I was speaking with a mom of twin toddlers the other day that was lamenting the fact that her girls were no longer content playing by themselves.  They both want mom at the same time now and are bent on outdoing the competition.  Mom used to be able to placate one while she handled the other.  Unfortunately, now the stakes have changed.  If she is sitting with one on her lap, the other comes and rests her head “assertively” on mom’s knee, making it very clear that she is not pleased about her sister’s “top billing”.

I reminded mom that developmental stages just happen.  Often we are so preoccupied with the everyday hustle and bustle that we don’t necessarily recognize the shifts and changes until we find ourselves right smack in the middle of them.  Parents of adolescents bemoan the fact that it felt as if their beatific son or daughter turned into a surly adolescent over night!  Something similar occurs with toddlers.  Their invigorated sense of self and new felt autonomy changes the rules of the game.  Parents need to understand the game beforehand so that they can be aware of the winning strategies.  This does not mean, of course, that you will win by entering into a battle of wills.  To the contrary, the emotional strategies that help you understand and communicate with your child will help to socialize and protect your forward moving toddler to feel masterful in a secure and predictable world. In addition, there is the challenge of learning how to evaluate which battles are worth fighting.  Aside from issues of health and safety, many first time parents understandably struggle with figuring out what is important for their children within the framework of their family, the community, and their culture.

Dr. Jenn Berman has a wonderful new book called Super Baby.  It is available for early order on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.  Her chapters that describe how to handle an out of sorts toddler are excellent because they help parents understand a toddler’s emotional and physical struggles from the toddler’s age appropriate developmental level.  Dr. Berman gives lovely examples about how to talk to toddlers, how to give them choices, how to set effective limits, and “how to say no without saying no”. She explains why parental predictability and consistency is key to a toddler’s healthy emotional maturation.

Parents of twin toddlers face additional challenges. Often they are required to make a decision that benefits one twin and makes it difficult for the other.  Some expectations must be the same for both children in order for the parents to model consistent, clear, and unwavering behavior about specific limits and rules. For example, one mother told me that she had to take away the bottle from one twin because the other refused to use her Sippy cup when she saw her sister with the bottle.  Another mom told me that she had to enforce the same rules for both of her sons about using the pacifier in order to quell the protests of inequality.  It takes tremendous courage for parents of twins to make decisions that do not necessarily reflect the individual needs and wishes of both children.  Usually parents of singletons are not so vigorously or repetitively challenged by their children about “unfair practices”. 

While I believe that parenting the first time around involves a big learning curve for most couples, the additional commotion and complications of two at a time poses an extra challenge that is exhausting and depleting.  The good news is that this stage does not last forever.  In fact, these little dynamos turn into loving preschoolers who remind us about the infinite wonders of life all around us that we often take for granted.

     Recently I consulted with two mothers of twins seeking help to
understand why they have felt persistent guilt feelings since the birth of
their twins a few years ago. In both these cases the birth of twins was
spontaneous and natural – with no infertility issues. Initially, neither of
these moms relished the idea of having twins. Both felt robbed of the
traditional rituals and experiences that normally accompany the birth of a
singleton. One mom was enormously disappointed that her longings for a
vaginal birth were frustrated when the obstetrician informed her that a
C-section was imperative given the position of both babies. Moreover, after
the birth of the babies born at 37 weeks, she was not emotionally prepared
for their week stay in the NICU. As we spoke together about these
experiences, it became clear to both of us that her gnawing feelings of
self-condemnation and inadequacy were directly related to her inability to
give herself permission to feel anger and sadness about how much the twin
birth had disturbed and disrupted her romantic expectations about
motherhood. There was no one with whom she could share these expectable
ambivalent feelings. Sadly, twin moms often do not have access to others
that can empathize with the enormity of their situation while understanding
that these feelings have nothing to do with not loving or wanting their
children. Twin moms need this specific support to trust that negative
emotions associated with adjusting to motherhood do NOT erase or minimize
the love and concern they have for their babies.

     Another mom spoke to me about feeling depressed and disconnected since
the birth of her twins. She shared a harrowing story of having to spend
months on bed rest in the hospital until she gave birth to her healthy
twins. She had been told that it was of the utmost importance to stay
positive during the hospital stay because becoming upset might induce
contractions. She had never had the opportunity to understand the emotional
impact of this experience. I explained that if traumatic feelings from past
experiences are not revisited and relived, our mind dissociates. In other
words, we push aside or “forget” threatening thoughts because it feels
enormously uncomfortable to think about them. However, the price we pay for
protecting ourselves in this way can develop into a self-destructive and
depressive quality that interferes with our feeling connected and adequate.
In many cases excessive guilt feelings cover up unconscious or conscious
feelings of anger and sadness.

     I want to quote a few passages from a chapter written by a British
psychoanalyst named Dana Birksted-Breen published in a book entitled
‘Spilt milk’: Perinatal Loss & Breakdown, edited by Joan Raphael-Leff.

‘postnatal blues’ . . . relates to a state of mind surrounding a
physically and emotionally taxing major event, particularly if it took
place in unfamiliar surroundings and in an atmosphere of emergency, leading
to feelings of relief, exhaustion, heightened sensitivity to circumstances,
disorientation, etc. . . . women who coped well with the experience of
having a baby tended to modify their idea of what a mother should be like
from an idealized one to a more realistic one. Postnatally, a good mother
was now felt to need, for instance, to be diligent, hard-working, reliable,
and to like being at home with children. The women who did not cope well,
on the other hand, retained an image of a good mother as ‘loving’,
‘patient’, ‘unselfish’, ‘never losing their temper’, and they
felt themselves to be at odds with this image of the perfect, selfless
mother.

     In conclusion, I would like to ask my readers to copy and paste the link
below in order to cast a vote for my book  Emotionally Healthy Twins before April 1st because it
has been nominated for the DOUBLE UP BOOK AWARDS.

[http://www.doubleupbooks.com/page=shop/disp&pid=page_DUBBE&CLSN_2646=12656611902646a7f034e935b7e02ca6]
http://www.doubleupbooks.com/page=shop/disp&pid=page_DUBBE&CLSN_2646=12656611902646a7f034e935b7e02ca6

Working with twins of all ages and their families for many years, I have encountered a phenomenon that needs to be addressed and confronted.  Parents seem clueless and surprised to find out how much twins begin to resent or be annoyed by their twinship as they get older. Many parents seem to be in utter denial about these circumstances.  They do not stop to consider that the twinship might be a source of stress . . . (read full article)

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