All At Once

How Do You Actually Get Twins to Sleep? (with Paediatrician Dr Golly)

• Sinead Finn & Gabi Holdinghausen • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode of All At Once, we’re talking twins with paediatrician Dr Daniel Golshevsky — or Dr Golly, as parents know him. He’s a paediatrician with years of experience helping families with sleep, feeding, settling, and routines, and he shares practical advice that actually works in real life.

We cover the real challenges of feeding two babies, creating routines, surviving sleepless nights, and Dr Golly answers listener questions on everything from managing sickness to toddler sleep, breast refusal and reflux.

But what we loved most about this conversation is his focus on looking after mum — protecting your capacity, trusting your instincts, and making decisions that support you, not just your babies. You’ll walk away feeling not only informed, but empowered and reminded of how incredible you are for raising multiples.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

  • A realistic conversation about feeding twins and managing the load
  • How to create routines that actually work for multiples
  • Tips for settling two babies at once — and surviving sleepless nights
  • Navigating twin toddlers
  • Listener questions answered with real-world solutions

Whether you’re expecting twins, have newborns, or are navigating the early years, this episode is full of practical guidance — plus reassurance that you’re not alone.

Special Dr Golly Offer for Listeners:

Use code allatonce20 for $20 off any course at drgolly.com. Already purchased a Sleep Program and expecting twins? Email your sonogram to hello@drgolly.com for free access to the Twin Supplement.

Follow Dr Golly on Instagram for more tips: @drgolly

Follow along for the raw, unfiltered reality of raising multiples.

Thanks for being here.

If this resonated, sharing, rating or leaving a comment helps more parents of multiples find us.

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to All at Once, a podcast dedicated to raising multiples because life with multiples deserves its own space. Whether you're expecting twins already deep in the chaos or simply curious about life with multiples, you're in the right place. We're Sinead and Gabby, two mums with five kids between us, including two sets of twins, sharing honest, unfiltered stories about the highs, the lows, and everything in between. This is a safe space to laugh, cry, and feel understood all at once.

SPEAKER_02

Let's jump in. Welcome back to All At Once. As we all know, raising twins or more is a lot. So today we're bringing in pediatrician Dr. Golly. Dr. Golly joins us to talk sleep, feeding routines, and answers your biggest twin parenting questions. Whether you're pregnant with multiples in the newborn stage or even parenting twin toddlers, you're not going to want to miss this.

SPEAKER_03

Let's jump in. Dr. Golly, thank you so much for joining us on All At Once. We're so excited for today's chat, and we know our listeners are as well. For those who might not be familiar with you, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what it is that you do?

SPEAKER_00

So thank you very much for having me. Firstly, I'm a pediatrician. I specialise in unsettled babies and infant sleep all the way through the lifespan of children. We know that, you know, sleep is not just an issue in the newborn period. It's something that continues while pretty much as long as your kids are at home, really. So it's a really big problem, but I think it's it's never more of an issue and never more important than when you are the parent of twins.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

I'm a bit worried that you said it doesn't end. That's not comforting. But I guess there's um there's sleep, but there's also feeding, and that's a big thing that a lot of expectant parents of multiples have a lot of anxiety around is how am I going to feed two babies? Obviously, there's, you know, you can breastfeed, you can bottle feed, you can formula feed, but it can feel overwhelming, I guess, for our audience. Are you able to kind of talk through different options and how you might be able to overcome that overwhelm of your feeding options with multiples?

SPEAKER_00

Look, feeding is, you know, for me, my focus. Anyone who knows my work or has done one of my online programs knows that it's not just about sleep. And my focus is all about setting up for success. And that is about everything that has nothing to do with sleep that then enables sleep to happen almost by itself. So people say, well, how do I sleep train? How do I sleep train? Often all you need to do is set up for success, and then the sleeping happens without you needing to do too much. So for me, I spend a lot of focus on feeding, a lot of focus on settling, winding babies adequately, making sure we're not missing things, low-hanging fruit like eczema, really easily fixed, um, you know, a room that's too cold or too light, these little things completely, you know, they have to be solved before you can even address sleep. So feeding for me is a really, really huge one. And my focus for twins is pretty much the same as singleton babies, but there's always for me an emphasis on protecting mum. Here, it becomes paramount. It's the most important thing is about protecting that mother. So, you know, what would what would be the most important thing? Um trying tandem feeding when you're feeling confident enough. That's not straight away for a lot of a lot of new parents, whether it's breasts or bottles. And that's so that both babies can become used to feeding on a very similar schedule. That's really, really important.

SPEAKER_03

I kind of feel like with my twin feeding journey, I went into it quite open-minded. I did like the idea of trying breastfeeding or even tandem feeding, but I was also aware that that might not be a possibility. For our listeners that are expecting mums that want to potentially breastfeed or tandem feed, do you have any tips that can help them on their journey?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, if you are bottle feeding, try a feeding pillow or bouncers when they're a bit bigger and stronger. You can try to feed them both on your lap at once. It's a little bit of a juggling act. And there is this uh journey. I I think, you know, I I almost feel like a little bit of a fraud saying this to mums of twins, like, how dare I? But I I've been on this journey enough as an observer and support to be able to say that there is a journey you go on where you and and please tell me about both of your experiences, but you you sort of like someone says this is what has to happen, and you almost have that brain explode moment where you you kind of can't do anything but laugh and say, there is no chance that that is humanly possible to do that and try to figure out how to actually get sleep or eat or or god forbid go to the toilet. Like it's not, it's never gonna happen. That's not possible. And then somehow, some way you fumble, stumble, and then you just before you know it, you realize you're you're at a canter and you're in a rhythm, and then you're in a routine, and you look back and you think, I don't know how I overcame that, I don't know how I got to that point, but somehow it just falls into place. So when you're at the beginning, for your listeners who are expecting or at the very early stages, um, have to trust. You just have to trust. What what more can I say?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, when you're in it, it does feel like it's never going to end and it feels so hard. And then you look back and you're like, oh, I got past that. I did that. Yeah. There's a new hurdle, but it's a different hurdle, but you always you just you just survive and you keep going. Exactly. It's like you becomes your new.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. And the thing I love about your pod and and both of your approaches is that your first instinct is to laugh. You're always laughing. And you know, I think if we don't laugh, we'll cry. Exactly. I was about to say, if you're not laughing about it, it will break you, you will cry. And you know, while crying's okay and breaking every now and then is okay, it's completely fine. You have to laugh, and that and that's how you get through it.

SPEAKER_03

That is so true. If a mother chooses not to breastfeed or is having issues breastfeeding, what would your advice be to her?

