Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 0:00
with twin dads are essential at every stage of raising twins, especially in the early weeks and months of having newborns. Figuring out how to feed two hungry newborn babies six to eight times a day is a tall order in of itself. And for mothers who plan on breastfeeding their babies, it can seem almost impossible at times. How can dad support them in this big challenge? Today we're here to talk about how twin dads can support breastfeeding with expert Joe Rawlinson. This is twin talks. The ultrasound shows your babies to be healthy. What do you say babies? You're huge. Are you having twins? Are they natural? Which one do you like? Better? Winds? Ha my neighbor's cousins. Brothers. uncles have twins. So can they read each other's minds? How do you tell them apart? Twins,

Joe Rawlinson 0:43
you got a two for one twins run in your family double trouble.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 0:46
You're not having any more. You just you're not Octomom. If you're pregnant with twins, or you're an experienced twin parent, odds are you've heard it all before. Now it's time to hear from the experts. This is twin talks parenting times two. Well, welcome to twin Talks. My name is Christine Stuart Fitzgerald, and I'm your host. So just a little bit about myself. So I have a set of identical twin girls, and I was able to breastfeed them for about 14 months. But I gotta say it was a huge challenge to say the least. So I am really excited to host our guests who can help us plan for the practicalities of breastfeeding twins and and talk about how to make a successful visit for those who want to pursue this path. So I'm going to introduce today's guests in just a bit. But if you haven't already done so please be sure to visit our website at New mommy media.com And subscribe to our weekly newsletter, which keeps you updated on all the episodes we release each week. And another way to get stay up. Let him start over. Now if you haven't already, be sure to visit our website at New mommy media.com And subscribe to our weekly newsletter, which keeps you updated on all the episodes we release each week. And another way to stay updated is to hit that subscribe button in your podcast app. And if you're looking for a way to get even more involved with our show, then check out our membership club. It's called Mighty moms. And that's where we chat more about the topics discussed here on our show. And it's also an easy way to learn about our recordings so you can join us live. When that let's meet our guest today Joe Rawlinson, author and fellow podcaster of dads guide to twins. So hey, Joe, can you tell us a little bit about your family and how you decided to write a book and share a little bit about how your initial thoughts on breastfeeding twins?

Joe Rawlinson 2:37
Yes, thanks for having me. My family is myself. My wife. We've have four teenagers. We have two singleton boys and identical twin girls. They're all in high school right now. They just 18 1715 and 15. And when our twins were born, we had four kids ages three and younger. So it was a madhouse, wow. And now that they're teenagers, it's a different variation of madhouse. But it's a fun adventure for sure. As far as, as my books go, when we find out we're having twins. I had gone out looking for information for dads and I never really found anything that was specifically for dads. Unfortunately, dads seem to be relegated to a paragraph, a chapter in a book or not mentioned at all and most most literature out there was for moms by moms. So I thought there was kind of a a gap there and for helping dads. And so I started blogging about my experience sharing what I was learning along the way. I started podcasting about over 11 years ago sharing experiences with with fellow dads and that turned into a couple of dads got twins books. So it's been fun to help dads all over the world. And as they discover they're having twins as they freak out. They go on the internet, they find me and I can maybe answer a few of their questions to help along the journey. It's been it's been an adventure. As far as

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 4:02
an adventure to say the least. That's right.

Speaker 2 4:06
It has been it has been fun to talk to dads who maybe discover my book, you know, a couple years ago. And now that's come full circle. I bring them on the podcast to share their experience. And now they're twins are you know, 567 years old. So it's been kind of fun. The yes about breastfeeding, breastfeeding twins. My wife and I were all for breastfeeding. She had breastfed our singleton boys successfully. And so when it came time for twins, we thought really naturally we're just going to continue that path and and breastfeed them as well. And I'm happy to talk about some of the challenges we faced with that you're on the show today.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 4:41
We are so glad to have you. So today we're talking about what dads can do to support twin moms and breastfeeding with our guest speaker Joe Rawlinson of dads guide to twins. So um, so Joe you adventure that you had some you had boys ahead of time. So um Sounds like you guys had a little bit of experience with with babies. And did she breastfeed? The your your older children prior to your twins?

