Preparing for Twins - The Kids

It was Dec 28, 2009 when we found out we were pregnant with Elena - just five days before Lucas' first birthday. It's true - she was a little bit of a surprise! Since they were to be so close in age, I was quite happy to let Lucas keep a lot of his "baby ways" - I was not even going to attempt potty training before the baby came, he still used a pacifier and had a bottle of milk at night (and actually one in the middle of the night up until just before Elena was born - you gotta do what you can to get the sleep you need!) I figured it would be easier to care for two "babies" than to push Lucas to grow up faster than he was maybe ready for.

Now that we are expecting twins, I'm ready for both the kids to grow up a bit and become a little more independent. I'm trying to prepare the kids in a few ways to make this new, crazy, upcoming twin baby stage a little easier. 

Potty Training

This was very high on my list as Lucas was getting pretty old for potty training and I knew I did not even want to have night time diapers on either of them by the time the twins arrived. Thankfully something finally clicked in Lucas' mind and Elena caught on super fast and we have been diaper free for almost two months now!

Sleep

The kids have shared a room since Elena was about 8 months old. We usually put them to bed separately, to allow Elena to fall asleep before we put Lucas to bed. It worked for a while to put them to bed at roughly the same time, but since we've moved Elena into a toddler bed it is just too tempting for her to get out of bed if she is not asleep before Lucas comes. So for now their bedtimes are about half an hour apart (on a good night!) And after a few seemingly endless months of mid-night wake ups, they now pretty consistently sleep through the night.

Yes, they have matching toddler beds - we inherited them from a family with twins. So now we're all set for when our twins graduate from their cribs (if we're still in Brazil at that point!)

Eating

In general, they eat just about everything and are competent in feeding themselves. Funnily enough, it's usually Lucas who needs some encouragement and help. A little while back I wrote a post about how Elena was developing some good "big sister" habits (I think I was in the early, early pregnancy stage at that point!). 

Bathing
From about the time Elena could sit up, I usually bathed the two of them together. Although for a while we only had a small baby bathtub in which case they would take turns. Now we have a nice big bathtub that can easily accomodate the two of them. I have started teaching them how to wash themselves, but I still do their hair. It is getting pretty hard to lean over the tub to wash them!

School
This was put in place before we got pregnant, but I am glad they are both in morning pre-school. It's given me time to rest and get things done without them, and we are hoping to be able to keep up this routine for a bit of normalcy once we get to the end of the pregnancy and bring the twins home.

Of course, we are still dealing with behavior and discipline issues, but I think that is never going to be "done" - we'll just have different challenges to deal with.

Now, if I could only get them to dress themselves, feed themselves, wash the dishes and do their own laundry - we'd be good! :)

How else can I prepare my kids for the twins' arrival?