SPEAKER_00

Look, my advice for a mother who's having challenges breastfeeding is the same whether you're talking to a m of a singleton or a mum of multiples. Mums are, and I'm I'm gonna go on the attack here, so don't get too defensive. Mums are really, really bad at putting themselves first. They're really bad. Okay. Mums will put babies, children first, they'll put their partner first, they'll put their neighbor first, they'll put work, they'll put everything ahead of their own well-being. And that is completely, and I'm I'm really conscious that I'm criticizing mothers who I think are the greatest superheroes on the planet. I think they have got the priority list completely the wrong way around. And mums are often very surprised when they see me in my room that I'm a pediatrician, yet I spend such a small amount of time examining the baby, talking about the baby, and then I shift the entire focus to the mum, whether they're breastfeeding or not, because it's all about protecting that mother. I know that my patient may be the baby, but if I can protect the mum, I know that baby will be fine. So, on the topic of breastfeeding, if you are a mother and you're breastfeeding and it's either not working from a supply point of view, or it's complicated by something like mastitis or vasospasm or something that is making it uncomfortable, making it clunky, making it not work, or if you're just simply not enjoying it, you have to understand that that baby wants the best version of you. Everyone wants the best version of you. And if the best version of you occurs with a mixed-fed or exclusively formula-fed baby, that is completely fine. Because the question is not, and the wrong question that people always ask me, what's better for a baby? Breast or bottle, breast or formula. It's the wrong question. If you're asking me from a scientific point of view, what's the best thing for a baby? Breast milk. There's an argument. You're not going to get it, there's nothing controversial coming out of my mouth. Breast milk is clearly better for the baby. However, it's not, it's it's too um blinkered to think that feeding is the only thing that matters in the setting of a newborn. There are so many other factors at play. And a baby lives within concentric circles. They live within a family, within a within a home, within a community, within a country. There are so many other aspects. So breast versus formula is one aspect, and you've got to consider all of the others. So if you are mixed feeding your baby, you are brilliant. And if you are exclusively formula feeding your baby or babies, you are brilliant. And that's the most important thing to remember. I don't know if that answers your question, but I hope you get my way of thinking.

SPEAKER_03

No, definitely. I I agree. And I think that's going to be very reassuring for a lot of our listeners.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, because there is so much pressure. Like with my first, I didn't have a good supply, and so I had to go to formula. And with twins, I eventually went to formula because it's harder. And that is like you feel bad, like because everyone's telling you, oh, you should. But also, like the mental health of mums is so important. And like you say, we've got to look after us to be able to best look after our babies.

SPEAKER_03

So it's just so important. There's so much stigma attached to breastfeeding as well. I think it's so I think it is slowly shifting a little bit, but same as you, Gabby, and I've spoken about it on the pod before. Like I was able to tandem feed, and but I felt I found it so mentally taxing that I eventually shifted to like PBM, and then I ended up going like around four months. Like, this is my mental health is just struggling so bad, and I'm gonna shift to formula. And it was for me, it was the best decision I made. Um, and I as you said, Dr. Golly, I think it made me a better mother to my twins at that point because I was at a healthier place.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_02

Um, on feeding again, I guess if you know, obviously, should we feed two babies at the same time? Like, do we actually need to do that for their feeding, or it's just for our sanity that we should feed them at the same time?

SPEAKER_00

Look at, and I think the answer to the previous question is the answer to your question now. It is for your sanity, absolutely. What you can't have moving forward is going two singleton babies in one after the other in succession. Because if for anyone, and you would know this looking after a singleton, it's kind of like you never get a break because you're either feeding and then doing everything associated with feeding, and then you're getting them ready to sleep. And by the time you've got them down for a sleep, you've had a chance to, like we said, eat something, pee, tend to a toddler, whatever it may be. By the time you actually sit down and exhale for the first time in four hours, it's time to feed again. And you think, okay, we're going again. Now, if you have got twins and you aren't feeding them at the same time, you don't get the chance to sit down. It's like you're you're feeding one, and then when that one's asleep, you're feeding the other, and then when that one's asleep, you're feeding number one again, and you never stop, you never sleep, you never breathe. You cannot, it's not human to do that. Now, in the first few days, yes, everything is just a tumbling, fumbling, walking in the dark kind of mess, and that's beautiful. It's like this magnificent chaos. Again, all you can do is laugh. But as quickly as possible, you want to get to the point where you are feeding them at the same time. Now, when I say one after the other, you might do one twin 10 or 15 minutes earlier than the other twin so that you can try to focus on one. Some people are able to do it one at a uh together where you're feeding one and burping the other, and then burping one, feeding the other. That's a real impressive juggle to be able to achieve, but that is very much achievable for many. And that allows you to have discrete feeding time and then discrete non-feeding time. And that there is your foundation for a fantastic rhythm, which becomes the foundation for a fantastic routine.

SPEAKER_02

That takes me back to you, kind of forget this the first six weeks and you actually, yeah, it's wild. I don't know if I want to go back there, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But I will say on the topic of feeding, again, I like I I'm like a broken record. I keep coming back to protecting the mum. So I I say to, and I say this every single day, I've said it twice this morning on my morning wardround. Make sure that you look after yourself before you start worrying about baby. So this morning I was I was berating a mum. She's been a mum for 48 hours, and the baby was crying. She said, I'll feed him. And I said, Hold on, have you been to the toilet yet? And she burst out laughing. She said, I've been dying to pee for two hours. So you need to pee first. You need to get your cup of tea or your water first. You need to have your phone next to you charging. Like you've got to have the remote within reach. You have to set yourself, sort yourself, and then start the feed. Now, when you're talking about tandem feeding, you need to set up a feeding station. You have to have your burp cloths and your wipes and your nappies and your snacks and your water, your, like I said, your phone charge, your remote. You have to have all of that ready. And, you know, when we're talking about change tables, like you might have the most beautiful set of chests of drawers with a change table on top. That just doesn't work with twins. You've got to put it on the ground because you can't be tending to one nappy up high and then another twin that's down low. It doesn't work. So think about all these things before you start feeding. Get your hands on that comfortable feeding pillow, which is a real game changer. And like we talked about off-air, make sure that you are engaging support. So lactation consultants, miracle workers. Okay. No one leaves hospital with breastfeeding down pat, and definitely twin parents don't do that. So reach out for all of that support. The ABA is another fantastic resource. Um, Mike Twins program, another great resource. Make sure that you are setting up for success and not trying to sort of reach around in the dark when you're really struggling and sleep deprived.

SPEAKER_03

That's some great advice there. What about for our mums that are expecting triplets or quadruplets? If a if if a mum that is expecting triplets or quadruplets came to you, what would be your advice to them when it comes to feeding? Like I personally think about this all the time and I can't even imagine where they begin.