Speaker 2 5:11
She did. Yeah. And that was that was the plan. When we found out we were pregnant with her first. We discussed, you know, feeding and we wanted to breastfeed, we understood that breastfeeding wouldn't be a great experience for the for the baby to be healthy for the baby. So we wanted to pursue that. She ended up feeding our firstborn for maybe nine months, nine months to a year. And then we ended up getting pregnant with our second born. And so then she we stopped, we went, we went her first cord off the breast milk during the second pregnancy. And so mom could focus all our energy on on just one baby in utero. When our second son was born, we know she breastfed him as well. And that was for about a year. So we had a pretty successful run with each of our boys. breastfeeding. So as far as dad's involvement, my involvement in that experience, I felt like I was kind of on the outside looking in. Well, as far as breastfeeding Singleton's I know that changed completely. When we talk about twins. We'll talk about that in a few minutes, I'm sure. But I was just, you know, I'd bring the baby to mom, she breastfeed the baby. Or, you know, maybe she just wake up in the night and feed the baby. And I would just sleep because I'd be going to work the next day. So it was more hands off than the twins were and that's for sure.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 6:39
Yeah, so you had a pretty good idea of what it was like with with one and I imagined so. I mean, did you guys just think, hey, now there should be okay, maybe a little bit more challenging, but you know, yeah, we can do that. So I'm gonna be your your sounds like your plans were from the beginning that you thought okay, well, we'll breastfeed twins, or how did you talk about that?

Speaker 2 7:00
Yeah, we knew that we wanted to breastfeed the the girls or the twins when they were born. And so my wife, she went out, she talked to other twin moms that she knew that had breastfed and talked through some of the logistics and the challenges of you know, how you tandem hold the babies, how you get them latched, simultaneously, and a lot of those challenges and so my wife left those conversations with her friends, feeling really encouraged, like, Okay, this is totally possible, we're gonna be able to do this. Because, of course, my wife knew, like the tactical logistics of breastfeeding, a single baby. So how to get the baby to latch, you know how to feed the baby. And so that wasn't as big a concern more than just how do we do two at the same time. And I kind of knew from the outside looking in at that point, like, Okay, I know, I'm gonna have to be Johnny on the spot, helping my wife, bring baby to her, you know, diaper changes, and burps and all those things. And so we went into it really optimistic that breastfeeding was gonna work for our babies. And that was the plan from the get go.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 7:59
Yeah, no, I mean, that's, that's so great that you had that prior experience. I mean, I can say, in, in my case, my, my husband and I, we were our twin girls were the oldest, so we didn't have any parenting breastfeeding, any kind of experience whatsoever. So we had no idea what we're getting into. So I would just have to say, like, you know, having some kind of idea and, and a plan in place is really helpful. And that's, that's so great that your, your wife could, you know, talk to other moms and, and just even the idea of just knowing that breastfeeding twins is possible. I mean, because I think not everybody even even considers it and, you know, not to say that, you know, everyone has to breastfeed, I mean, it's obviously it's a choice. But, but it is a true option. It's, it's it is, you know, thankfully, with if you have to, you know, we can talk a little bit about the tandem feeding, but it's, it's something that, you know, I would hope that more, you know, doctors and pediatricians would even just talk about that. It's it is it is doable. So, that's great that you guys could could talk about that. So, you know, I got to say that, I think, from my experience, the first month was really rough. And, you know, getting into just a regular routine for, you know, breastfeeding and sleeping, and it's just really, it's really critical. And it often means that, you know, the mom and the babies have to try a lot of different things just just to see what works. I mean, what works for one, you know, group is not always going to work for another group. You know, and I can say it in my case. Gosh, you know, our girls, you know, had low low milk supply. So we had to do supplemental feeding with with formula. And, you know, and I'll never forget in, like, literally when we took them home, you know, they, you know, we had done feeding in the hospital. And, you know, I was breastfeeding and my husband would help, you know, sit me up, I'd be sitting in the bed and I had the pillow, you know, the, one of the pillows, so it's, you know, had them sitting in or doing the tandem feed. And then he would, you know, help position one baby, and we get one of them set up. And then I'd have the little, you know, feeding too we'd have those, those little, you know, they look like, you know, sort of the shots, the tiny little tube, and it's filled with the formula. And I think I had it like, I want to say, like, taped onto my shoulder, because we didn't have enough hands, you know, and with a little tube, and we're trying to position the tube into, you know, the baby's mouth while she's latching on to my breast, and then we're getting the two, one going in the side, and then we'd get the other twin, put her down and, you know, kind of the same thing. I mean, it's like, you know, they're just, they're not enough hands, to get these all these babies like lined up and feeding. And, you know, and it just, it took a lot of, I guess, trial and error and humor, and just like, Okay, we're in it, we're just going to figure out how to make this work. But yeah, I just, you know, I can say, I really appreciate that my husband was there to help me, you know, in that process, figure out what we needed to do. So I don't know, Joe, if that was kind of your experience.

