When to Start Preparing for Your Twins

Our question today comes from Dan. He asks, “When should you start getting ready for twins?” At what stage in the twin pregnancy should you start making your preparations?

Prepare for Twins Right Now

The answer to this is to start right now. As soon as you find out that you’re having twins, that is the time to start making preparations for their arrival. Twins do tend to come early, earlier than a singleton pregnancy, so preparation earlier in the pregnancy is essential for getting ready.

We started getting ready for our twins as soon as we found out that we were expecting twins. If you wait too long, your babies might just arrive early or mom might be stuck in bed rest and then you’re going to have to scramble to get your preparations made.

Twin Preparation Timeline

Remember that you’ve got a small window of opportunity between when you discover you’re having twins and that third trimester. The first trimester, mom typically has morning sickness that may last all day. So she may not be able to help much at first.

During the middle part of the pregnancy, there’s a sweet spot when you need to get your preparations done.

The third trimester is when you get the risk of bed rest and early arrival of your twins. Ideally, you’d get a lot, if not all of your preparations in place before 28 to 30 weeks of the twin pregnancy. This is because twins tend to come early and that could always throw a wrench into the works if you still need to prepare.

Additionally, in the later stages, in the later weeks of the pregnancy, Mom is going to be miserable, very uncomfortable. She may even be on bed rest. What that means is she’s not going to be able to help with preparations, and you’re going have to carry a lot of the burden in the home. I recommend that you try to get as much done as you can before that 30-week mark. Then you can just put the finishing touches on preparations and get ready for your twins’ arrival.

Preparing Early for Twins

If you want to begin right away and you’re early in the pregnancy, you can always go for non-gender specific items for your twins. Perhaps you haven’t found out yet if they’re boy/girl or girl/girl or boy/boy twins. Usually, you find out the gender of your twins about 16 to 18 weeks into the pregnancy. So if you start out with non-gender specific items, then once you find out, you can start to customize your preparations.

We started with non-gender specific items when we found out we were having twins. We lined up cribs, stroller, and things of that nature, which you’re going to need regardless of whether you’re having boy or girl twins.

After we learned that we were having girls, then we started preparing clothing and decorations for their room, and so on.

This question was originally addressed on the Dad’s Guide to Twins Podcast episode 32: When to Start Preparations, Sleeping Arrangements, Calming the Chaos of Twins.

Picture by Jim Gibbons