SPEAKER_00

It's like all hands on deck. All right. You are you are pulling in every favor from every distant cousin, neighbor, former colleague, uh I don't care who, whoever you have in your contacts list, you are calling on them for help. And you know what's funny is that so many people love newborns. So if you call, like if my neighbor had a baby, uh it would be my greatest pleasure. My wife, like, we'd be fighting over who gets to cuddle the baby, who gets to feed the baby. But you know, like even I we uh go to family gatherings and my kids, my eldest is now a teenager. She wants to hold the baby, she wants to cuddle, she wants to change the nappy. So it's not just adults as well. Get multiple hands on deck as much support as you can. Um, even little things that just save you a little bit of headache. You know, there are those um sterilizing machines and uh formula preparation machines if you're using them, wearable breast pumps, anything that just saves you a minute here, a minute there, it's really, really helpful. And the other thing, practical, people don't think about this kind of thing, but have your routine or even your feeding plan on the fridge so that if you do have someone coming to help you do a feed and you're busy doing one or you're ducking out, or you're God forbid, doing some exercise or something, you know, something for you, they know exactly how much to offer the baby. They know where to find the supplies, they know we we do this many meals, then we do a burp, and this is how we burp, and then we do that, and then we change a nappy. And the more information everyone has, they're all on the same page, and then they can really be one team, one dream.

SPEAKER_02

And then you're not having to explain it over and over again to everyone.

SPEAKER_00

And you know what mums do when you when it's too much. You just say, you know what? Don't worry, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it's easier to do it yourself than explain it. Yeah. If we move to sleep, the thing that every parent of multiples wants to know, how are we gonna get two or more babies to sleep? Or or on a schedule, I guess, where do you begin? What age can you start thinking about a routine? Um, is it possible? Yeah, where do we start?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, it's possible. It's important now more than ever. So for me, I always preface my answers to this question with it's whatever you want. So if you are not someone who particularly wants or needs a routine, I'm not gonna force you to implement one. It's not like if you don't, you're doing harm. It's whatever you want. It's completely fine. Yes is the answer to everything. But I'm well aware that when you are the parent of twins, sleep deprivation is more catastrophic and challenging than with a singleton. Like I I've had three kids in quick succession. I know what it's like to be sleep deprived. I did all of that with a heavy on-call roster working nights. Like, I know what that's like. And it doesn't even come close to having twins. So, like, you know, I've always said I absolutely love twins just in someone else's family. Like, I don't know, I don't know that I could do that. So I think me personally, this is my opinion. This is not what I foist onto anyone else, but my opinion is that a routine is crucial for a singleton. So when it comes to twins, it's like mind-blowingly important. And again, why is it important? It's got nothing to do with the babies, it's got everything to do with the mum. So I'm all about protecting the mum, and a routine is often the best, fastest way to achieve that. So, in answer to your question, routines, they're the same for twins as they are for singletons. It allows you to play your plan your day a bit more, um, to be more organized, and most importantly, to sleep because you're still recovering from your fertility journey for many, your pregnancy for many, your delivery for many, and you're arriving at this twins stage so much on the back foot that you have to sleep. So, what is my answer for singletons, twins, multiples, anything? I start at six weeks, corrected age, around five kilograms, and I like babies sleeping through the night at that point. Four-hourly feeds during the day, sleeping through the night, that's a long eight-hour stretch. And I keep correcting that age until they're about six months if they are premature.

SPEAKER_03

Amazing. I personally was very routine-oriented from the start and put a big focus on things like wake windows, bedtime routine, doing majority of their sleeps in their cots. Are there any key things that you like to focus on?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. For me, you you definitely want to watch their awake windows. And I always say, watch baby, don't watch the clock. So if I say you feed at 11 and that baby is fast asleep at 11, you're not feeding them at 11, but just keep an eye on them because at 11:15, they're gonna start making noises and turning over and grunting. There you go. That's when you pick them up. So it's not a strict thing, it's a it's almost like 11 o'clock means quarter to 11 until quarter past 11. You've got a little window, and in that time, something should happen, whether it's waking or feeding or something like that, depending on what your routine you're following. So the routines are just a guide. They're not intended to add pressure, they're quite the opposite. They're intended to reduce pressure. So around sleep time, start to look for tide signs, put them to bed within 10 or 15 minutes of them showing these, and this is the ideal window for sleep. Because also different babies are different, even twins are different. So if you've got non-identical twins, they're just siblings who happen to be the same age. And everyone who's got more than one child knows that one child is not necessarily the same as another. I've got one child who's got a huge sleep requirement, another one who's got a very small sleep requirement, and both of them are normal. So always look at the child. Look at the child always.

SPEAKER_03

You touched on tide signs. Could you go into that a little bit further? Because for some of our listeners that are pregnant, they might not know what those look like yet.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it's really hard because a lot of tide signs look exactly the same as a lot of hunger signs, and a lot of I need a poo signs, and a lot of I'm worried about the mortgage signs. They're all they're all. They're coming back to me. They can look the same, which is why you've got to look for them when you expect them. And what that means is that if it's approaching 11, and that is when we do a feed, that's when your your antennae pick up and start looking for feeding cues. And when they've had a feed and they've had a nappy change and a cuddle, and and you know, we're sort of approaching sleep time maybe window, that's when you start to look for those signs of sleep. So they differ according to age, and we could be talking for hours, pointing out all the different things, but it's all about, you know, it's all in my programs, I step it out according to different ages. So it's really clear. I'm being vague now because it will take too long to be specific, but it's all very clear. Just remember that one twin is not necessarily the same as another. Um, I always found, and we touched on this before about that staggered approach being really useful for twins. So same routine, just separated by 15 or so minutes. Um, and then you know, you're leaning on things with twins that you ordinarily don't want to do too much, like assisted naps, um, pram naps, double carriers, um car naps, these kinds of things. Just remember also the the one really important thing we haven't talked about, don't fall into the Trap of believing there are certain rules that don't have to exist. So for example, a lot of people will do a bath before bed in the evening. Who said you have to bath in the evening? Like that's common, but who said that's a law? Now, I for my firstborn, bathing her was like it was like I was severing one of her limbs. She hated bath time more than anything. And then that would make her overtired, worked up, really hard to put to sleep. We did a bath at 10 in the morning. We did infrequent baths in the morning because that was totally fine. So if it's a really, really hectic time, there's just no need for you to squeeze so much into that end of day period. You've just, you know, one partner might may have just come home from work, the toddler might be firing up. You just don't need to make your job harder.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes I also find a bath in the day when they're like being crazy is like calms everyone.

SPEAKER_00

It's really calming. Yeah, the effect of water, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I used to do that as well. I'm like, let's get in the bar. I know water is magic, I swear. Do you have any practical tips for keeping routines consistent, especially when parents are handling twins solo or when life just gets super hectic? For example, I myself did this, but should our listeners wake one if the other one wakes?