Speaker 2 11:36
Yes, we had, we had some challenges there in that first month as well. Like you mentioned, you're you're combating the total sleep deprivation that you're in, combined with trying to adjust to life with these newborns. As far as the breastfeeding aspect of that goes, I mean, I recommend to listeners, if you're, you know, when you go in the hospital and you have all that stuff around you, you know, practice, the mom can practice as much as possible to getting the babies in the right positions, the latching, there's lactation consultants in the hospital that can come help with legit logistics of helping the babies get good latches and feeding appropriately. And so take advantage of all those resources while you can. Because then once you go home, you know you're you're on your own out of kind of sorted all out trial and error, which we had, you mentioned using some some extra devices like the tube, I know we had the tube too, that would go down into like kind of a, like a nipple shield guard thing that would help feed the baby while the baby is trying to get a latch. And we were frustrated almost from the get go because like I mentioned, we had had success feeding our two Singleton's and we just were having really hard time getting the girls to feed enough, you know, so they were hungry. And so it was constantly trying these different positions, adjusting the like the the tube, or supplementing with with pumped breast milk or formula just to make sure that they were getting the nutrients that they needed. And I was I was basically the forklift of the baby. I mean, it would bring babies to my wife, she would she would get comfortable on her chair with the pillow that would wrap around her. And I would bring her one baby, she would get the baby in position and get the baby latched and feeding and what's that one girl was settled, then I would get the other child to bring her out. And she and my wife would repeat the process. We would always get up together in the night, you know, daytime or nighttime when I was home not working. But even with like if my mother in law was here or whatever, there was always two adults to help with this process. Because like you mentioned, there's never enough hands to do everything. The the challenge was that we had something, something physically wrong with our girls that we didn't know about. That was preventing them from getting a good latch. And it took us several weeks of like frustration of trying to get them to latch and feed. Before. After a couple of visits to the doctor, we found out that they were both tongue tied. So like the front holds their tongue was restricting their ability to to literally latch into suck and get the milk that they needed. So this whole time we were thinking maybe they're in the wrong position. Maybe we're not doing it right. I mean, we're trying everything we can think of. And it ended up being something that was totally unknown to us until we finally discovered this. And then it was from the time we discovered it was tongue tied to them actually having a little procedure to snip their tongues. You know, we're already through month one, one and a half months of a lot of frustration. So that was that was something we could not anticipate because we're like, hey, everything worked great with our boys. You know what's going on with the girls. And an extra wrinkle that we had in our situation was because our girls were number three and four. They had two older brothers. And when I say older, it was not much older. You know, they're they're all under the age of three. And so we had these very hyperactive toddlers. That would literally I run circles around my wife, while she's trying to breastfeed the girls and the girls are like pulling off the breast, they're like what's going on, there's all this noise distractions. And so it was, it was a constant battle of trying to get the girls to latch and feed properly, while also keeping the boys out of the way so that they wouldn't distract this whole process from happening. And so it was kind of a, a lot of factors that ultimately caused us to kind of shift gears and change because we realized that even after he got the tongue tie situation fixed, the boys were still going to be running around distracting the girls from eating. And so we ended up moving to a formula, feeding bottle feeding our girls, which, as a dad, I ended up really enjoying because I was able to participate more, in the feeding of my girls, like my wife would take one baby, I would take the other baby, you know, we'd both get up together and mill the nine feed the girls. And oftentimes, it was just us sitting together, you know, in the, in the darkness, feeding our girls, or, we, this was 2008, we were watching the Olympics in the middle of night, because it was on the other side of the world, you know. So it was, it was a it was a fun opportunity to bond together, myself and my wife, each one on one with each of the girls, because I could hold them and feed them and look at them. And you know, look in their eyes and stuff. And that was a very precious opportunity. Oh,

