work. I think, again, I could be misremembering, but I think that we were down to one to two feedings during the night. By the time I went back. We had her mother, some of my family came up, we had a lot of people to come, we went in shifts, obviously some people protested, come in and be COVID safety in the house for an extended period of time with the girls, we we had a lot of support there. And we kind of made a point that in the evenings when I would when I would come home, we would let me take over for as long as possible. Or let me hop in, you just kind of pinch it and do as much as I could to take some stress off her because by you know, she was not working again yet. But she was certainly, you know, entertaining the people in our house watching the girls, you know, just kind of feeling like she was wearing a couple different hats. So whenever we can do when I was at home to relieve some of that stress was

Joe 17:30
how long did she have off before she headed back to work?

Titus 17:33
I believe eight weeks.

Joe 17:35
So at that point you had to decide about childcare issues. How did you approach that?

Titus 17:41
So we you know, originally we had we’ve planned we’ve toured daycares tried to kind of get all that stuff buttoned up in advance. And then another unintended benefit of living in COVID Was she was for work from home, did everything remote and she works in nonprofit. And you know, nonprofit doesn’t really have some of the deadlines and demands that other other sectors have so she was able to multitask and has been working from home. And you know being a full time mom since they were born. From that point up until about a year old we put them and part time daycare four day a week daycare a year old and she’s still we haven’t named income on Fridays for her to again you’ll say anything work done, but she’s was able to multitask.

Joe 18:38
I know you know in general moms have superpowers but to work full time and juggle infant twins. That’s like extra extra superpowers for sure. You mentioned finding a nanny for one day a week, how did you find someone that was a good fit for your family?

Titus 18:53
Trial and error honestly, we had a couple that, you know, we didn’t maintain for very long for a variety of reasons. You know, they had other commitments where they couldn’t be as flexible as we would need or just wasn’t a good fit for us. She is a member of an organization here locally in Carolinas called mom MOM moms are multiples of the Midlands multiples of the Midlands in the name of it and she got recommendations from those ladies personal on local boards, Facebook and many other community forums and got lucky we live in a pretty collegiate area. And there are a lot of options for young girls, your high school and college age that are willing to you know babysit a day a week, two days a week, three days a week, whatever it may be. And so we’ve developed a pretty good stable at this point. Whether that’s through nanny sharing with other parents of multiples or just we kind of know not everyone’s always gonna have the availability. So we’ve tried to keep her pretty, pretty low less stable was of people that are willing to willing to do.

Joe 20:03
That’s great. That sounds like a good system get recommendations. And sometimes it is trial and error to see the schedules work if it’s a good fit for, for the family and theory of if everybody’s compatible. When you put the girls home, were they in their own room or were they in kind of the master bedroom with you with you and your wife?

Titus 20:27
So they were in a twin bassinet in the room with us. And I believe that made about three weeks before they moved to not their nursery, but a another room on the main floor. Somebody was right across from us in a in a guest room in the Twin bassinet. So it was convenient for us to be able to hear them. You know, obviously we had all the monitors in the world that wanted them still close. Obviously we’re maintaining this for us for night viewings and back and forth in case we had to get up and whatnot. So pretty quickly, about the time we decided to stop the pumping is when they move rooms.

Joe 21:08
Are they still in the same room together now?

Titus 21:10
They are, their nurseries, cribs on opposite sides of the room. They’ve been in the same room nonstop. And I think we did break a rule. When we first brought them home. They co slept not with us. But with each other. They slept with each other on one side of the bassinet for a couple nights because they would not sleep otherwise, they had to be touching one another. And that took constant monitoring and we had SIDS concerns were afraid that they would not sleep. And that’s not something I would recommend to anybody. But that’s just what you know what worked for us, we can start with our nutrition. And you know, if it was nobody gets any sleep, or they sleep beside each other, obviously turn them away as best you can. And that’s and that’s just full disclosure. We did that a couple nights, it was not very long, but they certainly had to be in the room.

Joe 22:07
So they have not climbed out of the cribs yet.

Titus 22:10
No, they have not. And I think that’s honestly just more they don’t have the interests to yet because I’m pretty positive that I’m pretty positive they could they can climb.

Joe 22:22
You know, we saw with our over there singleton boys that they were kind of trained to just stay put in the crib. They didn’t even consider it an option that they can leave. But our twin girls figured that out real fast and has been there about two years old. So you have a few more months maybe until you have to deal with with the climbing apart. What is some of the baby gear or equipment that you have that’s been really helpful in managing having twins?

Titus 22:53
So I did not want to turn this into a commercial but my wife told me that I had to mention the Twin Z was an absolute blessing for her when she was done by herself and having to you know Bible prophecy and whatnot. She absolutely is an advocate for the twin Z that it was a huge I mean it’s more than anything that’s been one of the greatest things we’ve had.