SPEAKER_00

Look, keeping them on a similar routine will be easier, no question. And just as with singletons, if they've woken early, you try your best to resettle them. That's when you can move to an assisted nap, not just in the cot. Um, if one wakes and it's close enough to the end of the nap time, then I would recommend waking the other twin just to try to keep the day on track. It's really interesting. Again, it comes down to your twins. You know, I've had many, many patients where one twin wakes is really unsettled. The other one does not even flinch. And you've just got a deep sleeper who's not bothered, and you've got a light sleeper who was bothered by something else. So it's not always the case that you should wake the other one if the other one's unsettled. You can keep your twin one, for example, on that good routine. And instead of picking up the unsettled twin two and feeding, you want to try to focus on resettling them or moving to an assisted nap so that you can get stretch them to their regular feeding time.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, that makes sense. That's actually, yeah, you reminded me that's what I kind of did. But it was more like, I guess if their wake window was kind of closing in, if one or both are oversleeping, would you then wake them?

SPEAKER_00

Or would you Yes, I would. I'd wake them at a shallow uh stage of sleep. So not when they're absolutely out, but when they're starting to move and and squawk and and you're showing signs that they're coming up to shallow sleep, that's when I would certainly wake them to try to keep them on a routine because then you can run into problems with day and night confusion and long stretches of sleep during the day and then feeding more frequently at night. We don't want that. So absolutely I would try to keep them on a routine with um waking during the day and then leaving them to sleep as long as possible overnight.

SPEAKER_03

Amazing. I've spoken quite frequently online that I'm a bit big advocate for routines, but that has meant a lot of people have assumed that I have sleep trained, which from my understanding, I haven't done any sleep training. Could you talk to the differences between sleep training versus routines?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and that's exactly what we opened with.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

People think that sleep training, it's got this negative connotation that it is some sort of military school and it's cried out and it's it's harsh. It's it's not bad at all. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I never did the cry it out method or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00

And I never do it, I never talk about it. I never, I never recommend it. It's um it's just not necessary. So i in in in almost all babies. In fact, I I never tell parents to do it. So it's got a bad rap from people who don't understand what it is. And most parents, especially if you start early enough, but you can actually start at any age, can achieve a wonderful routine without any quote unquote training at all. So when you set up for success, the success just follows in the vast majority of cases. That's removing hurdles, taking away the reasons for them being unsettled, you know, that kind of troubleshooting. When you we talk about sleep training, it may be required if your baby has had those hurdles removed, but they're in a habit or they're in uh, you know, they're chronically overtired. That's when you may need to implement sleep training, which is it's not strict, it's not harsh. Again, it's just different methods of achieving sleep according to your baby's temperament and according also to your parenting style and your temperament.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, because I think there is that stigma still attached to it, um, that if you have like I was, I put a lot of work in with the routine at very early on, and I've I've been very lucky to have really good sleepers. I don't really share my sleep journey often because I know it's a challenging time for a lot of um parents and multiples, but when I have, it comes with a lot of positive feedback, but then it also comes with a lot of criticism that it's assumed straight away that I've done like this harsh sleep training when all I did was I just followed uh routines from basically well, wake windows early on and then routines from you know four to six weeks. I think it was. Everything's a little bit hazy these days.

SPEAKER_00

That is exactly right. And that goes that goes for parents of twins or singletons. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02

And I think it comes back to also, again, what we've been touching on the whole time is that it's about looking after mums. So if if you're not sleeping and you need to do to sleep, then so be it, and less judgment. One thing I was gonna touch on is I have an older child, and so obviously routine looks different when I had the twins because we've got to be out and about doing her activities and you know, not wanting her to miss out on things. What does that like look like if you're on a schedule with your twins? Can they nap in the pram, in the car? Can you make it work if you know you don't just have twins?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I've got three kids, all singletons, and there is no um, it is comes as no surprise to me that my third is my most resilient. And and that's why. Because, you know, your third child, you just you you you can't. You can't have the perfect sleep environment, the perfect routine. It just doesn't work because you're too busy chasing after the older kids, usually toddlers, um, and you've got to fit everything in. So my routines are built to be adjusted, and you can adjust the time, you can adjust the you know, the timing of, for example, like we talked about a bath. And so you have to work things into school or kinder drop-off and pickup and activities, etc. And so absolutely, yes, sleeps can happen on the go, naps can happen on the go, feeds can happen on the go. All of this, uh, everything about babies uh can and should be portable. You should never feel like you're locked in the home. You have to have a nap in, you know, the perfect sleep environment. No, it's just majority of the time, and in actual fact, the more, the better your sleep routine is, the more able your child is to uh move away from it infrequently, like a holiday or an illness or uh, you know, some sort of interruption, and then come straight back to it.

SPEAKER_02

I think that's so important because yeah, as a multiple parent, you often feel like you're trapped at home. And I did feel that way with my elder daughter, and I felt a lot of guilt around that, but like that was because I didn't know any other way to be able to keep the sleep and be out and about. So it sounds like you know, your routines are a great option.

SPEAKER_03

The flexibility would definitely help. Yeah. It's a shame you don't know these things till it's too late.

SPEAKER_00

That's correct.

SPEAKER_03

So I imagine settling twins is very different to settling a singleton. What advice do you have for parents that are trying to settle two babies at once?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, uh in some ways it is exactly the same as settling a singleton, and in other ways it is completely different. So it's it it can be confusing, but if you just break it down, it really clears the mud. I want parents to treat each baby as an individual and not to assume that they are the same, unless, of course, you're talking about identical twins because they are the same. So if we're talking about non-identical twins, they are individuals, they have different temperaments, and they will therefore respond to a different settling technique, possibly. So interesting. One of my three absolutely loved a pacifier, okay? Two of my three responded to a swaddle better than anything I've ever seen. So it's there's no rules when it comes to siblings, and again, that's how you have to think of them. They're just siblings who happen to share a birthday. Okay, they're different humans, right? Of the same age. So all of the techniques in the program for settling twins are identical to those for settling singletons, with one caveat. Everything that we do to settle a baby is about returning them to the feeling of being in the womb. So that is, if you think about what life is like for a baby in a womb, it is a very, very tight, tight hug, the tight hug of the uterus. So that's where swattles come in really important. They're underwater, which is why white noise is employed. Um, the mum's often moving around, which is why a little bit of rocking is really helpful. And why we pat babies, because it reminds them of their mother's aorta that usually taps against their spine. And when you combine all of these things together with the right room environment, which is the right temperature, but also complete blackout, then you have a baby. Again, we're setting up, you have success. Now, the only difference when it comes to twins versus singletons is the other thing they're used to is having their twin there. And so often we settle them together. We want them to have their sleep time together, comes back to that same thing that we want to do, feeding together so that we can have sleeping together, because often some babies will sleep better knowing and feeling and sensing that their twin is nearby. Having said that, every baby is an individual. Each baby's temperament is different. I've seen plenty of twins who can't stand being near each other sleep much better in periods. And that's you've had that experience as well. It's completely fine.

SPEAKER_02

Can I just ask when you say if they were identical, it would be different. So is it mostly in identical twins that they like their sleep temperament and everything would be the same?

SPEAKER_00

Everything.