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 16:24
I love that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know, and I have to say, like the just the idea of being able to bond with your babies. And you know, whether it's formula or whether it's, you know, breast milk, you know? Yeah, I mean, definitely the bottle feeding is is helps dads to be able to do that. So, yeah, so I totally get that. And I know, in our situation, we I mean, we, let's see, oh, gotta say we, we used we use formula. We pumped breast milk we breastfed, I mean, kind of every iteration there is. We did it. So it was kind of anything that kind of just helped trade off. So the responsibilities. I mean, there were I think there were in our case, there were times when I might be breastfeeding. The the girls doing like a tandem breastfeed. Other times, I think, you know, and lots of times the the tandem would also normally be sitting up. But I gotta say they think sometimes I was learning how to try to do the the side, I think that's something I would if I was having to do it again, I would learn how to do sort of the, what do they call the the the laid back breastfeeding, where you have the babies basically on top of you. So I don't know if there's any, if there's any moms out there that want to share that, that would be a great thing to chat about. But yeah, I think also a lot of it does come down to positioning and making that happen. And I was gonna ask you to Sir Joe, like we all used, let's see, probably pillows, we did maybe sideline, and you're talking about how you had to keep your boys away. So maybe you can share some of the things that you had to do to create that environment for breastfeeding for your wife and the two girls.

Speaker 2 18:14
And we had a kind of a comfortable chair in the front room. So when when it came time to feed, we would just go out to the family room, we had to get the girls out of the nursery if you know if they had been sleeping. And so in this chair, we had we had like double size twin pillows that kind of kind of wrap up like a big you know, wrap away around mom. So she had space to hold each of the babies on each side. And so once once my wife was comfortable in that chair, she had a pillow to prop up the babies. Of course, she had maybe a pillow like behind her back to support her in that regard. That was kind of the go to spot for for breastfeeding. And then as far as the overall room is concerned, we had we had had a bunch of supplies in the girl's bedroom. And but we also found like we're doing most of the stuff out in the living room like changing diapers on the floor. And you know, burping them while we're sitting on the floor. And so we kind of had a cache of supplies, diapers and wipes and burp cloths and all that stuff out where the feeding station was in addition to in the nursery, so that we were always within reach without having to run across the house to get any supplies that we needed.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 19:28
Yep. Oh no, that's that's an excellent point. And having it within reach is key. I could not agree more like that we had to have those pillows. Just because I think I'd won by my bed. And then I had one like, you know, we had downstairs down on the sofa because yeah, there was no way I could be like running around trying to find good like, Oh, get the breastfeeding pillow when they're when they're, you know, hungry. So yeah, I think that's key wherever you spend your time. Um Just yeah, yeah. Like have your diapers and you know, have your your pillow ready and I know that Yeah. Like my husband was kind of a he had to be a gofer when we had to go get, you know, extra things here and there

