Customer Reviews

The Joy of Twins and Other Multiple Births: Having, Raising, and Loving Babies Who Arrive in Groups

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Generously sprinkled with captivating photos of twins, this book was a fun read. It's focus is not so much on the diapering and daily care issues of having twins, so much as the emotional health of the new mother of twins and the family. The author strongly suggests that establishing adequate support systems is a key to getting through those first few months, and offers practical suggestions to help moms get what they need from other people. Other chapters focus on general parenting issues which will be of assistance to those whose twins are first-born children.

I did enjoy seeing the cute pics.. however the this book is rather out dated with info. It is filled with family info but not good for a mom to be or a mom in the first few years. It does have a few funny answers to the questions that moms of multiples seem to get a lot! It was fun to look at and read for the enjoyment of it..

We bought four books on twins prior to birth of our twin boys and found this one to be the best by far. Most of the other books, at some point, focused on the negative side of raising twins, but this book focused only on the positive. I would recommend this book first and formost for future parents of twins.

My husband bought me this book while I was on bedrest awaiting the arrival of our twin girls. I was eager to soak in as much info as possible before they arrived. What I first noticed was how dated the photos inside looked and as I read on I realized that the book was orignally written in the 1980's with perhaps a few later revisions. The stats that were quoted about things like twin birth rates, mothers returning to the work force and even baby gear were terribly outdated. Like some of the other readers, I did think some of the basic twin information was somewhat useful, but I was definitely disappointed that it was not more current.

I am currently 28 weeks pregnant with fraternal twins and this book has been of great use to me. I plan to attempt to breastfeed both babies and the section on breastfeeding was the clearest and most concise that I have found so far. I especially appreciated the sections giving the pros and cons of breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding. When I began this book, I actually planned to bottlefeed but when I learned that the changes in the breastmilk that accompany a premature delivery actually promote neural development, I quickly decided to breastfeed for at least the first few months. The author's use of diagrams to illustrate the many breastfeeding positions possible with twins was a god-send, as was her suggestion that the nursery contain a chair wide enough to lay one baby down next to you. It saved me from buying two narrow glider rockers that would not have worked for me at all!

In addition, the book's positive attitude goes a long way towards balancing out many of the horror stories other authors of twin books seem compelled to include. It is nice to find a book that puts its faith in you as a mother, rather than assuming every parenting theory to come along is the be-all and end-all.

My one caveat with the book is its title. When I saw the title (namely, the word "having"), I assumed it covered pregnancy to some extent. However, I disagree with the previous reviewer who said this book is of no use until the 8th month. Many twins are born prematurely and I doubt I will have much time to read the parenting books by the time my twins arrive! My suggestion is that expecting moms purchase this book as well as one that focuses on the pregnancy itself.

This book didn't provide much useful information on how to survive the daily life with twins. It's focus is mainly the emotional health of the family-- which *is* important. But I was wanting a book that would help me deal with the trivial things we take for granted before having twins. It is a nicely laid out book-- I loved the pictures. But the information *I* wanted just wasn't there.

I am buying this book for someone who is expecting twins. I decided to look at the reviews and was quite surprised by what I found. I felt compelled to review this book even though I read it in 1988. I'm not sure what is available today but back then, there was not much to read about having twins that wasn't negative. Dr. Spock had two pages devoted to twins and all of it was possible birth defects. Elizabeth Noble had my husband convinced I needed to eat 6 eggs a day and wasn't eating enough. (Excuse me, eggs made me want to barf!) I see that many reviewers feel the photos and the material is out dated. This is about Pam Novotny and how she coped with being the mother of twins not a clinical textbook. This book really helped me with practical pointers on how to breast-feed my girls together. While many of us may enter motherhood of twins thinking we are going to feed them seperately so we can bond with them, the practicality of it is that we only have so many hours in a day and some of them need to be spent on sleeping, showering and feeding ourselves. You will have PLENTY of bonding opportunities! Perhaps the reader needs to go into it knowing that some information may be out of date either practically or socially. The kernels of wisdom you get from parents of twins far outweigh any so-called "experts." Maybe there are better books out there today, I honestly have not looked. If the selection is still like it was in 1988, this is definitely a good read and money well spent. If you have a medical problem, see a doctor. If you're having twins, talk to someone who has them too!

I was hoping for more practicle information. This book is good for entertainment because of it's format. It has lots of stories and personal examples of other parents with twins. There is practicle information, but for the most part it's a confidence booster.

As an expectant mother of boy/girl twins, I am dying to read anything on the topic of being pregnant with twins and the issues you face once they have finally arrived after the nine long months of anticipation. At this point, both my husband and I have read this book and have found it to be not worth the money we spent!
Hindsight being 20/20, maybe we would have reconsidered the purchase of this book had we noticed that the author is not a doctor or psychologist, rather an journalist who seems to revel in writing pseudo-psycho babble on child rearing.
After I was done reading this tome, I was left in tears fearing I would be a disastrous parent because I am not planning on breast feeding (personal choice I have a right to!), I am planning on going back to work after the twins birth, ad nauseum with things Ms. Novotny told me would make me a bad parent.
The book overall doesn't have the tone/manner of being a book of 2002, let alone one from 2000. If you clearly look at the pictures incorporated, you see adorable children in strollers, cribs, etc. that would horrify the CPSP (Consumer Products Safety Commission) as they clearly do not represnt products that are up to code with todays safety standards. (This as well should have been a clue, while I was perusing it in the bookstore!)
Overall, I felt my money was wasted and that I should have spent my [money] on something cute for the babies to wear.

Fortunately, someone loaned me the book and I didn't have to buy it myself. I'm only nine weeks pregnant with twins, as a result of fertility treatment, and for my questions, the book is basically useless. There are approximately five pages dealing with pre-delivery issues, and those pages are mostly dedicated to the question of who has multiples and why. I'm sure it will be a decent resouce seven months from now, but I need a source that tells me what I should do today. If you're fewer than eight months pregnant with multiples, I wouldn't recommend this book at all. I wish I had a good recommendation for you, but I'm still looking myself. The Elizabeth Noble book, which someone also thankfully loaned to me, has a very little bit more about the pregnancy with multiples, but it's not much better.