SPEAKER_03

Really? Oh, I didn't realize that. Like I assumed, but I didn't realize it was.

SPEAKER_00

No, that they are identical twins, are the same human.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00

Just times two. So everything about them is identical. Now, over a lifespan, they will have different experiences, different scratches and scars and and you know, loves and losses and etc. So they differ when you involve nurture, but from a nature point of view, so that impact of nurture has not taken hold yet because they've just been born. So as long as one isn't uh, you know, impaired in some way, as in a complication during pregnancy or delivery, once they are around, they are identical. So they will respond the same way.

SPEAKER_02

That's crazy. See, even I'm learning things about twins. Um, what about if one? So I had this case, one twin was much fussier than the other, not going to name any names, but um how do you manage that? Like do you just tend to the unsettled baby and how do you not disturb the settled baby in that situation?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you need to know that it's okay to settle babies separately and as we talked about, having different sleep spaces for them until their sleep improves. And again, coming back to the usual methods of sleep, settling white noise machines up to safe levels. And quite amazingly, a lot of parents will report that that some babies will just sleep soundly through another baby's cries. It tends to worry us a lot more than it worries them.

SPEAKER_02

I feel they get used to it after a while. It's just like because my fussy baby would always be crying and the other one would just sleep, and it's like they're just used to it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. But don't fall into the trap of um protecting the other baby's sleep by holding the one who is unsettled. I see that a lot with uh all families where they don't want to work on the baby's sleep because they pick them up as soon as they make a noise so that they don't upset the toddler and they don't wake the toddler. And then what happens is you've got one member of the family sleeping beautifully who's the three-year-old, and everyone else is awake all night. So remember that you, you know, everyone's sleep is important, and you have to work hard to make sure that everybody is sleeping, and especially the mum.

SPEAKER_02

Are there any common mistakes that you see when it comes to settling babies?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly that. It's it's holding a baby, rocking them to sleep, feeding them to sleep. It's gonna make things much harder down the track because of that sleep association. Often parents will keep babies together when it might be easy to separate them to work on their sleep training or work on their sleep individually. So getting one on a beautiful routine and getting another one on a beautiful routine may not happen in the same room, may not happen at the same time. Just because you separate them for a brief period doesn't mean you can't put them back in the same room once things have improved. So just remember that.

SPEAKER_03

Are there any techniques or tools you see working really well for twins, like swaddles, you've touched on white noise, like tandem rocking? I know for me this is a like an accident, but I bought two cots and I actually skipped the bassinet stage. I never actually did bassinets, I had them in one cot together, and the cots had wills. So even when they eventually moved into their own cots, when we got to that around that four-month stage where they were getting a little bit more trickier, and I would like to sit there and like rock their cots, and it would get them to sleep, and it was just a coincidence, but it worked, it was a beautiful coincidence to be fair.

SPEAKER_00

It's beautiful, it's beautiful. I mean, what you you you tick all of the sort of the low-hanging fruit, the white noise and the swaddle and appropriate tog, all that. But in the first few weeks, rocking until they're drowsy and also shush pat technique, which is a really good settling technique because you can put the two cuts on either side and shush pat with yeah, hands through the bars. Exactly. And and I often say to parents, and again, I feel like I probably deserve to be punched in the face when I say this, but I say in many ways, having twins is like having one and a half babies.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

There is a little, there's a little bit of economy of scale in terms of you know changes and like that example where you can shush pat two at once and it's kind of the same energy as shush patting one. So there aren't many economies. I'm being very, very careful when I say this twin mums, but you know, and and I with full respect, there are some things that you can actually do with twins that isn't extra work.

SPEAKER_03

There are definitely some things like that, but I don't know. I I also think about women, like if they have the cots and they don't have the wheels or have the two bassinets. I'm like, sometimes it's like you might not have a big enough room to fit both of them in. And I I envision what I was doing, and I was like, I am so grateful that I accidentally bought these cots with wheels because I could move them together and rearrange the kids depending on what the needs were at that time. But if you kind of had a fixed cot, it's a lot trickier. So that like I know this is quite minor, but it was like things I never even thought of till you're like living and breathing that experience. And I just always wonder how did that yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Brilliant. And it gives you the opportunity to move one out of the room if they're unsettled or sick or something. And it also gives you the opportunity, you know, taking it one step further to move them around your room, which is important for head shape. So they don't always look at one thing and then get flat heads. You you want babies moving around.

SPEAKER_03

That's actually what happened to us. My daughter started getting a flathead, and we had a midwife come visit, and she actually said that exactly what you said to move her to pace the light.

SPEAKER_00

It also makes them resilient. So you can go on a holiday or you can sleep at someone else's house, they can sleep at a grandparent or something because they're used to moving around.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it was good. We could actually um instead, like if guests were coming over, we could wheel, we didn't have to wake them up, we would just wheel them into the the family room. And and when we started that the transition from um, you know, moving into their own nursery, like again, this is something I didn't think of, and I'm not sure what you did here, Gabby, but um, because they were still sleeping in our room at night time, I would then wheel their cots into their room for their their day sleeps, like we do all the day sleeps in the nursery, but then I'd wheel the cots back into our bedroom overnight. But I guess most people might still have their bassinets at that stage, but they then again they could have outgrown it. What did you do in that stage, Gabby?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I had a bassinet, but my bassinet was also on wheels, so kind of situation. But I kind of remember, I think we should they shared the bassinet until they outgrew the bassinet and then we just moved to cots because I didn't have this hack that you had.

SPEAKER_03

It was very accidental. Accidental mum hack. It's my favorite, it's my favorite. Okay, so we've just brought our twins home from the hospital. How would you recommend setting up their sleep space in those first few weeks?

SPEAKER_00

Exactly the same principles as a singleton baby, just as you said, two bassinets, or some will have a shared cot with a baby at each end, not next to each other, also completely fine. But again, the same rules apply. Uh, white noise, right temperature, complete blackout environment, all of these things are crucial.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And do you recommend like the jersey swaddles, or do you think starting with like one of the zipper swaddle bags, like a bit of mix of both?

SPEAKER_00

It largely depends on your your baby. Um, and again, remembering that your twins may not be the same as each other, but there is you have to remember there is something called a rooting reflex in a newborn, and that means that when something touches their cheek, they assume that it is a nipple or a teat and they will try and feed. So they aren't in control of their hands. So if you put a baby in a sleep suit where hands can come up and touch their cheek, you'll often find your baby waking prematurely with wet hands because they have been sucky on that, and then waking because there's no milk coming out. So I'm a big fan of a swaddle with arms beneath the face so that they can't trigger their rooting reflex.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we did the little, we had them in Jersey swaddles, and then I think we eventually moved into the ergo pouches that had the little buttoned.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, and then you can take the arms.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and then eventually as they transition. This is all I haven't reflected on this for so long. It's all as you speak, Dr. Golly, it's all coming back. I don't even remember what we had, but um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You touched on obviously having them at different ends of the cots. What are other um safe sleep recommendations? And I guess particularly for multiples, if there's any difference, I guess it's the same.