Joe 23:18
You can put both babies in this pillow or you can wrap it around mom for feedings. Is that what you’re talking about?

Titus 23:23
Yeah, so this one, I don’t believe we’ve wrapped around her like one of my breast friend type type deal contractions but it is it’s a double. I don’t know what the name of the single version is. But it’s a double pillow that it kind of encompasses each kid individually and stabilizes them keeps them from rolling around. It was an absolute godsend for us. We tried the Bob double strollers, which we use for jogging, that’s wonderful, but we love the wonderful wagon. And that weeks of research and the wife and I I had a brand that I wanted she had a brand that she wanted. So we compromised you got the branch that is absolute necessity, I’d never thought I would use a wagon. This often it was a game changer for her taking the girls grocery shopping or doing doing clothes shopping or anything she wants to do on her own time with the girls so low, it’s really enabled that it’s great for wolves to enjoy accessories, the cupholders and whatnot.

Joe 24:27
That’s great. And once you find a few pieces of equipment that are super helpful, it’s like you can’t imagine life without having them because it makes it make things so much easier. So now that you girls are about 18 months, what’s the typical day in the life of as far as schedules go like sleeping and feeding times and nap times?

Titus 24:45
so we are up right right at seven o’clock every morning I made give or take 10 minutes. Milk to start we always wake them up, give them a little bit of milk there you probably drink in six, eight ounces of milk and it’s in a sippy cup, obviously not a bottle at this point, they get a little bit of milk, trying to get the day started about 3045 minutes later breakfast and get good breakfast then on the we started with baby led weaning. So they’ve been on solid food for a very, very long time, there’s really not much they don’t like luckily, so far. Breakfast is usually cheese, eggs and some kinds of toast and fruit. Trying to get variety and then off to off to daycare and we have them stay for lunch. But should I eat their lunch and things here, they get home right around one o’clock. It’s inside and the suite sets down for the nap they met from one to three very consistently. Sometimes it was a little over sometimes a wake up over shorter three. But that’s pretty consistent, it has been a blessing. And then if we weren’t going down at 7pm, for the longest time, that’s where we started. And that’s just kind of where we stay. But in the last month and a half, two months that’s gotten flexible, as the girls have been more mobile. And we’ve been able to do more with them. It’s kind of a worlds over the backup a little bit, going to dinner or getting back at seven. We’ll there’s obviously a little bit more flex trim there. So we do a last little bit of milk after after dinner before bedtime and get some stomach going down. And they are usually in bed by 730. They’ll lay there and talk for 30-45 minutes just kind of talk back and forth with each other playing a crib and then it is knockout time, usually by 815 830. And wake up again it at seven

Joe 26:44
sounds like a good schedule, good routine.

Titus 26:47
So the wife was very intentional. When it came to schedule. She was very big, a very big proponent of moms on call. She lives by that. Not religiously, but she definitely kind of anchors, a lot of the decisions we make and stuff we try and based off some of the learnings there. And from the time we brought them home, it has been very, very intentional about what we do when we do it so that we can you train your kids. So you train your kids to sleep as well. You train them to do reefing. And so far, so good.

Joe 27:24
That’s true. We kind of take it for granted that our kids just know how to do everything you do in life. But you’re absolutely right. You have to teach them how to do all those things that we mastered a long time ago, for sure. Speaking of routine routines working well for you, what’s something else that’s working really well right now in parenting your twins.

Titus 27:48
And we we swore every parent’s wares, they’re not going to use TV, we’ve stayed away from tablets, we haven’t done iPads or tablets or anything at this stage. But we when we do they’re kind of in nighttime, why don’t we have a handful of shows that we’ll go to for, you know, 15-20 minutes while they have their bottles, we just kind of let them you know, stop wandering around something to hold their attention while they kind of wind down or their body gets tired. Let them sit down for a while and they’ve got that. They see that they see the sippy cups of milk. We have two little bear and a unicorn little children’s chairs that they make in the sippy cup, they go over, they sit in the chair, they whiteboard for whatever the show is going to be come on. And then we’ve once they’re done with milk and everybody’s nice and and settled. It’s it’s bedtime. So that’s something we said we wouldn’t do. And I think every parent says that. But it is. It has been a great sort of transition method for us to get them in the headspace to go to bed and headspace for them to go to bed gives everybody a chance to kind of sit down and stop moving and you have the teeth brushing and the other parts of the bedtime routine come after him. But that that gets us go in the right direction. And we didn’t realize how important that was to our routine. Until the first time we really traveled. We did not think through you know having that 10, 15, 20 minute cooldown period went over the television because they didn’t like their wellness the first time we did not have to get that time and quite some time. So we’re it’s definitely definitely an integral part of what we do.