Yeah, so I was also thinking like for for nighttime. So nighttime is really tough. And you kind of talked about, like, kind of sitting in the dark. So I think every we're talking say how that, you know, every couple has their own sort of routine of like, what what works and, and you enjoy you said you're the forklift. So yes, I think my husband was the same thing, where our routine was one where I would, you know, the babies would, you know, start crying inevitably, right. And then, so my husband would get the baby that was crying, and then go change her and put her on a fresh diaper because she would usually be wet, and then put her on on breasts. And then I grabbed her and he'd grabbed and then the other ones, then I would start feeding the first one. And then he'd get the other one, diaper her up and swaddle her, you know, the little burrito blanket, right? And then, you know, put her so it was a little bit of like an assembly line style. And I learned to kind of do sort of the dream, you know, sleeping where I could kind of do a little like a side laying. And it's kind of snooze a little bit through that, which which really helps. So for us it worked. My husband was working full time during that period. But like, you know, he did take a little bit of time off. But we were kind of sharing that that night shift, for sure. So I don't know. So So Joey, like, how about for you guys? How did that work out?

Speaker 2 21:55
We're in a very similar setup where it was kind of assembly line model, like you said, because there were a ton of logistics that have to happen just to get the baby to the breasts to feed. And so that's something I could easily do as the dad. And it was whenever one of our girls would wake up to feed, we'd always get the other girl up, even if she wasn't awake, to try to keep them in sync. To make the schedule a little easier for us. We figured if we were feeding babies back to back then no one would ever sleep, because you'd be constantly feeding babies. So we tried to feed him at the same time, if at all possible. The the nighttime routine was Yeah, both of us would get up to help feed the girls. And that worked pretty well because she could my wife could get started with with one of the babies and I can help the other baby. And then we can kind of be more efficient that way. And then I could do things that if she you know she's trapped in the chair feeding the babies I could step in with with whatever she needed. One thing that we would do is we kept kind of a logbook of you know how much they ate, you know how long they were on the breasts, what time it was, you know, what was the diaper and kind of standard baby log stuff you do. But that was really important with the twins because sometimes they wouldn't eat the same length of time. And so you didn't want to you wanted to make sure that they were each getting the right amount of nutrition that they needed. Because when you're waking up the middle nine, you're sleep deprived. You can maybe you don't even remember how long the last long, this baby a eight versus Baby B. And so you just have to kind of write it down. And that was something that I could do easily. Helping my wife during the nighttime. Oh,

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 23:36
that's great. Well, so I'm impressed that yeah, in the middle of the night. You had you're doing these calculations writing down, you know, the numbers. That's That's pretty impressive. We're gonna take a break, and we come back we're gonna continue our conversation about helping breastfeed twins.

Well, welcome back to Twin talks. Before the break, we were talking with Joe Rawlinson of dads guide to twins about how dads can support moms and breastfeeding, especially at night. We're continuing our conversation, and I hope we can get more of the dads perspective. So, um, you know, I have to say since since you know, breastfeeding is really just a mother baby relationship. It is really rare to hear about it from a dad's perspective. So how can twin dads create a meaningful role in you know, having a great outcome? I mean, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's tough for moms to figure out what they need throughout the journey and it's changing. So as a dad, how can you support her in that?