SPEAKER_00

But uh look, it is, and and the Red Nose Foundation have got amazing recommendations for safe sleep, where I point everyone to, and I'm I'm a very proud ambassador for them as well as for Gidget. The the same rules apply, you just have to remember that there is another infant in the cot if you're doing shared cot. Um, so one on each end, and you've got to be mindful of blankets. So a blanket from one can migrate down. You don't want it to become a choking hazard for the other one. Just be mindful of that.

SPEAKER_02

Is it it is okay for them to share until it's you know they're too big?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. On on different ends of the cot.

SPEAKER_02

I had heads in the middle, feet to the ends, is that right?

SPEAKER_00

That's exactly right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We were talking to um Celia from the Australian Multiple Birth Association, and she had triplets and they she said there were like sardines in the cot.

SPEAKER_00

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02

It's just amazing. I can't I can't even imagine. But if we move on to like corrected age, and this can be very confusing because obviously a lot of multiples are born early. What does corrected age actually mean? How long is it, you know, do you need to be tracking the corrected age? When do you move to their birth age? Yeah, I find it very overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, for sleep purposes like awake windows and routines, etc., we tend to correct for six months.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, we officially, from a pediatric point of view, correct until the age of two. Um and that's what you need to consider when we're talking about weight sentiles, head circumference, growth, parameters, development, etc. The reason why it's so confusing is not just the maths, it's also for some things, correcting makes sense like weight. The baby is just younger than what their age would suggest. But then in other ways, they can actually be ahead because they're Prem. So um often Prem babies are a little bit ahead when it comes to language or or social development because they've had like a a head start. Yeah. They've had three weeks more exposure than a baby who spend that time in the womb. So we correct, we don't correct, you know. I I just want I want parents to sort of make it the pediatrician or the GP make it their problem and and don't worry about it about it yourself. But you do need to factor in when it comes to twins that they have a different uh full-term date, and that's that's all about safety. So we we bring it earlier, it's very much the domain of the obstetrician, but we bring it earlier just because going full-term for twins is less safe.

SPEAKER_03

When would you say typically is full term for twins? Is it around that 37, 38?

SPEAKER_00

37, 38, yes.

SPEAKER_03

And and why does it differ to singletons?

SPEAKER_00

Just purely from a safety point of view. So um, you know, at that size and at that gestation, and then when you're talking about delivery, it just becomes more complicated. And I think I'm probably uh it's very personal, maybe oversharing, but I'm extremely sensitive when it comes to twins. My mum um had a lot of issues when it came to uh carrying and delivering um I'm one of three boys. Um after her first singleton, she carried twins to term and then stillbirthed them at 39 weeks. That's heartbreaking. If that happened today, there is no question she would have been induced and delivered 3738. But back when she was pregnant, and this was back in um South Africa, they just didn't know that. And so you just delivered vaginally when the babies arrived. So, you know, that's always I'm very sensitive because of her experience. Of course. Um, and so that's why, from purely from a safety point of view, they will monitor more closely and they will often deliver earlier.

SPEAKER_03

So you have a twin-specific program for parents, like a twin supplement. Can you tell us a little bit more about the program and why you felt parents of twins needed an additional program to your main programs?

SPEAKER_00

Well, twins of parents need as much help as they can possibly get.

SPEAKER_03

Don't we just?

SPEAKER_00

And it's not, you know, as evidenced by a lot of my answers to your questions, it's the same as Singleton's, plus another small layer. So it's very much a little additional supplement. It's a few minor tweaks. And I think honestly, if you really delve into it, and Sinee, you you can tell me, it it's more about permission. You know, it's permission to let things go, it's permission to not be strict with routines, to not worry about other people's opinions. And I think that mums need and dads need a lot more permission. And when you're a parent of a multiple, it's like all bets are off. So that the the that that uh twin-specific program is a lot about just taking the pressure off, reducing the temperature, dropping the anxiety, and just reminding you that this is an impossible juggle that is only possible in retrospect. Yes, and you're doing an amazing job, and that's what I want you to remember.

SPEAKER_03

Couldn't agree more. No, it's a great program. The yeah, the program's super helpful. I I followed it, and the twin supplement was great to like to refer back to and be like, are there any helpful little tips at this age? What can I be doing here? And the sleep program, yeah, that was amazing because obviously I think a lot of people don't realize that routines do need to evolve as the twins get older. And it was so good to be like, okay, I feel like it's time things need to shift. And I would go back to your program and I would I could see where those shifts were happening and what was best to follow from that point onwards.

SPEAKER_00

Good. I'm glad.

SPEAKER_03

I might still need to get the program some relevant wheel.

SPEAKER_00

Never too late. Never too late.

SPEAKER_02

Too late. Well, there's one story we've heard you um that really stuck with us, which was uh the Krishna and Krishna conjoined twins that you were, we believe you were in the room um when they were. Yeah. Can you talk us through that? I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_00

Most of my most famous twins. So this was just luck. It was by chance that you know, when you when you're a uh a doctor, you in the public health system in Australia, you move through different areas. So you might spend six weeks in one rotation and then you you work in that job, then you move to another one. It's really good for giving you exposure to different areas of medicine, and it also gives you a little taste for what you what career you might choose down the track. Um, I happened to be allocated neurosurgery at the Royal Children's Hospital, and it was just by chance that was what I was allocated. It was completely terrifying because I mean neurosurgery. Um, and I was uh I just happened to be there when and on that rotation when Trishna and Krishna, the conjoined twins, were separated. So I was in the same team as Virginia Meixner and Alison Ray, who are the two um non-human phenomenal beings that did the separation. Um I was like the lowest rung on the ladder of the team. I had the least amount to do with it. I was actually more in charge of looking after everyone else who didn't have separation surgery, um, making sure that everything else was still happening and the lights were still on. But I did get an opportunity to actually enter the the um operating theatre. And there's there's I tell this story, there's a photo that was on the front page of the Herald Sun intra-operatively, and um, if you really squint, you you can see this skinny guy standing with his back so firmly planted against the wall, far, far, far away. And I just knew don't speak, don't breathe, don't say anything, and get out as soon as possible. But it was it was an extraordinary thing to be a part of. And, you know, surgery aside, uh being part of their journey in the lead up to the separation and then their management in hospital afterwards and eventually sending them home was it was a real privilege, a real honor to be part of. Um, and I saw them interviewed just a few days ago. It's quite really, really, really special experience.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, once in a lifetime experience, I imagine. Oh my gosh. No, their story is amazing.

SPEAKER_00

It was fun.

SPEAKER_03

We'll have to find that photo of you. I bet you I bet you secretly got it framed somewhere.

SPEAKER_00

I should have. I don't know where it is. I'm gonna find it.