Joe 29:32
let’s talk about travel because travel, like you say can throw the routine out the window and can cause a lot of trouble. How old were the girls when he first traveled in? And what was aside from scheduling and what like what surprised you the most about traveling with them?

Titus 29:47
The first time we traveled with them I said I’d never do it again. I think I told my wife that next time I was going to travel with him would be when I was dropping them off to college. It didn’t go well. It’s just timing, timing got off. And I think that’s more because we were traveling to visit family. And you know, when you’re visiting other people and you’re in their homes are not everybody is as intentional about your schedule as you are or as respectful of it. And so you know, you get the, you know, when you’re trying to leave your family’s house for an event, yes, no, no, let’s hang out, let’s talk, let’s visit let’s stay in the front yard and gab for 15 additional minutes when it’s, you know, every, every minute we spend doing something that’s not getting in the car to you going because it’s not enough time is is going to create problems for us. So it was it was tough. We tried to build in stops along the way to change and feed and, and whatnot. And we did okay with that. It’s the best laid plans, right? It did not go exacly as intented.

Joe 31:01
you said, you would never travel again, but it sounds like you did. So what would you do differently the next time?

Titus 31:08
Ha, the girls got older, we were a lot more firm about our, you know, ingress and egress. We didn’t dilly dally quite as much. We we tried out one trip, we try the leave night. So they’ll sleep for the trip thing, I believe another parent of multiples, gave us that trip nice didn’t work for us. They did not sleep. You know, I think being in the car and went on a trip was exciting. So instead of just throwing off the timing a little bit, that day and night all swapped out, which was, which was a different animal unto itself. But the girls got older, we got more flexible. And I think once they got old enough that we could make some changes that that helped. And it’s honestly we do better with long distance traveling, when I say long distance, you know, five, six plus hours, then we do with a two hour ride to see family or friends that may live a little closer. And I think because we plan better for the longer trips than, you know, a two hour drive, I know we can just run over and the girls will nap through it or we can, you know, plan snacks or whatever, they’d never seem to go quite as well as long trips.

Joe 32:25
Yeah, planning is is so important. And we found the same thing. Like if we didn’t strategically plan, our outings, things would fall apart pretty quickly. So I think that’s a good insight there. Is there anything else that you’ve experienced or learned along the way that you feel it’d be beneficial to your fellow fathers or twins?

Titus 32:46
I mean, just you can’t take yourself too seriously. I mean, we’re going to make every mistake, they can be made, you know, and certainly don’t. Don’t judge yourself by the actions or the success or shortcomings, singleton you know, friends or family that you may or may try the advice because as well means that maybe they you know, having two kids a year apart is not having twins as much as people like to tell you it is you know, having raised two kids seven years ago and it’s certainly not similar to having twins and it’s really more about finding what works for you and your family. Kids are resilient, you know, they’re gonna survive you make no mistake. And I mean, I look at these girls and like, how did how did we make this far? Right? You know, I’m sure you and everyone else would probably listening. This podcast has had all of the grocery store outings where every third person stops you and it’s like, oh, you know, twins, you know? Yeah, they are. My favorite is when someone says oh, why have twins? You know, my kids or my twins are in college now or my twins are in sixth grade. My favorite sponsor has always so you’re telling me there’s a chance that I’m gonna make it through this right? Like you’re telling me there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And then that’s, that’s a gem that he’s got to figure out what works for you and your family and what your comfort level is. Everybody’s gonna have your insight but whatever works for you.

Joe 34:15
That’s true. There is a light at the end of the tunnel to get there eventually. So Titus, as we wrap up today, if listeners would like to connect with you, what’s the best way to reach out?

Titus 34:25
Just reach out. Facebook honestly. Or or Instagram. By you know by Titus. Just my first name Zechariah Shockley. Instagram handles just first and last name. And Facebook is first name, middle name. Titus. Last Name Shockley. And I’d love to talk anymore. Parents of multiples, you know, share the wealth and misery all together.

Joe 34:54
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. We really appreciate it.

Titus 34:57
Thank you.

Joe 34:58
I hope you enjoyed that chat with Titus. about his adventures as a father of twins. If you’d like to connect with him, I’ll link up his contact information in the show notes for this episode over at dadsguidetotwins.com. If you’d like to share your story like Titus did today, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter @twindadjoe. I’m also on facebook.com/dadsguidetotwins. Or you can drop me an email [email protected] and I would love to hear from you.

Again, today’s show is brought to you by my book Dad’s Guide to Twins. The essential book for any father who’s expecting twins, it’ll help you survive the twin pregnancy and prepare for your twins arrival. You can pick up a copy for yourself at twindadbook.com. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, would you please give it a rating and review on your favorite podcast player? It really means a lot to me and help other parents like yourself. Find the podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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