Speaker 2 24:48
And my goal was always to help my wife in whatever she needed in the in the moment. I mean, her basically her full time job was was nurturing these babies and I figured the least I can do is, you know, everything else to help All around that scenario. As far as we talked a little bit about some of the challenges that we had, and I wanted to support her in, you know, breastfeeding the twins as long as possible. But I wasn't going to say, you know, we have to keep trying this, even though things weren't working. So I had to one thing we had to do together was, you know, be flexible and change our plans when stuff just wasn't working the way we were hoping it was gonna work. And letting the circumstances and my wife's preference, you know, lead that way. And I was there to support her in that. We talked a lot about just being physically present and assisting around the act of breastfeeding is a huge benefit to mom. Because then she can just focus on on feeding the babies and taking care of herself. The the mother baby relationship. I think I mentioned before how, with our Singleton's, I missed out a lot on that, because my wife would wake up in the night feed to one boy and go back to sleep. And I would just sleep through everything. So even though I wasn't physically feeding the twins, I was still up with them. And I'd have those interactions that I would not have had otherwise, like, even if it's just getting them out of the crib, soothing them, talking to them, changing their diaper, bringing them to mom, prepping them. These are all very intimate moments you have with your baby, that you can start to create that bond and that relationship with with them even from a very early age. And so I thought that father baby father twin relationship started a lot earlier and had a lot more foundation, let's say then when I had the Singleton's where I didn't out of necessity, I didn't have to be there all the time. Were with twins out of necessity, I did have to be there all the time. And it turned out working out pretty well.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 26:41
Oh, that's, that's awesome. Now Now you had mentioned that I mean, you're so your original plan, it didn't go as planned. Right. So, um, so I mean, like, what did you What did you do? How did you you know, pivot to do something? And, and, and, you know, how are you okay, in supporting? Or, you know, or I should say, How How did you support your wife in making that transition so that she felt like she was okay with with that change.

Speaker 2 27:12
When we went, we would go to the doctor together when we take the girls in for their checkups, which are pretty frequent when they're newborns. And we talked with the doctor about the challenges we're having with breastfeeding. And the doctor will talk about the different options we had and the things that we were trying things that were working things were not working. And so we reached a point, you know, after that month, and month and a half, where we finally figured out that the girls were tongue tied. There were other people, this was the problem. But we still wanted to give it a go after that, after they had their little procedure to clip their clip there for any limbs. And so, but even after that, we were still running into challenges with getting them fed. And we mentioned about the toddler boys, that would also create havoc around the breastfeeding situation. So it came down to kind of be more pragmatic, apparently talking about well, what, what is really going to work here versus what do we want to have work. And the ideal situation would be to breastfeed. But the the effort that we're putting into that was not it was not working for the girls, they weren't getting enough to eat. And so we kind of look step back and look at okay, well, while we maybe we can get the breastfeeding working for the twins, it's not going to work for a family of have four little kids in the house at this season. So that was we had already been supplementing with with formula or pumped milk. And so it was kind of a natural step just to say, Okay, well, let's, let's keep pumping, or let's eventually move over to the formula. Because we were chasing what was actually going to work, what was going to be easiest for the girls to feel was going to be easiest for mom and for for us as a family. We found that a lot with twins. It's like well, it's, we have a kind of a planner, head of what's going to work. Let's try it out. Let's you know, give it a good give it a good try. And if it doesn't work, let's pivot to something else. Because otherwise we're gonna drive ourselves crazy. And so we had to be, you know, flexible and change our plans and ended up working out