SPEAKER_03

I love it, I love it. So ahead of our chat today, we asked our audience what they really want to know about sleep, feeding, and settling twins. And honestly, they delivered. Would you mind if we ran through a few of their questions past you?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So two sick babies at the same time. How do we manage this?

SPEAKER_00

Strap in and good luck. And yeah, isn't that just the perfect answer? Just laugh. What like what can you do? You can't, you know, and and I I obviously we have to make that distinction between a child who's unwell, who needs to be seen, examined, hospitalized. But what we're talking about is the annoying, frustrating virus that just sends everything off kilter. And you have to remember that a sick child does not belong in a routine, uh, is not being sleep-trained, you have to tend to them and you have to make sure you're not missing any deterioration. But to again, take the pressure off. And so, two things to remember: there is no such thing as a routine with a sick baby, and you can get back to your brilliant routine the moment they are well again. And if I had a dollar for every parent who sat in my room and said, my baby was a great sleeper until this one time they got sick. And ever since then, it's been terrible. So, and all that is, is just one deterioration that results in completely appropriate behavior, and then that starts this negative loop that no one ever breaks out of. So you have to really control, delete out of that bad habit as quickly as possible. And the better your routine prior to getting sick, the easier and quicker you can return to it.

SPEAKER_02

So I remember the first time the twins got sick, and my husband was like, You have to ask the GP, do we need to separate them? And I was like, You can't separate them.

SPEAKER_03

It's impossible. You know once one's got it, the other one's getting it, you're probably getting it. And there's nothing more fun than being homesick by yourself with twins. Another question we have for you, and this one came up a lot actually. More info sharing around reflux and how this can best be managed.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so my answer for twins with reflux is exactly the same as my answer for singletons, um, just with the you know, in bold, because everything's in bold when it comes to twins. Reflux is incredibly over, incorrectly overdiagnosed. Okay. It's like um whenever a baby is unsettled or feeding frequently or not happy, it's just reflux. It's got to be reflux.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, you hear that quite a lot, don't you?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's become synonymous with colic. It's not, they're not the same thing. Now, there is a very small uh percentage of babies who have true reflux, and gastroesophageal reflux disease is a real medical problem that results in underweight babies, vomiting blood. Like you can't miss it. Okay. So when as a pediatrician, when you've seen that baby, and then someone comes along and says, This baby's got reflux, and you're thinking, you don't know what reflux is.

SPEAKER_03

No.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I always liken it to when someone says, um, you know, someone's got a cold and they say, Oh, I've got the flu.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

If you've had true influenza, you know exactly what flu is. Don't tell me you've got the flu when you've just got a sneeze and a sore throat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, if it's the man flu, that's a difference.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's different. That's different. So I people really need to understand that that reflux is very, very overdiagnosed. The treatment is mostly safe, but not without its risks, not without its potential side effects, not without long-term, you know, you've got to think about these things. And you should never be medicating a baby for reflux if in actual fact they have normal possiting behavior. And the irony is that in in my practice, what I see so much of is babies who are not adequately winded. And a baby who possets frequently is a baby who burps really easily. So it's more about changing the parental expectation for what number of burps is adequate, as opposed to pinning all your hopes on a diagnosis of reflux and then thinking that treating it will solve the problem. Nine times out of ten, it makes it worse.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I remember I feel like everyone is quick to just go, it's reflux, it's reflux, like you said, and it's like my mother-in-law was one. And it's like, it actually just adds more anxiety, I think.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, it does. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Um, this one I'm very excited to discuss. Is sleep training effective after two years old? Because my two don't seem to be taken to it anymore, and neither do mine.

SPEAKER_00

A very, very strong yes. I mean, my programs go up to the age of five, and and that's just because we had to cap it somewhere. You can sleep train a 12-year-old. Absolutely no problem. It is never too late to start. That is the most common mistake. People just say, I've got a bad sleeper. No, you don't. You've got a child who hasn't learned good sleep habits, who doesn't have good sleep hygiene. You absolutely never need to just survive the newborn or the infant stage. You can always make improvements. Always.

SPEAKER_02

If someone was looking to then get a program for two-year-olds with you, would they go the twin supplement or there's an actual program for two years?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, two years to five years. Absolutely. Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Amazing. What is it about two though? What is it about two where? Like, for example, I I've had great sleepers up until about two and a half. They can't complain, they're still sleeping through the night, but I am having a lot more issues now. Like my son's waking maybe two hours earlier than my daughter, and I haven't changed anything. I haven't really been as structured as I was before. But I'm like, or is it just, you know, you've touched on that they're two different, completely two different people.

SPEAKER_00

But it's it's all of the above, especially if you've got a boy and a girl, but you know that their development is gonna is gonna completely change in terms of speed when you know from a social point of view. So what you're seeing is when you throw into the mix someone's personality, which is changing and evolving, and at the age of two, you're seeing the evolution of autonomy and this desire to control your world. Because right at the age of two, you've had neither the awareness that control is possible nor the ability. Now you've got the awareness and a really terrible ability, right? So I want to do it, I want to do it. I mean, how many times have we had that conversation with our child? I want to do it, and you're just thinking, this is gonna take 45 minutes or work, or I could do it in four seconds and we could be out the door. That's the life of a toddler, and people call it terrible twos and toddler tantrums, and I hate that because it's really like jokes aside, it's really not fair. We're seeing a phenomenally positive social development, and it's because we are fighting as opposed to working with it that friction exists, and then people say terrible twos. I I don't think it's fair on toddlers to equate them with terrible and all this shocking negative language when in actual fact it's a beautiful developmental progression. And if we feed that evolving autonomy, and there are a thousand ways in which you can do it, all of a sudden the tantrums don't happen. And if you think about what things toddlers, two-year-olds can actually control, it is what they put in their mouth, it is facilitating getting dressed because they have to participate somewhat in that, and it's sleep. So those are the friction points.

SPEAKER_02

I feel like I needed that reminder. I needed that because in the thick of it, when you've got two of them wanting to do it all themselves, that's 45 minutes times two.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my God. I hear you. I hear you. Just remember that you can you can prevent that friction by giving them the illusion of autonomy when you don't want them to be you. Okay. So give them the illusion of choice many, many times before you get to the point where you need them to do something with no choice.

SPEAKER_03

Will a bottle of formula before bed instead of EBM help keep babies full and sleep longer?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it all depends on the situation with that particular breastfeeding mother. We know that breast milk supply dips towards the end of the day. Um, and there are many mums who are experiencing that flux point where their babies probably are growing their supply. Now, that's a whole different topic to talk about, ways of increasing supply or ways of shifting to mixed feeding. But people will often uh report that when they offer their child a bottle of formula in the later stages of the day or the evening, that their baby sleeps well, well, yes, it's it's got a different makeup to breast milk. And it's also an unlimited volume. So if milk supply is dipping and they can't last for longer, formula will solve that problem.

SPEAKER_02

She also had another question, which was when was the when is the earliest I can introduce a bottle of expressed breast milk without risking breast refusal?

SPEAKER_00

The irony is probably that the earlier you do it, the less they're likely to remember what a breast is and a bottle is, and they'll just take whatever's put in their mouth.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I find that you're more likely to have breast refusal if you remove the breast from the equation for several days. So if mum, you know, is hospitalized for uh an infection post-delivery, retained products, or if mum goes to Sydney for work for three days, you know, something interrupts that breastfeeding journey, coming back to a breast having not seen it for several days, can be really challenging. We I I always say that if you're constantly offering breasts and bottle, like constantly, I mean every day, that they're usually almost always able to take either.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I can only speak from personal experience. That's what we did from very early on. Like my supply took a little while to come in. So I had always offered an express bottle and boob, and I never ended up having any issues. They kind of didn't know the difference, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I loved ones, you know, always I I always tell um mums wait till breast milk is established.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that may take a few weeks to really have that nice balance supply-demand matched, no oversupply, no, no um undersupply. And when you get to that point, what I used to do is is my wife would express towards the end of the day that late evening feed, and then I would give it via bottle. So it was all again, our focus was all about protecting mum. Mum. I got to get in on the feeding action. We had a baby who could take a bottle or a breast, no, and and it that for me was like the holy grail for our family.

SPEAKER_03

Same with us. That my husband was able to help with all the feeds, and I think it's a great com like combo feeding doing the bottles and the breasts, you know, best of both worlds, right? And husband can be. You need the help, and you yeah, you obviously get less break if you aren't using bottles as well. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Transitioning out of cots for twins, any tips, any advice?

SPEAKER_00

Into toddler beds?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, into single beds or toddler beds.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, make the decision based on their temperament and your home situation about whether or not you want them to share a room or or move into separate rooms. That's entirely up to you. There's no rules there. Um, and also remember that if you make one decision and you feel like it's not working, there's no problem to change it. I've got plenty of patients who intermittently share a room. You know, there are some who will at the age of nine decide that they want a room share again, and by 12, they want out, and then by 15, they want in again. Like that's totally fine. Totally fine, right? Um siblings. Anything goes, there's no rules when it comes to that. And when you are talking about transitioning, I always, this bit is obviously much harder with twins, but I often tell families if finances and space allow, I like to have a cot and a bed in the same room. And it comes back to that illusion of autonomy where you give the child the choice and you say, Do you want the cot or do you want the bed? It's entirely up to you. And I find that that often eases the transition.

SPEAKER_03

I've never heard that before, but that does sound like a great idea. How did it go for you? You've just done the transition. It went, I was prepared for the worst, and it went surprisingly well. Everyone told me to put a baby gate up, and I was like, oh, I don't know. And I just like tested it out, and they've been sleeping through the night. I think the first week there was a couple of times my son got out of bed. Uh, the the hardest part so far has been my the earlier wakes for my son because he was my he was my better sleeper out of the two for so long and it's totally taken a turn. And then we were also kind of at the stage, Dr. Golly. I don't know if there's a right time or not, but I feel like naps have deteriorated. We were having one day nap. We still try, but I think this is maybe the qualms of twins. Like my son won't let my daughter sleep because he wants to play. And like, to be fair, I feel like she does it too sometimes. So we we've noticed, like, we're nearly three, we're three next month, like day naps. I'm lucky to get one or two a week at the moment, but the nights haven't been too effective except for that early start. So, overall, not complaining because I I've heard some horror stories, but yeah, right now we're keeping them in the same room. I'm just going along with the flow when they tell me they want to swap rooms, or if we're we're having a lot of issues or something, then I'd probably consider that. But right now I do still think there's a lot of comfort in having each other in the same room.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I you you make on a on a slight tangent, I just want to touch on something we haven't talked about.

SPEAKER_03

Of course.

SPEAKER_00

Um you listening to you talk, Sinead, you you've a couple of times during this episode, you have talked about being really lucky.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I've had really good sleepers, or um, I was really surprised they handled that well. I think you you are completely wrong. And I think that you have to invert the way that you think about that. I don't think you're lucky. I think your kids are lucky, all right? I think that your approach has made your children respond accordingly. So you have got a very relaxed, very easygoing approach. I can I can see exactly the way you raise these twins. Okay. And that is a hundred percent part of the reason why they adapt so quickly and are so resilient and are so comfortable. So, you know, you started that answer by saying, I was preparing for the worst and I was quite surprised. And here I am thinking, you have been through an impossible journey. It's like anyone who has survived some sort of trauma or something that was, you know, hitherto thought to be impossible, comes out with an extraordinary resilience. If you have parented twins, in my mind, you can like walk on hot coals, like you can do anything, human, anything, climb Everest, like hop all the way up to Everest. You can do anything. So I want you to really understand just how extraordinary for every mum and dad who's listening to this, I want you to understand how impossible it is to raise twins and multiples and understand that you've done that. You've done something that is seemingly impossible. You are brilliant beyond description, and anything that you think is coming that is going to be really hard, you've already done the hardest. And so bring that confidence to every decision you make. You should be so unbelievably.

SPEAKER_03

I do hear it to myself, and I appreciate you for that reminder as well, because I think I just, I just have this habit of like preparing for the worst. I think it is a lot of the commentary out there that you hear about every every one of those big milestones. You're always thinking, like you hear these horror stories and you always think it's going to happen to you. But it's kind of like what you said at the beginning, and like if you start routines really early and you put in all that work, it does tend to make these transitional stages go a lot more smoothly. So I just think I always prepare for the worst, hope for the best, kind of thing. But I will work on this.

SPEAKER_02

I will work on this, guys. What a great way to end the episode. I feel like I'm gonna listen to that little that little snippet of this podcast every day just to remind myself how amazing. We are. That's right. But um, you know, Dr. Golly, thank you so much for joining us. I know that like this episode will be so valuable for our listeners and to answer their questions as well. We really appreciate it. And yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

Such a pleasure. All respect to you both and to all the parents of twins out there.

SPEAKER_03

And a huge respect to everything that you do for the multiple community.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03

A huge thank you to Dr.

SPEAKER_02

Golly for joining us. Dr. Golly has also been kind enough to offer a special discount code for listeners of All At Ones. Use code all at once20 for $20 off any of Dr. Golly's courses. And if you've already done a sleep program and are expecting twins or already have twins, just share your sonogram and you'll get the twin supplement for free. All the details are in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here. We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_03

That's a wrap for today on All At Once. We hope you laughed, maybe cried a little, and most importantly felt seen while navigating the chaos of raising multiples. We release new episodes every week. Subscribe to keep them coming. And if you want more in between, you can find us on TikTok and Instagram, sharing behind the scenes moments, practical tips, and exclusive guest insights. Or watch the full episode on YouTube. It's messy, loud, and beautiful. Life with multiples all at once.