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 29:17
Oh, that's great. Yeah, no, you know, I totally agree. And like that, you know, every I mean, every breastfeeding journey is is unique. I mean, whether you have a single chin, or twins. And the challenges are always unique and and I think that's just couldn't be more more true with with each each baby, you know, can be you know, even with twins, right, you know, you talked about how, you know, one girl was was maybe eating more than the other. I think it's you know, sometimes as twin parents we think oh, whether it's going to be you know, having the same thing but it's really it's different. And so I think that's that's something we always have to keep in mind that the the the breastfeeding The journey is going to be different each time and if you've had, you know, great success, you know, with Singleton's it might be different with twins, you know, and it might, you know, might be long it could be the same longer. Who knows? And I know that's something I can say I'm really passionate about breastfeeding. And but it just it's going to be different. It doesn't have to be exclusively breastfeeding. I mean, I certainly didn't. You know, in in my journey, we oh, gosh, we yeah, we supplemented with formula. We supplemented with pumped breast milk. We breastfed, I mean, it was just, you know, I mean, I think we did pretty much everything except donor milk. It was just and, you know, it just and I think I was saying ours went a little bit longer. So we were, you know, able to, but it just, it's just, it's, it's such a huge commitment. I think every family has to find what, what works for them. And, you know, you mentioned like, yeah, having having other kids and your wife had had the other pregnancies and I know, you hear about, you know, when, you know, sometimes moms are doing tandem feedings, not just with twins, but you know, maybe being pregnant or, you know, doing with older kids, which is just crazy. So I just want to put that out there that it's, it's, it's going to be different. So keep an open mind. But, you know, just just yet just, it's possible, but it may not look what you originally planned. And, you know, you're I think you're talking about also about the getting you sort of the resources. And early on at the hospital, I think that's, that's really important, too, that I know, like, we had a lactation consultant at the hospital. And, you know, of course, she showed us how to latch and, you know, we got the services, and I think there were, there are also a number of lactation consultants and who are available through through hospitals, or they're independent consultants. And my understanding is that now, the insurance is now covering lactation consultants. I don't think it did before. But, I mean, I wish, you know, I had more support, you know, kind of early on to get kind of like that just support and assistance. And, you know, and you know, and they can come up, help create a plan for families to say, Hey, this is what works for you. And, you know, your maybe your night time is going to be very different than your daytime. I mean, who knows? So? Yeah, you know, I'm going to put that out. I don't know if you had yet because if you guys work with a lactation consultant, or doctors, but yeah, there's, there's a lot of really great resources out there. And I'll plug our other show is the boot group. So they don't specifically specify with twins, but there's a lot of really great resources about breastfeeding.

Speaker 2 33:14
That there's, there are tons of resources out there, to the medical community, as well as talking with other parents to see what's working for them or not. But we found like the, you can make your plans and you hope for the best scenario, but you have to be flexible and adapt, especially with twins, because things are just not going to quite work out the way that you pictured in a perfect world. And that's okay, that's just part of the twin journey. And the reality is that it will work out and things overall big picture wise, it'll still work out, you know, for for you and your family and your partner. It just may not be what you pictured, you know, nine months ago, when you found out that you're having twins. And, and that's okay. And that's just part of the the unique beauty of the twin journey is that these unique challenges pop up, and you have to figure out how to roll with them. One thing to be certain is I don't compare yourself to other parents, you know, what's, as far as you know, take take them as maybe possible examples of how things could work. But if they're having, let's say, success in something, feeding in a certain way that you really want to do, but that's just not working for you, you know, avoid that comparison, but focus on what is working for you. You're twins in your family and that time.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 34:26
That's just that's just really great advice. And, you know, I think I mean, as a woman, I know, like, my husband was really just encouraging me in, you know, what I was doing and the choices that we made together, just being supportive. And that just really makes such a huge difference to know that Yeah, our situation is is unique, and we don't need to worry about what other people are doing. Let's just let's let's do it together and support each other. So, with that, I'm going to guess we'll wrap this up and I want to say just thank you so much. Joe for joining us today and sharing your expertise and you can get more tips and tricks for twin dads on his website, dads Guide to twins.com. And be sure to check out new mommy media.com, where we have all of our podcast episodes, plus videos and more. And that wraps up our show for today. Thanks for listening. If you like twin talks as much as we do, please consider checking out the amazing businesses that sponsor a show week after week. And we'd also love for you to tell other twin parents about this resource, which of course is absolutely free. And if you want to check out some of the other podcasts we produce, such as newbies, parents savers, the boob group and preggy pals, then visit our website at New mommy media.com. Thanks for listening to twin talks parenting times two.

Disclaimer 35:53
They said Ben and new mommy media production. The information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of new mommy media and should not be considered facts. Will such information and materials are believed to be accurate. It is not intended to replace or substitute for professional medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medication. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health, or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider

Transcribed by https://otter.ai